The problem isn't the Tea Party, it's the Pee Party (AKA The Democrats). Cut the damn spending you idiots in charge! JUST SAY NO to more spending.
LOL bullshit, Obama offered up no plan that they could actually look at, maybe if he cwould have they could have said the same about his plan, but he refused to do anything that would stick his neck on the line, and chose to "lead from behind" and demonise republicans for putting out the only plan which passed the house. Instead he chose to attack the only plans to cut the deficit which solely came from republicans, and we ended up downgraded, this is 100% Obamas fault.
Bullshit, the republicans are so cynical they told Obama he was bluffing on the 4/1 deal, and they're so gutless they didn't call his "bluff". The tea party is the party of the older boomers, facing the end and realizing two things, 1) they don't have enough for retirement and, 2) they are going to die. And they are batshit crazy scared. And they have poured all that fear into what are demonstrably side issues. Like I said a year ago, their ire is misdirected.
Keep burying your head in the sand, the fact of the matter is that republicans have been fighting tooth and nail to reduce the dficit and liberals like you have been fighting against them every step of the way saying that our deficits dont matter, then when reality comes home and we get downgraded once again you are saying ti is not about the defiucit but about tea partiers in washington. I no longer give a shit, I just beat my previous best today by over 36k if obama and the dems wants to nuke the ecoinomy so be it, ill make myself filthy rich along the way, im tired of fighting against the whack jobs in that administration, who are incapable of taking blame for anything.
Uhh, no. Perhaps they're fighting tooth and... just tooth, revenue being the nail. Republicans are unbelievably fucked up, and the economy today is proving how true that is. All the republicans want to do is obstruct Obama, the consequences be damned. "GOP lawmakers say no to a payroll tax cut extension By: CNN's Ted Barrett (June) (CNN) â Two top Republican lawmakers said Wednesday they don't support extending a payroll tax cut as a way to stimulate the economy -an idea the White House is weighingâ because they don't believe it helped create jobs and that money is needed to shore up Social Security and Medicare. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, who both hold GOP leadership positions, told reporters that the current high unemployment rate is proof that short-term stimulus programs, like the payroll tax reduction, don't work. "I don't sense how this move will install the confidence that small businesses in east Texas and Fortune 50 companies are going to need to take care of the Obama employment gap," Hensarling said. "We don't need short term gestures, we need long term strategies that build into our system simpler taxes, lower taxes, fewer mandates, lower costs, lower energy costs, more certainty," Alexander said. The White House said Tuesday it might ask Congress to extend the expiring reduction in an effort to stimulate job growth. Also Wednesday, negotiations led by Vice President Biden to raise the country's debt ceiling ended with lawmakers saying they were making good progress but were still at least two to three weeks away from an agreement. "I think our hope would be to wrap up these meetings by the end of the month but again I don't think we have a hard deadline, that's a goal," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, who is taking part in the talks. Van Hollen declined to discuss the specifics of the discussions and refused to say if extending the payroll tax cut came up in their meeting. Sen. John Kyl of Arizona, one of the Republicans in the talks, was equally mum about what the negotiators discussed. He said the end of the month deadline is "an aspirational date, a goal, a target." "But there's just a huge amount of work," he said. Meantime, Democratic senators held a press conference to highlight a vote Tuesday in which more than 33 Republicans voted in favor of eliminating tax breaks for the ethanol industry. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, called it a "watershed moment" because Republicans are usually wary of voting to raise any taxes. "It means tax expenditures are now fair game in the ongoing deficit reduction talks," he said. "These Republicans broke with right wing interest groups that have sought to protect all forms of taxpayers subsidies no matter if they are necessary or not." Alexander, who voted to end the ethanol subsidy, said his staff is scouring the tax code for wasteful tax expenditures, especially in the energy sector. "I think getting rid of unwarranted tax breaks is a good idea," Alexander said. "We have $1.2 trillion in tax expenditures and some of them aren't justified and they're adding to the debt." However, Hensarling said House Republicans would only support changes â such as eliminating the ethanol credit - as part of a broad tax reform effort. "We believe the tax code needs to be made fairer, simpler, flatter and that would include cleaning out tax breaks like ethanol," the conservative lawmaker said. "We do not believe particularly at this time in our nation's economic history that we need to have tax increases."' So, the republicans, so full of shit their eyes are brown, reject tax cuts at the consumer level, and then go on say that what this country needs is lower taxes.
I think both the right and left are furious at S&P. and for good reason. Realistically, there is no threat US paper will not be paid. S&P was just trying to get some publicity for itself. It would serve them right if a mob of angry welfare recipients and Wall Streeters burned them down. They have done what Obama promsed to do but couldn't, bring us all together.
They are exactly right. We don't need another fucking band-aid tax cut or gimmick like the payroll tax holiday...we need real reform. Flaten rates, broaden the base by making everyone pay, and get rid of the carrot and stick, loophole ridden tax code we now have.
<img src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/2011/08/06/news/international/sp_rating_countries_with_aaa/aaa-club2.top.gif"> I agree with you, AAA, for once. But what S&P is basically saying is that they don't have confidence that the US can get its fiscal house in order if only spending is being discussed. After all, they have not downgraded the other nations on that map, some of them bigger spenders than us. Furthermore, the official statement from S&P explicitly said "tax reform" right beside spending reform. They're pessimistic about the US because at the moment, with the nutty tea partiers having so much influence, the US is like a one-legged runner.
Yep. This entire tax rate canard is nonsense - what really matters are the deductions you can find or the loopholes that very expensive lawyers and CPAs can find. Even in the late 50's when the top marginal rate was like 90 % of course absolutely no-one paid even half that after their money people were done. If the tax rates were so important to the Dems, they could have changed individual and corporate rates to anything they wanted when they had a supermajority - but Rangel in fact created more loopholes for his buddies at GE. The other nonsense about all this is that the outstanding debt is a factor of four greater than any income you are going to generate with changes in marginal tax rates.