US Politics XXX

[Tempra]

Boy are you all jumping to conclusions. If you read the whole article you will see that all Sutton did is concur with the opinion written by Boyce Martin. I don't see any indication in the article giving his personal reasoning for agreeing with Martin rather than the with the third judge on the panel.

I really, really hope that it would take more than just being a Republican who signed off on one pro-ACA opinion to get someone an interview the next time a Supreme Court appointment comes up.

I haven't read the decision yet, but Sutton is solidly conservative. I doubt he gets anywhere near the long list for Supreme Court candidates. Dems will dip back into law school administrators before giving the nod to Sutton.

It has also been awhile since I have read the trial court decision, but I remember the cases that did not involve states had a very peculiar procedural posture. So while this ruling is by no means insignificant, it is hardly the bellwether case. If the 11th circuit overturns judge Vinson's decision, then I would be a bit worried about the mandate being upheld.

[Swordfish]

It's certainly not treason. His investments don't count as levying war against the US, or giving aid and comfort to its enemies. And, as far as I know, there are no prohibitions on congressmen having shorted the USD or having stocks/bonds/etc. that do the same. There are all sorts of general rules about conflict of interest, and so on, which he may well be in violation of, but I don't believe there is any rule against "un-American" investment.

EDIT: I just read the complete Salon article, and assuming his spokesman isn't lying about Cantor's finances in his quoted statement, then the whole article is a ridiculous piece of tabloid journalism. If Cantor has a large amount of money invested in US Treasury bonds then it's very sensible to hedge that investment with a fund that shorts them. He'd probably actually end up losing more if the USD crashed.

Salon.com, meet Xenophon. Xenophon, salon.com.

[lokisnow]

http://nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/obama-it-s-kids-versus-corporate-jets-on-debt-ceiling-talks-20110629

"If we do not have revenues, that means there are a bunch of kids out there who do not have college scholarships," Obama said. "[it] might compromise the National Weather Services. It means we might not be funding critical medical research. It means food inspection might be compromised. I've said to Republican leaders, 'You go talk to your constituents and ask them, "Are you willing to compromise your kids' safety so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?" ' ''

Kids versus Corporate Jets

and transformers just opened today. :D

so is John Boehner StarScream?

[Smashing Young Man]

I was heartened by this. I don't know how it will play out as the GOP is a virtual cult of no taxes. Fuck, what Coburn did to Norquist makes me love Coburn, and I can't believe I'm saying that. But Norquist is that absurd. I would not be surprised if the guy is mentally ill or sociopathic in some way. He believes in his no tax Crusade more than a lot of Christians believe in Jesus.

The Dems have a message here. They need to hammer it home. I don't know if it will work, but they need to try.

Here's the question that I have: Let's say it gets to the point where the GOP will not budge on taxes and Obama has to choose between letting the default happen and or caving and giving the GOP their wet dream of tons of cuts with no tax increases. What does Obama do? I would be torn. What if he believed that he could totally blame it on the GOP? Could he win re-election by blaming them if the economy tanked? It would be a pretty wild scenario if he could, and I wouldn't bet on it. So would he cave and agree to the deal?

What would the historians say if this plays out? Would they give Obama credit even if he only has one term because of the otherworldly mindset and opposition of the GOP?

Yes the democrats have a message: The same ol' tired class warfare bullshit.

[lokisnow]

So Smashing Young Men, should there be 72 billion spent on medicaid for impoverished children with cancer and other medical problems or 72 billion spent on making corporate jet flights for giant corporations cheaper?

Personally I would rather the government be helping sick kids than hurting airlines.

[ThinkerX]

Upon reflection - and after watching the evening news (CBS, not Fox), I have to concede the Republicans do have one very strong argument in favor of their 'no tax' position - at least for the time being. That argument being, that the money supposedly generated by the 'new' taxes would immediately be spent on some new boondoggle program (they claim democrats do this, but it is just as true of republicans these days) UNLESS there are mechanisms (serious spending cuts) already in place.

As to the crowd that says the US debt/deficit does not matter; I say look at Greece *now* - massive rioting combined with crippling austerity programs and no end in sight...and even the new bailout package probably will not stem off a default - at least according to the people on CBS.

