Tag Archives: tax cuts for millionaires

Paul Ryan and the GOP have some good news and some bad news

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House GOP Approves Budget That Cuts Taxes For Millionaires, Slashes The Social Safety Net | Travis Waldron on Mar 21, 2013

The House of Representatives this afternoon approved the Republican budget plan authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) by a vote of 221-207, with 197 Democrats and 10 Republicans voting against it. Three Democrats and one Republican did not vote.

For the third consecutive year, the House GOP has approved a budget that ends the traditional guaranteed Medicare coverage for senior citizens, makes substantial cuts to poverty programs and the social safety net, and grants massive tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. Recent analyses have shown that the budget plan’s tax reforms, which lower top tax rates to 25 percent, would give millionaires at least $200,000 in tax cuts. At the same time, it would slash the social safety net, targeting poverty programs for two-thirds of its cuts.

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House approves far-right Ryan budget plan | Steve Benen on March 21, 2013 

Though there were whispers that GOP leaders had to worry about significant defections, only 10 House Republicans broke ranks and opposed Ryan’s budget — the exact same number of Republicans who voted against their party’s budget blueprint last year.

And what a plan it is. We’re talking about an ambitious plan to redistribute wealth — from the bottom up — with a healthy dose of “almost frighteningly ambitious” social engineering. Ryan’s budget would end Medicare, cut taxes by over $5 trillion, take health care benefits away from millions of Americans, make “massive” cuts to in programs for low-income and vulnerable Americans, and relies on smoke and mirrors to balance the budget within a decade.

It is, in other words, the exact opposite of what the American mainstream wants, and bears no resemblance to the platform the American electorate endorsed in national elections four months ago. It’s designed to satisfy folks who believe the wealthy are over-burdened by taxes and struggling families have too much access to affordable health care.

Despite all of this, 95% of House GOP lawmakers voted for the plan anyway.

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CHART: Paul Ryan’s Massive Tax Cut For Millionaires | Sahil Kapur March 15, 2013

Ryan’s plan also cuts spending by some $4.6 trillion over the next decade, targeting programs like Medicaid and the portion of the budget that includes Pell Grants and food stamps. He insists his tax cuts will spur significant economic growth, and he promises to pay for them by closing unspecified tax loopholes, deductions and credits — ideally on high incomes.

“You can actually plug loopholes and subject more of higher earners’ income to taxation through a lower tax rate,” Ryan said. “We think that’s smarter.” His promise mirrors that of Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential election. The problem, as numerous independent experts concluded, is that finding that much revenue in tax expenditures would require raising effective taxes on the middle class.

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Renewed hostage-taking | Pema Levy on March 21, 2013

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said Thursday that Republicans will require a dollar in spending cuts for every dollar that they agree to raise the debt ceiling, which the United States is expected to hit in August. “Dollar for dollar is the plan,” Boehner said at a press conference. As TPM reported Thursday, conservative House Republicans are pushing their leadership to use the debt ceiling as leverage to demand major reforms or cuts, including dollar for dollar cuts.

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Remember when John Boehner and other distinguished Republicans had great fun on Twitter using the hashtag #Obamaquester when discussing sequestration cuts? This week, Boehner admitted with his own damn mouth that President Obama “didn’t want the cuts.” Watch:

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More Republican good news / bad news: 

  • Bad: Mitt Romney / Paul Ryan didn’t win the election, and Republicans lost seats in Congress.
  • Good: So? Doesn’t matter, the GOP will continue ‘patriotically’ ignoring what the majority of Americans voted for.

Remember: either they’ve decided they know what’s best for all of us — or they’re going to try to get away with as much as they can until we stop them. 


image: odinsblog

Morning Bunker Report: Thursday 4.19.2012

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————————————WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STANDS FOR TODAY

MITT ROMNEY, Who Spent 212 Days Out Of State One Year, Attacks Obama For Vacationing – Presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney took up a common conservative refrain against the president today, attacking Obama for supposedly vacationing too much. “I would think you could kind of suck it up for four years particularly when the American people are out of work,” Romney said …As of August of last year, when Obama’s vacations briefly dominated the news cycle, George W. Bush had taken almost three times as many vacation days as Obama, and Ronald Reagan had taken almost double the days at similar points in their terms. But the tact is especially odd coming from Romney, who is no stranger to taking leaves while in office. In 2006, his last year as governor of Massachusetts, Romney spent 212 days out of state — more than four days each week, on average — preparing for a presidential run. […] This vacation hypocrisy is nothing new for Romney, though, who attacked Obama last year for going to tony Martha’s Vineyard — even though it turned out Romney would be on the island on the very same day. More importantly, in this day and age, no president is ever out of communication, no matter where in the world they go. So any discussion of Obama’s vacationing is mere distraction and a weak attempt to make a scandal out of nothing.

