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Obama Announces 'Framework' for Deal With Congress to Extend Bush-Era Tax Cuts

Conservative said:
He said he "brought us back from the brink and saved or created millions of jobs" So tell me when we stop extending unemployment payments? Why 99 months and how do we pay for it?
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Yes, he was referring to our economy not collapsing.

We could pay for it by stopping our policing of the world.
 
Conservative said:
Small number of people? 16+ million? 4 million more since Obama took office? Those dire economic straits show a recession ending in June 2009.
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Now do the math and tell us what percentage of the total population this is and decide if that is a relatively small number of people.
 
haymarket said:
Now do the math and tell us what percentage of the total population this is and decide if that is a relatively small number of people.
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16 million plus means real people looking for work and is 4 million higher since Obama took office. How is that hope and change working out for these people? That being the case since it is such a small percentage then why the outrage over 2% of the people and what they pay in taxes? 2% of the labor force is approximate 3 million income earners.
 
independent_thinker2002 said:
I didn't say that it was certain that your car would be stolen. It would be more likely to happen though. It was an example of what could happen. Since we are talking about the future, all we have are hypotheticals. You are trying to make it sound unreasonable when it is perfectly reasonable extrapolation.
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Except you're presenting it as if it is a definite that it will impact it that much, in hopes of playing to peoples emotions rather than logic. Its reasonable to suggest that cuts on the police or the transit budget COULD have a negative affect...the question of course though that is more important is how much of a negative affect. Is it a 1% higher likilihood that you're going to get mugged, or a 50%? Are potholes going to go from one every once in a while to two every once in a while, or to a new one every day? From your words, you seem to be implying much of the cuts would come from those two places...since that's where you IMMEDIETELY suggested the cuts would go without mentioning anything else...and that somehow the cuts would be significantly impacting.

And if you don't think that they're definitely going to have a significant impact, there was really no reason to try and throw out such an emotionally charged argument as to why it can't be done.

They still could have handled this differently. It's not like the top 2% were facing a crisis. That's what the GOP was fighting for.
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So they should've just ignored their constituents? You're creating a self fulfilling prophecy when you lament that people have no power and then basically are saying politicians should ignore the people. Not to mention, the top 2% were set to expire just the same as anyone elses, so not dealing with that now was just as foolish if you felt it was an issue than not dealing with all of it, because doing nothing defaulted to letting it raise. If they felt that NO ONES taxes should raise then they had to act NOW because by doing nothing about it the default was that it would raise.

I didn't call them evil. You keep reverting back to that strawman. Not facing a crisis is not equal to evil.
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Not a strawman, it was hyperbole to match your ridiculous hyperbole of the rich having all the power and using it for nothing but their own greed.

There are those in the top 2% that are fine with their taxes going up. I didn't say that those in control were the whole top 2%.
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Your made it out that you had an issue that "2% of the population" was controlling what we do about revenue. You then went on to say Politicians and Spin doctors fell in that 2%. I'm simply pointing out that its rather hypocritical for you to complain about the 2% controlling revenue when, by your definition of that 2%, EVERY government issue is controlled by that 2% and that 2% is actually representing both sides of the revenue issue right now...because there's politicians and spin doctors arguing on both sides.

Only if you strawman my statements to mean that the top 2% were a homogenous group ideologically. ;)
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You were attempting to instill negative emotions by invoking classism by complaining about the "top 2%" controlling what happens when revenue which is a rather irrelevant comment to make considering by your own definition the top 2% control EVERYTHING that the government does in EVERY instance. Its the political equivilent of shouting at someone for spraying your chest with a squirt gun in the middle of a down pour. Its obvious disingenuous and being done for ulterior reasons.

