The Fiscal Cliff....or is it more like the Fiscal Meh?

And that's per year right? The graph made it more easier for me to understand. Thanks

 

Yes....per year and unlike income tax that you dont pay until the following year, you will see it in your next paycheck with the payroll tax going back up to 6.2%.

The lower payroll tax was not sustainable long term for the fiscal integrity of Social Security.

The Bush tax rates, particularly on the top bracket, were not sustainable for any real long term debt reduction, having already contributed more than $1 trillion to the debt (and other $3 trillion projected over 10 years if the top Bush rate had been made permanent).

 

I saw this in my paycheck this week, but it was more like $54 bucks deducted for two weeks pay, $27 a week.
What doesn't make sense to me is they deducted this for my last week in Dec and first week of Jan.
That totally sucks!

 

In my opinion, Americans on all steps on the income ladder, don't pay enough taxes. I've always thought this. Over the last 15 years, since the advent of wage stagnation, it hurts the lower and middle class more, but to have the kind of society we want, with the educational system, infrastructure, and safety net our societies should be striving for, we have to realize that the benefits to us in having this kind of society will cost us. All of us.

Some don't want this sort of communally based society. Some would prefer the US go the rugged individualist route. I don't think these folks understand what life would be like if the governmental services we take for granted, were no longer available.

No public school system
No federal subsidies on student loans
No food, drug, health, safety or product inspection
No environmental control
No federal highway maintenance
No military
No social security
No health benefits for the poor and elderly
No governmental support staff
No ATF
No National Guard
No Forestry Service
No Justice Dept
No FBI
No CIA
No oversight
No regulations

Just corporations...................

I wouldn't want to live in this country.

 

Joniemack, that is exactly the US that many Tea Party types and Libertarians envision. It is a horrifying vision.

If that were to become a thing in Canada, I would return there tomorrow to fight it... to my last breath.

 

The Tea Party does not support anarchy. If we could ever have a serious discussion about the issues, we would make some progress. It is absurd for liberals taking the Tea Party message of wanting to fix the tax code and to control spending to not wanting to educate children.
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The vast majority of the Bush tax cuts are still in place (Democrats and the President have had countless opportunities to put in place their own plan), the new rates on the top bracket are virtually meaningless in terms of the total federal budget and truly meaningless in terms of the national debt - these rates are nothing but a symbolic victory for the President.

Since you comment on the subject of taxes, I am curious to know why you think the Administration and the Senate failed to put Carried Interest on the table and fix it? Only a select few billionaires/near billionaires can take advantage of this loophole and fixing the loophole would get enough Republican support to pass. this would have been a more significant symbolic gesture than changing the nominal top rates - that real rich people won't pay anyway.

Could it be that Democrats sold-out to some powerful " campaign contribution bundlers"?
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Not absurd at all.

The natural conclusion of all the rhetoric I read is about privatizing everything and leaving it the, apparently more efficient, public sector.

It's just a con.

 

You're spending too much time following their desires to their natural conclusions. You should just stick with the things they say they want now. The marvelous, vague, plan-free things they want now. You know, freedom from sharia law, and, uh, lower taxes (has anyone ever thought of implementing a flat tax?!), and forcing women to walk around with vag-mounted transvaginal ultrasound wands 24 hours a day to protect their preborn constituents. Stuff like that.

 

What a load of crap.

The Tea Party is not about fixing the tax code, but is all about eliminating government as much as possible and as indiscriminately as possible, not caring at all about the economic and social impact.
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Grover Norquist:

"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."​

This is the guiding force of the Judson Phillips and Dick Armeys
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Along with their highly selective interpretation of the Constitution....getting govt out of private lives except when it is in their personal interests to have govt in their lives.

 

First you suggest that the carried interest was off the table to get Republican support...then you suggest it was a sell-out to "campaign contribution bundlers"

I think it was the former.

But in either case, it was the best short term deal available to ensure that the middle class were not hit immediately with the double whammy of higher rates AND the end of the payroll tax holiday.

Obama offered Boehner a larger deal before Christmas-- $1.2 trillion in spending cuts and tax increases, including a chained-CPI for Social Security (with much opposition from the left).

Boehner walked away from the deal, only to then see his own Plan B (higher taxes only on $1 million+) fail to the Tea Party insurrection, with McConnell having to rescue the Republicans from complete failure to act.

And since then, more and more right-leaning business groups like the Business Roundtable are moving away from the extremists in the Republican Party who want to hold the debt limit hostage.

 

The only thing that would be worse would be if the Libertarians actually managed to get traction.