Okay, so payroll taxes are paid into social security, in part by the employer and in part by the employee. Obama subsidized the employee end of this last year, and wants to renew this tax cut now. What a surprise: the house republicans aren’t going for it. This is completely unsurprising for two reasons: firstly, it’s a law coming from Obama; secondly, it’s a tax break specifically for the lower and middle classes, and income beyond $106,800 is not taxed by payroll taxes-the rich are, proportionately, far less affected than the poor by this.
But hang on… Didn’t the republican party specifically say “no tax increases ever” in a pledge to America, and then go on to claim that letting temporary tax cuts expire constitutes a tax hike? Isn’t this why they were so against letting the Bush cuts (that disproportionately helped the wealthiest Americans) expire? And before you scream about the amount of revenue lost, it’s $120B. Compared to letting the Bush tax cuts continue, that’s not that much; the Bush cuts are estimated to cost us between $200B and $300B.
At this point it really should be damn well obvious that the Republican party is not really against taxation, just against taxation on the richest few of us. It really leaves me wondering why anyone who makes less than, say, $80k would ever vote Republican, because their stance on taxation seems to be “tax the poor and middle class, subsidize the rich”, and their stance on economics is just as insane.
Poor and middle class often vote Republican because the right wing had convinced the masses that they are the party of Jesus and the party that understands your righteous indignation about people who are different than you.
Has Grover Norquist made any statements about this? He’s the one who holds the Republican leashes on taxes, and so he’s the one the Democrats should go after.
That article is nice and sensation and all, but I’m not seeing anything in there that says the Republican caucus has made a decision one way or another about this.
Would it be too much to as that we wait until something actually happens before going off the deep end about it?
What irritates me about this statement is that there’s no room for error – you’re utterly correct, apparently.
Now, this would be an easier position to maintain if the position against which you inveigh were a fringe position. But when a substantial portion of the country appears to support the people you revile, it becomes a bit harder to convincingly assert that you’re completely right and your opponents completely wrong.
No. The Republicans are not trying to crash the country. They have a very different view than you do about the proper role of government. That’s not an objectively wrong or right position – there is no tablet from Mt Sinai that lays out the structure for how much a government’s role should be to help people and how much it should be to merely create a safe arena where people are free to help themselves.
This is a pure ad populum fallacy. For one thing, more people still support Obama than support the teabaggers. For another thing, a majority of Americans believe in creationism. People are stupid, Just because a lot of them believe something doesn’t mean they’re right. Abolition was once a fringe position. Smart people are pretty much always outnumbered by morons. It doesn’t prove the morons are right, they’re just more numerous and tend not to use birth control.
The article doesn’t really say what the OP indicates. In fact, it points out that some Republicans are against letting it expire, and some Democrats seem to wan it to expire.
The issue seems to be recognized as a bit of sticky wicket by all concerned.
Another knee-jerk lying liberal Op brought to you by BPC, your one stop source for left wing partisan misinformation.
Classic Scylla. Implies huge, states nothin’. The only Republican quoted as being “against letting it expire” is the Newtster. Neither McConnel and Boehner “has taken a firm position”. So, which Republicans are against letting it expire? Can you be more specific? Well, no, no you can’t, can you?
He is somewhat more delicate when it comes to Democrats, leaving himself a trap-door escape mechanism with the lovely ambiguity of “seem to”. Well, if it turns out they don’t, they still couid be said to “seem to”. Eye of the beholder, and all that.
Couid be, of course, nothing is impossible. The Pubbies might have had a Road to Damascus moment, and fallen off their ass. Seen the light, reversed course to a Keynesian, populist, party of the New New Deal.
[hyperbole mode]Yeah, creating an atmosphere which cultivates a sense of the powerless poor against the oppressive rich and fosters a desire for revolution is just a matter of opinion. It’s not a right or wrong way, it’s just a way. Just ask France.[/hyperbole]
Of course, I doubt that will actually happen. It looks as though the Republicans have learned from history; they’ve gotten the powerless masses to side with the oppressive rich.
Nonsense. Wrong is wrong, whether a “substantial portion” recognizes that or no. A “substantial portion” of America approved of segregation and opposed equal civil rights for minority citizens. They were totally and objectively wrong. Period. Full stop.
Besides which, can you give us a bit more focus, a bit more definition. Just how much is this “substantial portion”? According to polling, a majority of Americans favor raising taxes on the wealthy. Is a majority a substantial portion? Being a majority, are they, therefore, according to the Bricker Principle, right?
Democracy is not smarter, more efficient, or even more rational. It is simply more just. The people can be misled, if a party has the money, the power and the malign will to do so.
The “rich” aren’t oppressing anyone, you dimwitted, lazy-brained fuck. To say so implies that they are actively getting up every day with the purposeful intent of oppressing someone into misery. Instead, what they are doing is looking out for what they believe to be their own best interests, as is every other citizen in the country in one way or the other. You can say that there are altruistic types who do only for the betterment of mankind and/or those around them, but in reality, even those interests are, at the base, self-serving on a different level (it makes them feel better to do so, or they believe helping others in some way helps them on a macroscopic level).
And, Dio, you said, “Smart people are pretty much always outnumbered by morons.” Wrong. “Average” intelligence is just that…if the median IQ is 100, then half the population is above it, and half the population is below it…that’s why it’s called “median.”