REPUBLICANS PICK AND CHOOSE THEIR “CHRISTIAN” CONVICTIONS: Boehner to Catholic bishops: Take ‘bigger look’ at Republican budget –Referencing Matthew 25, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called on Congress to put the poor first in budget priorities and rethink cuts to programs that benefited the least among us. But Boehner, a Catholic, said at a press conference Wednesday the cuts were necessary, despite the impact they may have on the poor.  [...] The House Agriculture Committee approved a measure on Wednesday that would cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food stamps, by $133 billion over the next decade. Approximately 2 million individuals would be cut off from the program entirely, according to the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities. Another 44 million would see their benefits cut. In a letter to House Committee on Agriculture members, Bishop Stephen Blaire described the proposed cuts to the program as “unjustified and wrong.” “If savings need to be achieved, cuts to agricultural subsidies and direct payments should be considered before cutting anti-hunger programs that help feed poor and vulnerable people,” he continued.

After Demanding Offsets For Payroll Tax Cut, GOP Won’t Offset ‘Small Business’ Tax Cut For Millionaires – Despite calls from some conservative members of the party, GOP leadership won’t demand spending cuts to offset the “small business” tax cut that is being proposed by Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), Politico reports: Several Republican leadership aides say they have no plans to offset the tax cut, which a centerpiece of their agenda during these next two weeks in session. The payroll tax cut, which Republicans did everything to block until it became politically impossible to continue, primarily benefited working class Americans and has real economic benefits. Cantor’s tax cut, on the other hand, is supposedly targeted at small businesses, but will largely aid millionaires like Oprah Winfrey and the owners of professional sports franchises. According to the Center for American Progress’ Seth Hanlon, the bill gives millionaires an average tax cut of $45,000.

Cantor ‘Puzzled’ That Obama Would Threaten To Veto The Latest GOP Tax Cut For Millionaires – Due to its non-existent targeting to actual small businesses, the cut would benefit hedge fund managers, wealthy lawyers, professional sports teams, and Oprah’s production company. Despite all this, Cantor is still “puzzled” that President Obama would threaten to veto the bill, which he did yesterday. On CNBC this morning, Cantor accused Obama of not caring about small businesses due to his opposition to the tax giveaway: Well, listen, the President’s now issued a veto threat against the bill, which is kind of puzzling, because the President has continued to say he’s for small business, he’s for the middle class, and yet he’s now denying any help to small businesses, who frankly could use a 20 percent tax cut…

Republicans Give Up The Game: It Was Never About Deficits – The contrast is particularly stark this week: Senate Republicans blocked the Buffett Rule, dismissing its capacity to raise $47 billion over 10 years, while House Republicans are pushing a broad business tax cut that would add $46 billion to the deficit in just one year. On top of that, House committees are now looking for ways to override automatic cuts to defense spending they agreed to last August as a means of enforcing the controversial debt-limit deal. [...] Underlying this story is a broader GOP strategy of using deficits as a cudgel to attack Democrats when they come to power and use legislative leverage to force cuts to federal programs. Democrats yielded to the GOP for the first half of 2011. But small government isn’t synonymous with responsible budgeting, and when Democrats demanded that Republicans look to the other side of the federal ledger to reduce deficits, the GOP implicitly acknowledged that bringing the budget closer to balance wasn’t their real priority. Democrats say they’re still willing to address deficits with the GOP, but only under a more balanced approach. Republicans so far haven’t budged, and many would rather see wholesale changes to the rules of governing than make concessions to grapple seriously with the issue that they put on the national agenda.

RIP DICK CLARK — LET’S MAKE YOUR DEATH INTO A GOP TALKING POINT: GOP lawmaker: Dick Clark should be remembered as model of free enterprise – [House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.)] came to the House floor just a few hours after Clark’s death was reported, and said an ongoing Republican speech about the need to foster small businesses reminded him of the discussions he had with Clark over the years about taxes and free enterprise. “I just want to say that as I listen to your discussion, I was reminded of how he regularly said everyone should pay their fair share of taxes,” Dreier said of Clark. “He said that not too long ago to me. “I said I appreciate that, because he knew he was paying my salary,” Dreier said, adding that he had dinner with Clark just two weeks ago. “He was a believer in the free-enterprise system, he was a believer in encouraging individual initiative and opportunity on a regular basis,” Dreier said. “You guys are here talking about the need for tax fairness and the imperative to ensure that we encourage more people like Dick Clark. I think it’s important for us to remember the wonderful life that this man had.”