I think too many people would be harmed by a complete immediate collapse of our economy and government. Of course, they really haven't proposed any remedies either way yet. Time will tell.
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And again, as I said, its a difference in philosophy. I'll take a small portion, relative in time, of people being severely harmed for the (highly plausable in my mind) possability of a large portion being comfortable in the long run. The alternative, based on what you're suggesting, to me is harming a huge amount of people over a long period of time with no real hope for improvement, just not as bad of pain as quickly.

To give an analogy...if we have two groups of 10 people taken hostage. There's a choice where you could do one of two things:

1. The 10 will be housed in bad conditions for five years, with two of them dieing and two being severely injured with it being 50/50 if they live or die. However, after 5 years, they're all are freed.

2. All 10 get routinely beat, but never to the point of serious injury or death. They are given moderate living conditions but will be held there for the rest of their lives, as will any of their kids, and their kids kids, and onward.

To me, in such a theoritical, I'd go with number 1. While more life, in a technical sense, is preserved in number 2 I would actually prefer number 1. This is because that while some life is lost, the majority of others are actually able to LIVE their lives to the fullest and those that come from them in the future will be free to do so as well. On the flip side, number 2 is perpetually living in a crappy existance, with the number of people exposed to said bad existance increasing each time new children are born into it. They're alive, but they have no real way to truly live to the fullest.

At its hearts its the great difference in philosophy between liberals and conservatives and the reason I think there will always be a divide in this country. To me the difference is clears. Conservatives want people to be able to reach the highest of highs and accept that to have that people will also hit the lowest of lows, with the distribution of the rest falling along that trajectory in between. Liberals want people primarily to be comfortable and equitable, wanting a relatively steady middle baseline with little deviation up or down. And I think often when it comes to economic type issues that's the real heart of contention.
 
Conservative said:
I have used the actual data from the Treasury Dept. that is all that I have any interest in seeing and the actual bank account for the U.S. Govt. shows an increase in revenue. Why does any other matter?
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Revenue doesn't just include income and corporate taxes... it's better to eliminate those things that didn't change so your data is more specific as to whether or not the the cuts themselves had any effect.

Did the treasury dept. stats show the real revenue, or the revenue before inflation?

As for your question earlier, I am concerned with tax specifically because we're talking about the effect tax cuts have on revenue...

The tax cuts we're talking about extending were legislated in 2001, not 2003. That was a different bill entirely. The "compromise" they came to was to pass the cuts if they expired in 10 years.

The graph shows an obvious decrease in tax revenue. While total revenue only dropped by something around 150bn (about 10%), tax revenue dropped by 150bn also (about 14%), social insurance and retirement payments increased a good 75bn to compensate.

Therefore I question that extending the same tax cuts would have an effect you describe. Note that I am for extending the cuts for 80% of the population or so.

Thanks!
 
SirPwn4lot said:
Revenue doesn't just include income and corporate taxes... it's better to eliminate those things that didn't change so your data is more specific as to whether or not the the cuts themselves had any effect.

Did the treasury dept. stats show the real revenue, or the revenue before inflation?

As for your question earlier, I am concerned with tax specifically because we're talking about the effect tax cuts have on revenue...

The tax cuts we're talking about extending were legislated in 2001, not 2003. That was a different bill entirely. The "compromise" they came to was to pass the cuts if they expired in 10 years.

The graph shows an obvious decrease in tax revenue. While total revenue only dropped by something around 150bn (about 10%), tax revenue dropped by 150bn also (about 14%), social insurance and retirement payments increased a good 75bn to compensate.

Therefore I question that extending the same tax cuts would have an effect you describe. Note that I am for extending the cuts for 80% of the population or so.

Thanks!
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Does your bank account show revenue or revenue before inflation? Does it matter today?

Let me ask you how do tax cuts affect you? Do you have more or less take home pay after tax cuts? Then what?

The tax cuts legislated in 2001 were the same as Obama's rebate checks, the withholding cuts came in July 2003 AFTER the GOP Took Congress, notice the revenue change?