I do find myself wondering about a comment made in an article on one of the more 'out there' sites:

'What we are looking at is not so much a soveriegn debt crisis as it is an international banking crisis'.

The part here that gets me wondering in particular is: the debt issues in Greece and elsewhere were *known* for a long time - so how could the banking community be so monumentally stupid as to make these investments in the first place, *KNOWING* there was a high possibility of some form of default?

This strikes me as the same sort of criminal stupidity behind the mortgage mess that led to the collapse of 2008. Didn't anybody anywhere in the decision process step up and say 'No - this is a really bad idea.'? Isn't exercising at least some caution part of the job description; part of the justification for these obscene salaries and bonus's in the first place?

And because nobody else has bothered to mention it yet here despite reports appearing on a number of sites - BOA has agreed to fork over about 8.5 billion dollars to settle claims (court cases) made against it concerning what amounts to criminally stupid securitization practices. That sum represents pretty much its entire profits so far this year; and there are other cases in the works against other banks.

I would also point out that some of the biggest beneficiaries of the Feds discount window the last couple years have been european banks; in essence the US bailed out the international banking community.

[awesome possum]

Yes the democrats have a message: The same ol' tired class warfare bullshit.

How is it class warfare? How?

How is it class warfare to ask rich hedge fund managers to stop using loopholes in the law to only pay half as much in taxes as they should? Please, please, please explain that to me.

You gotta wake up, man. Tax increases are the only way out of this mess. Spending cuts won't do it all, not with the sacred cows of military, social security and medicare off the block. They just won't.

[lokisnow]

As to the crowd that says the US debt/deficit does not matter; I say look at Greece *now* - massive rioting combined with crippling austerity programs and no end in sight...and even the new bailout package probably will not stem off a default - at least according to the people on CBS.

Seriously?

Your solution to avoid being like Greece is to do exactly what Greece is doing? Austerity?

If only we'd had a 2 or 3 trillion dollar stimulus instead of the piddling 700 billion we got we'd have a much more vibrant recovery. If we'd taken an austerity approach from the beginning we'd probably have 15% unemployment and the economy would still be contracting.

[lokisnow]

By the way, I assume FLOW et al have been fed the latest talking point tonight, so I thought I would just beat them to the chase:

The corporate jet tax thing was not created by the ARRA (stimulus) Obama's administration passed.

if you hear that claim, it is deliberate misinformation.

The corporate jet tax break was written into the tax code in 1987.

http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/06/29/257967/no-the-american-recovery-and-reinvestment-act-did-not-create-the-tax-preference-for-corporate-jets/

Cue FLOW making a five page argument over the semantical difference between tax break and tax thing. :D

[Commodore]

Economy sucks so Obama is playing on people's base jealousies as a means of deflection, pitting Americans against each other, as if corporate jet owners/users are the cause of anyone else's misfortune.

Of course, the private jet sales tax break was part of the stimulus passed by the Dem Congress and signed by Obama. But who cares right, that won't get reported, just say anything.

It won't work though, Obama's support is soft and he is going to get hammered with ads like this, whoever the nominee is. His only response will be "rich people suck and kids and old people will die if you don't vote for me".

The economy is not going to get any better, that's all he can really do.

[Asarlai]

Yes the democrats have a message: The same ol' tired class warfare bullshit.

God, I wish.

No, I can assure you that the Democratic leaders are just as rich as the Republican leaders. They're just a little more decent about it and realize that they'll still be rich with slightly higher taxes. The Obama tax plan is lower than Reagan's. So next time you want to call Obama a fiscal liberal, think of progressive-tax, big-spender Ronald Reagan.

[Asarlai]

Economy sucks so Obama is playing on people's base jealousies as a means of deflection, pitting Americans against each other, as if corporate jet owners/users are the cause of anyone else's misfortune.

If the recession is any indication, they are.

[awesome possum]

By the way, I assume FLOW et al have been fed the latest talking point tonight, so I thought I would just beat them to the chase:

The corporate jet tax thing was not created by the ARRA (stimulus) Obama's administration passed.

if you hear that claim, it is deliberate misinformation.

The corporate jet tax break was written into the tax code in 1987.