—————————————————————-PRESIDENT OBAMA / DEMOCRATS

OBAMA TO GOP: Abide By Debt Limit Deal Or Else Face A Government Shutdown – In a major escalation of a slowly building fight over funding the government, the White House has warned House Republicans, in no uncertain terms, that the government will shut down in September if the GOP does not adhere to an agreement they cut with Democrats in August during the standoff over raising the nation’s debt limit. “Until the House of Representatives indicates that it will abide by last summer’s agreement, the President will not be able to sign any appropriations bills,” writes Jeffrey Zients, acting director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, in a letter addressed to congressional appropriators Wednesday. The message is simple: The government will shut down just ahead of the 2012 presidential election if Republicans break faith with the debt limit deal. [TPM]

BERNIE SANDERS: Congress spends day and night worrying about the wealthy – “This country faces enormous problems, the middle-class is declining, poverty is increasing, we’re worried about global warming, we’re worried about health care, we’re worried about education,” he said, “and the American people are looking to Washington and saying, ‘What’s going on? We have enormous problems, and you’re not addressing those problems.’” “One of the reasons that Congress is not addressing those problems is the power of big money in terms of campaign contributions and in terms of lobbying,” Sanders continued. “Working people are trying to keep their heads above water, and here on Capitol Hill all kinds of money is flooding into this institution so that Congress spends day and night worrying about the wealthy and powerful, and forgetting about the middle-class and working families.” He blasted the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, which held that limiting corporate campaign spending violated the First Amendment. [...] Sen. Charles Schumer said at the summit that the Citizens United decision was the worst since Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld state laws enacting racial segregation. “Something like 17 people have given half the Republican super PACS half of their money,” he noted. “What is happening to America?”

I BLAME FOX NEWS: The latest Pew poll shows Mitt Romney leading President Obama by a full six points — 50% to 44% — among senior citizens. Ingrates. The president is saving Medicare recipients billions of dollars by closing the Medicare Part-D donut hole, and yet they’re leaning Romney. A new HHS report indicates that 3.6 million Medicare enrollees saved a total of $2.1 billion in 2011 thanks to these ACA provisions. And since the discounts are phased in slowly between 2010 and 2020, the savings will only increase in the future. Old people should be at the top of the pro-Obama roster because of this. After all, if Romney is elected, he’ll repeal the ACA and the donut hole will open up again, meaning senior citizens will have to pay for life-saving prescriptions out of their own fixed-income pockets for a period time every single year. [Bob Cesca]

Same Thing, Both Sides Do It, GOTCHA LIBTARDS! – So apparently, when Obama was a young boy, someone fed him dog meat in Indonesia. Which, according to wingnuts, is exactly the same thing as a grown man making the decision to strap his dog to the roof of the car and terrorize it on a cross country trip. SUCK ON THAT LIBERALS! And of course the WH press corpse is on the job mainstreaming this bullshit.

JOHN BOEHNER YESTERDAY: “This election is going to be a referendum on the president’s economic policies. They’ve not only not helped the economy, they’ve actually made it worse. When you look at his higher taxes, his refusal to deal with the debt, the regulatory regime here in Washington out of control, they’ve scared every businessperson and investor in America.” Speaker Boehner has an odd definition of “worse.” While Boehner talks about Obama’s “higher taxes,” Obama has actually cut taxes. While Boehner said Obama has refused to deal with the debt, Obama offered Boehner a $4 trillion debt-reduction plan that Republicans rejected. While Boehner frets over a “regulatory regime,” Obama has actually created fewer regulations than his Republican predecessor. And then there’s the notion that Obama made the economy “worse.”… [Time for Boehner to update his talking points]

03/18: Sunday morning’s more or less interesting things

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1) PRESIDENT OBAMA / DEMOCRATS 