If you are for extending cuts for 80% of the people and based upon your concern for the deficit how much does that add to the deficit vs. raising taxes on the 3 million or so that are so called rich? The 80% amount to millions more.
 
liblady said:
of course you don't.

President Obama Signs Small Business Jobs Act - Learn What's In It | The White House

Eight New Small Business Tax Cuts – Effective Today, Providing Immediate Incentives to Invest: The President had already signed into law eight small business tax cuts, and on Monday, he is signing into law another eight new tax cuts that go into effect immediately.
Zero Taxes on Capital Gains from Key Small Business Investments:Under the Recovery Act, 75 percent of capital gains on key small business investments this year were excluded from taxes. The Small Business Jobs Act temporarily puts in place for the rest of 2010 a provision called for by the President – elimination of all capital gains taxes on these investments if held for five years. Over one million small businesses are eligible to receive investments this year that, if held for five years or longer, could be completely excluded from any capital gains taxation.
Extension and Expansion of Small Businesses’ Ability to Immediately Expense Capital Investments: The bill increases for 2010 and 2011 the amount of investments that businesses would be eligible toimmediately write off to $500,000, while raising the level of investments at which the write-off phases out to $2 million. Prior to the passage of the bill, the expensing limit would have been $250,000 this year, and only $25,000 next year. This provision means that 4.5 million small businesses and individuals will be able to make new business investments today and know that they will earn a larger break on their taxes for this year.
Extension of 50% Bonus Depreciation:The bill extends – as the President proposed in his budget – a Recovery Act provision for 50 percent “bonus depreciation” through 2010, providing 2 million businesses, large and small, with the ability to make new investmentstoday and know they can receive a tax cut for this year by accelerating the rate at which they deduct capital expenditures.
A New Deduction of Health Insurance Costs for Self-Employed:The bill allows 2 million self-employed to know that on their taxes for this year, they can get a deduction for the cost of health insurance for themselves and their family members in calculating their self-employment taxes. This provision is estimated to provide over $1.9 billion in tax cuts for these entrepreneurs.
Tax Relief and Simplification for Cell Phone Deductions:The bill changes rules so that the use of cell phones can be deducted without burdensome extra documentation – making it easier for virtually every small business in America to receive deductions that they are entitled to, beginning on their taxes for this year.
An Increase in the Deduction for Entrepreneurs’ Start-Up Expenses:The bill temporarily increases the amount of start-up expenditures entrepreneurs can deductfrom their taxesfor this year from $5,000 to $10,000 (with a phase-out threshold of $60,000 in expenditures), offering an immediate incentive for someone with a new business idea to invest in starting up a new small business today.
A Five-Year Carryback Of General Business Credits:The bill would allow certain small businesses to “carry back” their general business credits to offset five years of taxes – providing them with a break on their taxes for this year – while also allowing these credits to offset the Alternative Minimum Tax, reducing taxes for these small businesses.
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Yeah and the only way to qualify for any of those, is to spend money, on equipment that your business doesn't need, because there's not enough work in the market, to justify buying the new equipment. Or, if a business hires personel, that it doesn't have work for.

These are red herring tax cuts. Which means, you have to hire an employee and pay him 30 grand a year, just to get a $3,000 tax deduction.

So, IOW, no business in the country, actually saw an actual tax cut. No corporate income tax was cut, no self employment tax was cut, nothing.
 
apdst said:
Yeah and the only way to qualify for any of those, is to spend money, on equipment that your business doesn't need, because there's not enough work in the market, to justify buying the new equipment. Or, if a business hires personel, that it doesn't have work for.

These are red herring tax cuts. Which means, you have to hire an employee and pay him 30 grand a year, just to get a $3,000 tax deduction.

So, IOW, no business in the country, actually saw an actual tax cut. No corporate income tax was cut, no self employment tax was cut, nothing.
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That was the biggest joke of a "tax benefit" I've ever heard of.