:rofl:

One thing we can be sure of is that Commodore doesn't bother to read the thread before his post and runs:

Economy sucks so Obama is playing on people's base jealousies as a means of deflection, pitting Americans against each other, as if corporate jet owners/users are the cause of anyone else's misfortune.

Of course, the private jet sales tax break was part of the stimulus passed by the Dem Congress and signed by Obama. But who cares right, that won't get reported, just say anything.

It won't work though, Obama's support is soft and he is going to get hammered with ads like this, whoever the nominee is. His only response will be "rich people suck and kids and old people will die if you don't vote for me".

The economy is not going to get any better, that's all he can really do.

Oooh, Fox News and Breitbart. There's no bias there at all.

[Jaxtile]

Good god. Lockesnow, I think that post is the funniest thing on this forum because of commodore's post.

[Xenophon]

Salon.com, meet Xenophon. Xenophon, salon.com.

LOL. Yeah, I generally only read Glenn Greenwald over there, so I'd forgotten just how sleazy Salon can be.

On the subject of deficit reduction compromises, has anyone read Mikey Kaus's article about sequencing matters when it comes to implementing policies? It seems fairly sensible to me. I know I barely trust the government to do anything serious about deficit reduction at all, so I certainly don't trust them to implement balanced policies, if they thought they could get away with less. And raising taxes seems the easier side of the equation to get done later. Leaving the current proposals aside for a minute, cut now, tax later, sounds a lot more plausible than tax now, cut later. So if they can't work out a mix of tax increases and spending cuts that will satisfy the Republicans, why not try a cuts-first approach and then rely on voters to push their representatives to raise taxes later (since a balanced approach is generally popular even among registered Republican). Seems better than default.

The danger is that a cuts-first approach would end up cutting more than just the fat i.e. it would hurt programs that people rely on. But how likely is that? Anyone have some figures? They're talking about what, 2-2.5 trillion in cuts now? And Obama's plan to draw down the war in Afghanistan would mean about 1 trillion in savings, right? So would it be possible to make a temporary cut-only budget that wouldn't really screw people over in the short run?

[awesome possum]

The danger is that a cuts-first approach would end up cutting more than just the fat i.e. it would hurt programs that people rely on. But how likely is that? Anyone have some figures? They're talking about what, 2-2.5 trillion in cuts now? And Obama's plan to draw down the war in Afghanistan would mean about 1 trillion in savings, right? So would it be possible to make a temporary cut-only budget that wouldn't really screw people over in the short run?

I think the problem arises - should both sides agree to this idea - with the GOP refusing to cut anything from their own platters. It's all well and good to cut programs that the poor use, because the poor generally don't vote Republican and the ones that do are so well trained by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh that they'll continue to vote Republican no matter what.

As I said earlier, as long as the sacred cows of military, medicare and social security are off the table, then the only cuts that would work are ones that will only further hurt the people who are hurting most right now.

It seems like more and more Republicans - at least those who are free-thinking as opposed to those who are forced/coerced into blind allegiance or those who are just willingly blind - are getting behind the idea of tax increases. Flipping through between Fox and MSNBC last night I saw both Alan Simpson and Ben Stein arguing in favor of tax increases. The insanity of the tea party right is that Ben Stein, a guy who has been a steadfast supporter of almost all things Republican/conservative, was being treated like an idiot by the arrogantly clueless twit who was hosting for Bill O'Reilly because his argument went, "I'm a wealthy man and I know that if you raise my taxes I'll pay those taxes and still be a wealthy man! I'm willing to pay more if it means helping the country that I love."

Spending cuts won't accomplish anything because both sides will make sure the cuts are superficial. Tax increases are the only way. Many Republicans know this, but they also know tax increases will lead us out of the recession faster and without the shitty economy they have absolutely no chance in the elections next year.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

So Smashing Young Men, should there be 72 billion spent on medicaid for impoverished children with cancer and other medical problems or 72 billion spent on making corporate jet flights for giant corporations cheaper?

Gee, for someone who portrays himself as a stickler for accuracy, you sure f'd up that one. Of course, you're just following the lead of the deliberately misleading Obama, so I suppose it's not your fault.

