Obama Is Bankrupting The Country?

H

Haiku

Makes the ganglia twitch.
Courtesy of the Examiner

The results of an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) released late yesterday demonstrate that the Bush era tax cuts, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan account for virtually the entire federal budget deficit projected through 2019.

Projecting policy stasis into the near future, the CBPP found that the combined effect of the tax cuts, wars, and revenue shortfalls attributable to the economic downturn will account for the entire deficit through 2019, attributing nearly half of the debt to the wars and tax cuts alone.

Recommending once again that policymakers let the tax cuts expire, "the upper-income tax cuts now and the middle-income tax cuts when the economy has recovered more fully," or pay for any of the middle income tax cuts that the Republicans propose be made permanent.

To remain clearly non-partisan, this perspective on the cause of the mounting debt, which ties it to Bush era policy, the revenue shortfall associated with the economic downturn, and rising interest on the debt necessarily had to leave the hard analysis of the consequent political realities to those of us who are not concerned with perceptions of bias. Ignorance alone cannot explain the Republican congressional leadership's refusal to acknowledge the economic realities of their ongoing assault on low and middle income households, and newly confirmed lack of fiscal responsibility.

Only two scenarios could explain their apparent betrayal of their obligation to serve the general good of the nation. They either truly are in service to the corporations and their wealthy benefactors, or they have boxed themselves into a policy from which they cannot retreat without loosing credibility entirely. Admission of past policy mistakes that cannot be differentiated from their current policy pursuits would necessarily amount to a confession of their unsuitability for office. But moreover, it would completely discredit the very foundation of conservative ideology.
Click to expand...

I have nothing to add.
 
They were extended because the Republicans refused to do ANYTHING without an extension of the Bush tax cuts...you're sidestepping the whole point, as usual.
 
Educate yourself.....

Updated: Aug. 2, 2012

In 2001 and 2003, Congress passed tax cuts proposed by President George W. Bush. At the time, Mr. Bush and the Republican leaders of Congress certainly believed they were rewriting the tax code permanently, but the laws they passed actually gave the cuts an expiration date at the end of 2010.

The question of what would happen then became more relevant after Republicans lost control of Congress in 2006, and the two parties have been fighting about them ever since, with Republicans pushing to make them permanent and Democrats seeking to end them for upper-income households. Their fate now seems likely to play a significant role in the 2012 presidential campaign.

In 2008, Barack Obama campaigned on a promise to roll back the high-end cuts, but a Democratic Senate balked at muscling through that change. After making huge gains in the November 2010 midterm elections, Republicans announced they would block all legislation in the lame-duck session that followed until all the cuts were extended.

In December 2010, Mr. Obama reached a deal with Republicans that extended the tax cuts at all income levels through the end of 2012 (they expire Jan. 1, 2013) as part of a package that would also keep benefits flowing to the long-term unemployed, cut payroll taxes for all workers for a year and take other steps to bolster the economy. It also continued tax breaks on dividends and capital gains, and lowered the estate tax.

In September 2011, Mr. Obama again proposed ending the tax breaks for taxable income above $250,000 per household as part of a $3 trillion deficit reduction plan.

In 2012, the issue took on new urgency as economists warned that inaction would put the nation over a “fiscal cliff,’' if the tax cuts and other stimulative measures were allowed to expire on Jan. 1, 2013 just as tough spending cuts were set to kick in, a combination that could damage the fragile economic recovery.

Mr. Obama called for a one-year extention of the cuts on household income below $250,000. Senate Democrats put together a bill to do that while raising income, capital gains and estate tax rates to rise on income above that level; in addition, the bill extended tax breaks for lower-income families that were passed as part of the 2009 stimulus bill.

In July, Senate Republicans unexpectedly dropped a planned filibuster and the Senate passed the Democratic plan. A Republican plan to extend all the Bush-era cuts while ending the 2009 tax breaks was defeated 54 to 45.

The Republicans acted knowing that their colleagues in the House would block the Democratic plan. But the frantic give-and-take over tax cuts set to expire Jan. 1 illustrated how anxious both sides were to provide a way for senators to weigh in on the tax fight.

In early August, the House easily approved a one-year extension of all the Bush-era tax cuts. The House vote and the Senate passage of the Democratic plan gives the parties some political cover during the August recess, when each will blame the other for an economic crisis expected in January when more than $500 billion in tax cuts are set to lapse.

Read More... http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/taxation/bush_tax_cuts/index.html
Click to expand...
They are and forever will remain the Bush tax cuts....
 
Haiku said:
Educate yourself.....


They are and forever will remain the Bush tax cuts....
Click to expand...

Educate yourself, the tax law Bush signed had an expiration date. That date has come and gone. The Dems CHOSE to extend the cuts. It was a Dem led House and a Dem led Senate that extended the cuts and a Dem President Obama that signed the new code into law. Had the Dems done nothing, the tax cuts would have expired. It was their legislation that created the lower brackets for 2011 and 2012.
 
Superfreak said:
Educate yourself, the tax law Bush signed had an expiration date. That date has come and gone. The Dems CHOSE to extend the cuts. It was a Dem led House and a Dem led Senate that extended the cuts and a Dem President Obama that signed the new code into law. Had the Dems done nothing, the tax cuts would have expired. It was their legislation that created the lower brackets for 2011 and 2012.
Click to expand...
Regardless, would you say that at a time when we were involved in two major military operations it was ill advised to cut taxes?
 
gee maybe SF is ready to get rid of those ugly obama tax cuts as he now calls them?


well super you ready to fight for the end of the "obama" tax cuts?
 
so if Obama hadn't spent that extra $5trillion dollars in the last four years we would still have been an extra $5trillion in the hole?......
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top