Any businessman stupid enough to fall for that isn't in business anymore anyway. LOL
 
Erod said:
That was the biggest joke of a "tax benefit" I've ever heard of.

Any businessman stupid enough to fall for that isn't in business anymore anyway. LOL
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How did you like the parts that said, "certain small businesses", and, "key small businesses"? I'm sure they only applied to minorities and, "green indsutry", businesses. Sure as hell didn't apply to everyone; which made them a ****ing joke. But, look who pushed them. He's a ****ing joke, too.
 
Well, the stock market is liking the news of extending the Bush tax rates, as the DOW closed at its highest point in three years today.
 
Erod said:
Well, the stock market is liking the news of extending the Bush tax rates, as the DOW closed at its highest point in three years today.
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and as a working person am I suppose to give a flying fig about that?
 
haymarket said:
and as a working person am I suppose to give a flying fig about that?
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It means money is entering the market, which is a good sign. Some money will go into the market, some into real estate, perhaps some into homebuilding, some into banks (to be loaned)......all of which generally trends to business expansion and hiring.

You can't build a new Target or auto plant in a day.

And this is PRIVATE money, which is real money. Stimulus money is just printed and borrowed, so it's not real capital.
 
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My personal choice would have been not only to not extend unemployment, but to rollback the prior "emergency extensions". I would also increase the employee portion of the SS payroll contribution by 5%. I would use that money to extend the tax cuts for only those households making in excess of $250k per year. I would allow the tax cuts to expire for those below $250k.

Anything to hasten the revolution.
 
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snodog said:
My personal choice would have been not only to not extend unemployment, but to rollback the prior "emergency extensions". I would also increase the employee portion of the SS payroll contribution by 5%. I would use that money to extend the tax cuts for only those households making in excess of $250k per year. I would allow the tax cuts to expire for those below $250k.

Anything to hasten the revolution.
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Ironically, this would be more financially responsible than what we got. :D
 
Zyphlin said:
Except you're presenting it as if it is a definite that it will impact it that much, in hopes of playing to peoples emotions rather than logic. Its reasonable to suggest that cuts on the police or the transit budget COULD have a negative affect...the question of course though that is more important is how much of a negative affect. Is it a 1% higher likilihood that you're going to get mugged, or a 50%? Are potholes going to go from one every once in a while to two every once in a while, or to a new one every day? From your words, you seem to be implying much of the cuts would come from those two places...since that's where you IMMEDIETELY suggested the cuts would go without mentioning anything else...and that somehow the cuts would be significantly impacting.

And if you don't think that they're definitely going to have a significant impact, there was really no reason to try and throw out such an emotionally charged argument as to why it can't be done.
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If I wanted to play to people's emotions, I'm sure I could find a story about how a sex offender was released early due to budget constraints and raped again. I was merely pointing out a likely consequence that wasn't over the top. BTW, less police coverage logically does mean an increase in crime. Crime waves are usually answered with adding more police officers for additional coverage and presence.

I don't mean to imply that much of the cuts would result in those things happening. There is a great number of examples that I could have used like Jan Brewer's Death Panels. ;) It's also entirely possible that people who previously would have been covered under state Medicaid might be dropped like some of the people awaiting transplants in Arizona have. That's a death sentence. This is also not hypothetical. While people dying is emotional, it doesn't discount the argument.

Automotive repairs are not an emotionally charged argument. It's not like I called them a fetus or parasite or something. :lol:

Zyphlin said:
So they should've just ignored their constituents? You're creating a self fulfilling prophecy when you lament that people have no power and then basically are saying politicians should ignore the people. Not to mention, the top 2% were set to expire just the same as anyone elses, so not dealing with that now was just as foolish if you felt it was an issue than not dealing with all of it, because doing nothing defaulted to letting it raise. If they felt that NO ONES taxes should raise then they had to act NOW because by doing nothing about it the default was that it would raise.
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I'm not saying that politicians should ignore the people. They generally do ignore the people. And here you are suggesting a fallacy of false dichotomy. It doesn't have to be either everyone's tax cut is extended or no one's is. You could give 98% an extension. You could give 50% an extension. What is so bad about giving a break to people who could really use it, while those who aren't facing a personal economic crisis are asked to pay a little more in the interest of the greatest country in the world as a whole?

