I saw a little snippet tonight saying Plan C was the Mayan Apocalypse. That clearly has failed also.
At this point Obama has every reason to go over the cliff, because on Jan. 1 his plan becomes a big tax cut, not a tax increase, and the Pubbies are going to have a hard time visibly voting against a tax cut for almost everyone. Given that, getting Democratic support before the cliff is Boehner’s only hope. As for him staying Speaker, the House rules require a majority of the full House, so only a few Republicans can torpedo him. But they need to find a good replacement, and Cantor is backing Boehner on this.
Has anyone suggested anything like the following for the fiscal crisis: the Bush tax rates above (insert income level) will expire once unemployment goes below (insert percentage)?
Why in the world would anybody suggest that? You’ve just incented the richest people in this country to keep unemployment high. Not to mention that high marginal tax rates and job growth don’t seem to be connected, so why tie it to that?
Probably not, since there is no correlation between the two. This notion that the wealthy people are “job creators” who will create jobs if and only if they get to have historic low tax rates has been disproven for a decade. Get with the program.
It’s nice to see there are some truly idiotic Conservatives/Libertarians in the House. Obama was content to go over the cliff. Now he’s really content to do so. Come January he’ll just pass a bill to reinstate the Bush Tax cuts for the middle class. At that point the House will be forced to vote for it. If they don’t, they’re the party who raised taxes on the middle class; if they do, Obama’s the guy who saved the middle class. Way to go guys and gals. Give up any kind of leverage and let the media portray you a unwilling to compromise for the next week on into the future. That’s a definite winning strategy.
God, I hope the moronic GOP members who voted against Plan B get primaried to hell in 2014 and 2016.
Yes, but without any mechanism to hold new elections before schedule such a thing isn’t really an apt comparison to the American system.
I’ve actually advocated for longer House terms, a reduced importance for the Senate, and the ability to dissolve the lower House in situations like this but without such mechanisms in place all that would happen in our system is Boehner doesn’t become Speaker when the new Congress is sworn in and most likely someone far more conservative and intractable does.
I don’t actually think a compromise is unworkable at this point. If Boehner is willing to compromise further, it would pass the House.
Here’s why, Plan B was GOP only. Not a single Democrat was going to vote for it in the House, no matter what. So basically a small handful of GOP congressmen could sink the bill.
If Obama signs off on a negotiated deal, you will see a lot of Democratic votes. Probably at least 100+ (95 voted for the deal cut in 2011, and right now I think Obama has a lot more political clout in his own party and can probably get more than 95 Democrats to sign off on the compromise.) That means no longer can a small handful of Republicans sink the deal, instead you can have over 70 Republicans revolt and the bill still passes (66 bucked Boehner in passing the 2011 compromise.)
That is all contingent on Boehner willing to negotiate off his present position of tax increases for people earning over $1m only down to a lower number. How much lower, I don’t know. I suspect Obama was willing to move it a bit higher than $400k, but I doubt much higher.
I am hearing it the same tone he used when Romney stuck his dick in the Benghazi mess during the debate.
OMG, this is what you get when you elect ideologues who won’t or can’t compromise on anything. The other side looks reasonable and your side is the nut jobs screwing it up for everyone. You want your party to govern better? Work to elect better people. The problem you have is that the reasonable ones, who would have supported it, will get primaried out by more nut jobs. The Republicans released this best they have no one to blame but themselves that it turned on them and bit their dick off.
That article is ridiculous. For one, its actually got nothing to do with the current fiscal cliff debate at all. I was expecting another article explaining how it is more like a “fiscal hill” (which it is), or maybe talking about the CBO projections that the fiscal cliff would cause a mild recession but would probably be better in the long term than many of the compromise plans (something I suspect might be true as well.)
Instead it’s just a weird article asserting that we need to expand Social Security dramatically and to “prove it”, they show a graph stating how “the U.S. is unique among advanced industrial countries in relying heavily on private social expenditures rather than public programs to provide economic security to its citizens” but then the actual graph shows that a majority of the spending is still public even here and most other countries have private spending.
Further, the failures of 401ks and IRAs have nothing to do with money managers at all, but are primarily because they are voluntary to participate in and until recently companies did not even set the up so employees automatically contributed. Actual analysis of 401ks shows most people choose not to contribute to them as they should, and also choose to take loans out against the accounts or make early withdrawals, torpedoing their long term returns.
Most 401ks and any self-directed IRA allows investing in ultra-low cost index funds which do not charge hefty management fees, or even bond instruments. If anything the 401k system should be more heavily regulated to take choice away from private investors who are unsophisticated, but it’s still far better than an unsustainable social security system.
This would be the reasonable thing to do. The problem is, Boehner likes being the Speaker, and proposing something like this would most likely cause him to lose the position–especially since elections will be held in January.
Boehner’s career in the House shows that he’s a shrewd intra-party politician–he worked hard to win the leadership position as an underdog in 2006. He still seems to have Eric Cantor on his side–and Cantor may not want the Speaker’s chair given the obvious political problems the GOP faces now–but I suspect there will be some kind of challenge to Boehner from his own caucus in early 2012, one he will certainly lose if he tried something like you suggest.
That was my initial thought too, CJJ*. But considering it some more, it seems like he does have MOST of his caucus. Just not enough to pass something without the Dems. So I could see him getting a compromise through and still maintaining enough support to win the election for Speaker.
My folks weren’t here yet, but I know how things went down at the Alamo. I was just wondering who, with any knowledge of Texas history, would think that drawing a line in the sand is a good idea? Unless your goal is glorious defeat…
But bringing up a bill that depends on deep Democratic support would likely violate the “Hastert Rule”; that a Republican Speaker won’t bring up a bill that doesn’t already have majority support from Republicans.
Unlikely since there never was a vote. When the whip counts failed to turn up 217 definite “yes” votes, Boehner scuttled the vote rather than the deeper embarrassment of having the vote actually fail on the floor. There’s no paper trail to hold anyone accountable on.
Well, if Boehner can deliver fifty Republican votes to the Obama plan, maybe the Democrats could see their way to joining those fifty in giving him the Speaker’s gavel again in January…
That just means 120 GOP voters, as opposed to the 218 he needed for his Plan B. So its not impossible Boehner can get enough votes on his side to bring a compromise to the floor and then pass it with Dem votes.
And it is possible to circumvent the Hastert Rule with less then 120 GOP voters, though doing so would probably cause a pretty strong fracture in the GOP for the next Congress.
The more I look at Boehner’s actions the more I can’t help but think that deep down, in his heart-of-hearts John Boehner was secretly hoping the Mayans were right.