In a bit of class jujutsu, the president six times mentioned eliminating a tax loophole for corporate jets, frequently pitting it against student loans or food safety. It’s a potent image, but in the context of a $4-trillion goal, it is essentially meaningless. The item is so small the White House could not even provide an estimate of the revenue that would be raised, but other estimates suggest it would amount to $3 billion over 10 years.

Meanwhile, student financial assistance, just for 2011, is about $42 billion. So the corporate jet loophole — which involves the fact that such assets can be depreciated over five years, rather than the seven for commercial jets — just is not going to raise a lot of money. It certainly wouldn’t save many student loans.

Yup. $300M/year mentioned six times in the President's speech on the deficit. And if the White House didn't even have an estimate of how much money it would save, how can anyone claim with a straight face that it's a serious attempt to broker a deal rather than just purely political posturing? It's like they just sat around and tried to figure out what they could propose that would have the most political value as a proposal, rather than what might actually help the deficit. They're still just playing the same political game they were when they made the deliberate decision to punt this at the end of last year.

Going after hedge fund managers might raise about $15 billion over 10 years, but in a different life The Fact Checker covered Wall Street and is pretty certain those financial wizards would figure out a way to avoid this tax shift. John Carney of CNBC actually outlined how that would work.

These aren't serious proposals to hit reduction targets. They're proposals intended to score political points.

Eliminating oil and gas preferences would raise $44 billion over 10 years, according to administration figures (table S-8), so that begins to look like real money.

So that brings us to a total of...$62B over ten years, assuming those hedge fund managers don't end up dodging it. So the President thinks insistance on these particular tax provisions -- which save an average of $6.2B/year during a time when we're running $1.5T annual deficits -- is worth sending the economy over a cliff. But the political value of "corporate jets", "hedge fund managers", and "oil and gas companies", hey, it's worth risking default to score those kind of political points!

But here's the kicker:

But the real dollars are in what the president calls “tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires” — eliminating the ability of people making more than $250,000 to itemize their deductions. That proposal would raise $290 billion over 10 years.

Wait a minute, the president said he would target “millionaires and billionaires” and yet the fine print of his proposal would affect couples making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000)? That’s right.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-missing-facts-in-president-obamas-news-conference/2011/06/29/AGpQMPrH_blog.html?hpid=z2

[Xenophon]

I think the problem arises - should both sides agree to this idea - with the GOP refusing to cut anything from their own platters.

Yeah, I guess cut-first as a fall-back doesn't work so well if the two sides can't even agree on what spending cuts to make.

But the real dollars are in what the president calls “tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires” — eliminating the ability of people making more than $250,000 to itemize their deductions. That proposal would raise $290 billion over 10 years.

Wait a minute, the president said he would target “millionaires and billionaires” and yet the fine print of his proposal would affect couples making more than $250,000 (and individuals making more than $200,000)? That’s right.

Obama does love that rhetorical trick, doesn't he. I'd be interested in seeing what the breakdown in net wealth is among couples making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000. Are they mainly millionaires or not. I certainly know a lot of couples who are either in that group or getting close to it who wouldn't qualify. But then again, most of them probably will eventually have a million in assets.

[awesome possum]

So that brings us to a total of...$62B over ten years, assuming those hedge fund managers don't end up dodging it. So the President thinks insistance on these particular tax provisions -- which save an average of $6.2B/year during a time when we're running $1.5T annual deficits -- is worth sending the economy over a cliff.

So what you're saying is Republicans walked away from the discussion over a piddly 6.2 billion in increases a year?

Obama does love that rhetorical trick, doesn't he. I'd be interested in seeing what the breakdown in net wealth is among couples making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000. Are they mainly millionaires or not. I certainly know a lot of couples who are either in that group or getting close to it who wouldn't qualify. But then again, most of them probably will eventually have a million in assets.

It's semantics. Will we make more tax revenue off of eliminating the ability to itemize deductions for someone who makes $225,000 a year or $2,225,000,000 a year?

[Tempra]

These aren't serious proposals to hit reduction targets. They're proposals intended to score political points.

Like the Republican demonization of the federal workforce and related pay freezes / impending benefits cuts?