  • President Obama repeats call to end subsidies for Big Oil - “… at a time when big oil companies are making more money than ever before, we’re still giving them $4 billion of your tax dollars in subsidies every year. Your member of Congress should be fighting for you. Not for big financial firms. Not for big oil companies. In the next few weeks, I expect Congress to vote on ending these subsidies. And when they do, we’re going to put every single Member of Congress on record: They can either stand up for oil companies, or they can stand up for the American people. They can either place their bets on a fossil fuel from the last century, or they can place their bets on America’s future. So make your voice heard. Send your representative an email. Give them a call. Tell them to stand with you.” 
  • Medicare fight is not over yet – Rep. Steve Israel - This Republican Congress of Chronic Chaos is dusting off last year’s same failed playbook — where seniors would lose their Medicare while Republicans give more tax breaks to millionaires and Big Oil companies. I have one response: Bring it on. Tone-deaf House Republicans are preparing a budget that will — again — protect millionaires over Medicare. As with their last budget, House Republicans are giving Americans a window into their souls. And the American people don’t like what they’re seeing: Republicans’ relentless, reckless promise to protect the ultrawealthy at the expense of the middle class and seniors. Republicans might stand for those failed priorities, but middle-class families and seniors won’t. Medicare is a sacred bond with seniors that cannot be broken.

2) YOUR 2012 GOP PRIMARY

  • Rick Santorum: If I win the Illinois primary, I win the nomination - ”This is a primary, and turnout is everything. You do your job, you do your job, then this is the pledge,” Santorum said. “If we’re able to come out of Illinois with a huge or surprise win, I guarantee you, I guarantee you that we will win this nomination.” Illinois has largely been predicted to favor Mitt Romney for Tuesday’s primary. The vote is expected to be driven by Chicago and its surrounding suburbs, pegged as unfavorable territory for the former Pennsylvania senator’s brand of conservatism. But in areas like Effingham, hours south of the Windy City, Santorum hopes to fire up a Republican base that is often overshadowed by its Democratic counterparts to the north.

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  • Ahead of Ill. primary, Romney blasts Obama on gas prices, defends his own wealth -  Romney accused three administration officials—Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson— of working to push up energy prices. He said they should either resign their offices or be fired by the president. [...] He ended the event with a defense of his business success, which has helped him amass a huge personal fortune. “I am not in this race to make money,” he said to rising cheers from the audience. “I’ve already made enough… I’m not embarrassed about being successful, but I’m embarrassed for people who think there’s something wrong with that.”

3) YOUR 21st CENTURY REPUBLICAN (TEA)PARTY 

  • Why Conservatives Are Still Crazy After All These Years - But are right-wingers scarier now than in the past? They certainly seem stranger and fiercer. I’d argue, however, that they’ve been this crazy for a long time. Over the last sixty years or so, I see far more continuities than discontinuities in what the rightward twenty or thirty percent of Americans believe about the world. The crazy things they believed and wanted were obscured by their lack of power, but they were always there – if you knew where to look. What’s changed is that loony conservatives are now the Republican mainstream, the dominant force in the GOP. [...] conservatism continues to thrive. That’s because power begets power: Democrats can be counted on to compromise with conservative nuttiness, and the media can be counted on to normalize it. And it’s because there will always be millions of Americans who are terrified of social progress and of dispossession from whatever slight purchase on psychological security they’ve been able to maintain in a frightening world. And because there will always be powerful economic actors for whom exploiting such fear, uncertainty and doubt pays (and pays, and pays).
  • San Diego Tea Party activist Michael Kobulnicky. Screenshot via Vimeo.Tea party leader suspected of sexual assault - San Diego tea party spokesperson Michael Kobulincky was placed into custody and accused of abduction and sexual assault on a 56-year-old woman in February. Authorities say the woman was pulled into a car and assaulted before she was dropped off. Surveillance cameras and a picture released to the public led to Kobulincky being identified as a suspect. The San Diego Tea Party released a statement, citing that Kobulincky has been relieved of his spokesperson’s role and has been inactive since January. He is facing a myriad of felony charges, including kidnapping, sexual assault and sex with a foreign object.

4) REPUBLICAN WAR ON WOMEN

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  • Breaking: “First Degree Homicide Of The Unborn Child Bill” Passes CO House On Second Reading -  Horrible news for women’s rights from the state House tonight. From State Rep Daniel Kagan (D): “…we were unable to prevent the Republican majority in the House from passing on second reading the First Degree Homicide of the Unborn Child bill. Under some circumstances, it makes both termination of pregnancy and the use of the morning after pill a homicide. It also confers personhood on a newly fertilized egg.” Kos readers may believe this bill will be stopped in the Senate. Tea Party legislators have been successful in passing 135 bills nationwide to limit women’s reproductive rights this year. To assume it cannot happen in Colorado is a dangerous assumption…
  • Violence Against Women Act Divides Senate - But Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, found multiple reasons to oppose the bill when it came up for a formal consideration last month. The legislation “creates so many new programs for underserved populations that it risks losing the focus on helping victims, period,” Mr. Grassley said when the committee took up the measure. After his alternative version was voted down on party lines, the original passed without a Republican vote. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, one of two women on the judiciary panel, said the partisan opposition came as a “real surprise,” but she put it into a broader picture. “This is part of a larger effort, candidly, to cut back on rights and services to women,” she said. “We’ve seen it go from discussions on Roe v. Wade, to partial birth abortion, to contraception, to preventive services for women. This seems to be one more thing.” [image: leftish]