Zyphlin said:
Not a strawman, it was hyperbole to match your ridiculous hyperbole of the rich having all the power and using it for nothing but their own greed.
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It's a strawman because you are claiming that I was using hyperbole when I clearly wasn't. Wealthy people have more power, not all the power. I didn't say that they used it for their own greed. Maybe you got that from Conservative when he kept asking, "What' wrong with people keeping more of their money?" What sacrifices has the government asked of the people since going to war? We lost some privacy, not many cared. War is not free. Especially when we have been fighting halfway around the world in a place nicknamed "The Graveyard of Empires" for almost a decade. Long protracted long distance wars are a burden on an economy. I bet if China was policing the planet instead of us, we would be buying their debt. (Of course, this is if everything else was the same as it is now and not under Chinese rule.)

Zyphlin said:
Your made it out that you had an issue that "2% of the population" was controlling what we do about revenue. You then went on to say Politicians and Spin doctors fell in that 2%. I'm simply pointing out that its rather hypocritical for you to complain about the 2% controlling revenue when, by your definition of that 2%, EVERY government issue is controlled by that 2% and that 2% is actually representing both sides of the revenue issue right now...because there's politicians and spin doctors arguing on both sides.
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I didn't say EVERY issue. I'm sure some issues they don't really care about. The issues they do care about they do exert their influence on. That is my belief.

"The masses are asses" is a quote I heard a long time ago and I think it has a ring of truth to it.

Most people watch the boob tube to get their information. And most of them aren't glued to it every night watching the pundits. That's the whole reason these pundits go out there and spread their talking points. It's not in the interest of honest intellectual discussion. They are too well educated to not realize the fallacious arguments they use aren't honest, but they know how effective they are because "the masses are asses".

Zyphlin said:
You were attempting to instill negative emotions by invoking classism by complaining about the "top 2%" controlling what happens when revenue which is a rather irrelevant comment to make considering by your own definition the top 2% control EVERYTHING that the government does in EVERY instance. Its the political equivilent of shouting at someone for spraying your chest with a squirt gun in the middle of a down pour. Its obvious disingenuous and being done for ulterior reasons.
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I didn't say they control EVERYTHING the govt. does in EVERY instance.

It's the reality. The top 2% of wage earners have more control and influence than the voters. I don't hate them. It is what it is. If I had the money, I'd spend a couple grand to give them my opinion face to face on issues important to me. I'll bet they are more likely to consider a financial supporter's opinion. If I was in that income bracket I might have to decide to cut benefits or lay off employees. I may find it profitable to outsource work. But if this need for profit commercially hurts the country's general citizenry, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more in my own personal taxes.

Zyphlin said:
And again, as I said, its a difference in philosophy. I'll take a small portion, relative in time, of people being severely harmed for the (highly plausable in my mind) possability of a large portion being comfortable in the long run. The alternative, based on what you're suggesting, to me is harming a huge amount of people over a long period of time with no real hope for improvement, just not as bad of pain as quickly.

To give an analogy...if we have two groups of 10 people taken hostage. There's a choice where you could do one of two things:

1. The 10 will be housed in bad conditions for five years, with two of them dieing and two being severely injured with it being 50/50 if they live or die. However, after 5 years, they're all are freed.

2. All 10 get routinely beat, but never to the point of serious injury or death. They are given moderate living conditions but will be held there for the rest of their lives, as will any of their kids, and their kids kids, and onward.