5) PROTECTING THE WEALTH OF THE ONE PERCENT: GOP WAR ON THE 99%

  • Yet another income redistribution scheme. Notice the GOP never recommends more revenue with a tax increase to the one percent? Medicare bill would hike costs to federal workers - Four Republican senators have introduced legislation designed to improve Medicare, but with federal employees paying a price. Under the Congressional Health Care for Seniors Act, Medicare recipients would enroll in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program (FEHBP). Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ken.), the main sponsor of the bill, said it would save taxpayers $1 trillion over 10 years. He acknowledged, however, that the legislation would result in higher premiums for federal employees… An organization that represents older Americans on Medicare and federal employees does have arguments against the legislation. ”This is a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone kind of proposal that would both bring down Medicare as we know it and threaten the stability of the FEHBP,” said Joseph A. Beaudoin, president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association.
  • A Senate Republican plan to replace Medicare - For years, Republicans have insisted that they would not end Medicare as we know it and that any changes to the program would not affect those in or near retirement. In the span of 20 minutes Thursday, they jettisoned both promises. [...] But DeMint and his colleagues think the time to end Medicare is now — with a cold-turkey conversion to a private program, effective in 2014. … Paul says his plan would cut funding of Medicare by $1 trillion over 10 years and reduce Medicare’s liabilities by $16 trillion. It would do that by enrolling Medicare recipients in the health plan now used by federal workers. The government would pay 75 percent of the insurance premium on average but 30 percent or less for those who earned more than $100,000 a year. The eligibility age would gradually be raised to 70 from 65. If seniors can’t afford their share of the premium, they can apply for Medicaid, the health program for the poor. || The GOP has always been against Medicare — remember THIS?
  • Ryan Budget to Include Firewall of Defense Sequester - President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have stated they want defense spending to be part of a larger budget deal on taxes and spending. The sequester mandates that both defense and discretionary spending will take a hit beginning next January. Defense spending would account for $600 billion of all mandated cuts over 10 years. Some Republicans not wanting to flirt with national security have said they want to keep defense out of the negotiations surrounding the sequester, which are expected to last until after the November elections. Panetta has stated any further cuts could be “devastating,” but has insisted Congress should negotiate on taxes and spending in a comprehensive way without pulling defense. [...] But by firewalling defense from further cuts, House Republicans would need to pay for those expected cuts another way. At a House Budget Committee hearing, Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told Panetta he felt entitlement spending should be on the table. [chart: MotherJones « click for larger image]

6) MISC

  • Mossad ‘agrees with U.S.’ on Iran nuclear goals - Israel’s intelligence service Mossad agrees with US assessments there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb, even though Israeli leaders have talked about Tehran’s plans to acquire nuclear weapons, The New York Times reported. “Their people ask very hard questions, but Mossad does not disagree with the US on the weapons program,” the newspaper quoted an unnamed former senior US intelligence official as saying. “There is not a lot of dispute between the US and Israeli intelligence communities on the facts,” the former official said. The Times reported last month that the latest assessments by US spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program.
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  • BUT THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE! Record highs set Wednesday. Open circles indicate records were tied, circles with an x indicate records were broken. (National Climatic Data Center) Temperatures more characteristic of June have broken hundreds of temperature records over the last several days and promise to continue into the next week in many areas. In some places, temperatures have been an eye-popping 30-40 degrees above normal, nearing or surpassing the warmest temperatures ever recorded so early in the season. Since Sunday, an amazing 943 new record highs have been broken or tied across the U.S. compared to just 9 record lows On Wednesday alone, an incredible 400 new record highs were were broken (307) or tied (93). Record heat spanned from Florida to Montana.  [...] The backdrop for these warm weather records is an atmosphere that’s bulking up. Levels of carbon dioxide and methane (two key greenhouse gases) are higher than they’ve been in at least 800,000 years, and global temperatures over the last decade are unsurpassed in the modern climate record. All 11 years of the 21st century rank among the 13 warmest globally since 1880 according to NOAA.