To me, in such a theoritical, I'd go with number 1. While more life, in a technical sense, is preserved in number 2 I would actually prefer number 1. This is because that while some life is lost, the majority of others are actually able to LIVE their lives to the fullest and those that come from them in the future will be free to do so as well. On the flip side, number 2 is perpetually living in a crappy existance, with the number of people exposed to said bad existance increasing each time new children are born into it. They're alive, but they have no real way to truly live to the fullest.

At its hearts its the great difference in philosophy between liberals and conservatives and the reason I think there will always be a divide in this country. To me the difference is clears. Conservatives want people to be able to reach the highest of highs and accept that to have that people will also hit the lowest of lows, with the distribution of the rest falling along that trajectory in between. Liberals want people primarily to be comfortable and equitable, wanting a relatively steady middle baseline with little deviation up or down. And I think often when it comes to economic type issues that's the real heart of contention.
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The middle class is struggling. I think that's generally in dispute. One side says, "Well, that's economic Darwinism." The other side says, "We are better than this."
 
apdst said:
I guess that's why we lost a net of 239,000 jobs this summer? Because unemployment was staving off the loss of more jobs?
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Correct. We could have lost more.
 
haymarket said:
and as a working person am I suppose to give a flying fig about that?
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yeah the thought of other people making money seems to really bother lots on the left these days
 
TurtleDude said:
yeah the thought of other people making money seems to really bother lots on the left these days
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its the wrong people Dude... the freakin wrong people.

But then, you knew that already.
 
TurtleDude said:
yeah the thought of other people making money seems to really bother lots on the left these days
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how is the market going up benefiting him? same argument i've had with conservative, just because the stock market is up, doesnt mean any jobs are being created....how do you define a recession ending? personally, i'd say it is when businesses are adding people to payroll, and the unemployment rate coming down, and people spending more, not just a set of numbers going up, and stockholders getting paid dividends.
 
randel said:
how is the market going up benefiting him? same argument i've had with conservative, just because the stock market is up, doesnt mean any jobs are being created....how do you define a recession ending? personally, i'd say it is when businesses are adding people to payroll, and the unemployment rate coming down, and people spending more, not just a set of numbers going up, and stockholders getting paid dividends.
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I believe that I read somewhere that 5% unemployment is considered acceptable to our economic system, so once we get there, the recession should be over. BUT, there will be lingering effects. A lot of people got really burned this time, losing jobs AND savings, housing, investments, and they will be more careful next time a "golden opportunity" presents itself. We are retired and doing well, but I credit my paranoia for being OK. We know several people who worked in the financial industries who mistakenly kept most, if not all, their investments in their employers stock. The company stock value tanked, and left these people broke.

Where my sister lives in Houston, there use to be a lot of Enron employees. When Enron crashed, a lot of people got hurt. Houses in my sister's neighborhood are still cheap....

Wall Street workers jobs may be the last to recover....
 
UtahBill said:
I believe that I read somewhere that 5% unemployment is considered acceptable to our economic system, so once we get there, the recession should be over. BUT, there will be lingering effects. A lot of people got really burned this time, losing jobs AND savings, housing, investments, and they will be more careful next time a "golden opportunity" presents itself. We are retired and doing well, but I credit my paranoia for being OK. We know several people who worked in the financial industries who mistakenly kept most, if not all, their investments in their employers stock. The company stock value tanked, and left these people broke.

Where my sister lives in Houston, there use to be a lot of Enron employees. When Enron crashed, a lot of people got hurt. Houses in my sister's neighborhood are still cheap....

Wall Street workers jobs may be the last to recover....
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you are correct, 5% unemployment rate is considered 'full employment' in our system.....the arguement with conservative, he constantly says 'recession ended last spring' and 'how long should we pay unemployment benefits'....my response to him was the one i gave turtle, who decided the recession was over? stockholders? are we considering it over just because the stock market , the dow jones industrial average, has been going up? sure the hell isnt over for those still looking for work.
 
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