President Obama urges Congress to extend the middle class income tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses without delay, making it clear that a balanced approach to deficit reduction means that Republicans in Congress must agree to ask the wealthiest Americans to pay higher tax rates.
A new Associated Press/GFK Poll has President Obama’s approval ratings almost as high as it was when the President was first elected in 2008, and his new ratings are where they were when Mr. Obama announced the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Obama’s approval rating stands at 57 percent, the highest since May 2011, when U.S. Navy SEALs killed the terror leader, and up 5 percentage points from before the election. And 42 percent say the country is on the right track, up from 35 percent in January 2009.
A majority think it’s likely that the president will be able to improve the economy in his second term.
“Compared to the alternative, I’m more optimistic about government and the economy with him in office,” said Jack Reinholt, an independent from Bristol, R.I., who backed Obama in 2008 and again in 2012. “I feel he has the better path laid out.”
Looking ahead to Obama’s final four years, most Americans doubt he can reduce the federal budget deficit. But almost 7 in 10 say he will be able to implement the health care law passed in March 2010 and remove most troops from Afghanistan. And most think he’ll be able to improve the economy and boost race relations in his final term, though both those figures are down significantly from January 2009.
The “Patriots” in the Republican party woke up to some bad news today – despite their aggressive efforts to keep the economy down, and despite their obvious attempts to sabotage the middle class, the resilience of the American people cannot be defeated and today, and Republicans learned that the unemployment rate fell to 7.7%.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported an increase in non-farm payroll employment by 146,000 and a decrease in the unemployment report to 7.7%, surpassing consensus expectations of 80,000 jobs and an uptick in the unemployment rate.
Bill McBride: “With all the uncertainty about the impact of Hurricane Sandy, this was a decent report, especially with the decline in the unemployment rate. However, negatives include the downward revisions to prior months, and the decline in the participation rate.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) may have made United States senate history today when he beat his own legislative baloney, blocking a straight up-or-down vote on a proposal that he, himself, offered for a vote Thursday morning. The bill, which would have taken the debt ceiling gun away from the head of the U.S. economy by requiring a two-thirds majority to override a presidential increase to the debt ceiling, was McConnell’s idea, but when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid agreed with McConnell’s request for a vote on the bill Thursday afternoon, McConnell objected.
TPM‘s Sahil Kapur flagged the exchange:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wanted to prove on Thursday that Democrats don’t have the votes to weaken Congress’ authority on the debt limit. Instead they called his bluff, and he ended up filibustering his own bill.
The legislation, modeled on a proposal McConnell offered last year as a “last-choice option” to avert a U.S. debt default, would permit the president to unilaterally lift the debt ceiling unless Congress mustered a two-thirds majority to stop him.
McConnell brought up the legislation Thursday morning. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) initially objected, seemingly proving the Republican leader’s point that it cannot pass the Senate. But then Reid ran it by his members and, in the afternoon, agreed to hold that same vote. This time it was McConnell who objected.
“The Republican leader objects to his own idea,” Reid declared on the floor. “So I guess we have a filibuster of his own bill.”
h/t Mediaite
President Obama launched a double-pronged appeal in his latest bid to court business leaders, asking a group of CEOs on Wednesday to back him on allowing a tax hike on wealthier Americans and also pushing back against Republican attempts to use the debt ceiling in budget negotiations.
He told members of the Business Roundtable that the only way to reach the amount of revenue needed for a balanced package to address the country’s deficits and avert the so-called fiscal cliff was to extend Bush-era tax cuts for middle-class Americans while letting them expire for the top 2 percent of income-earners.
“By doing that alone, we raise almost a trillion dollars,” he said. “…The holdup right now is that Speaker Boehner took a position, I think, the day after the campaign that said, ‘We’re willing to bring in revenue but we’re not going to increase rates.'”
Obama said the GOP proposal to close tax loopholes and cap or eliminate deductions only goes so far — adding up to $300 or $400 billion — without hitting deductions that could harm the less fortunate, such as the one for charitable giving.
“We’re not insisting on [higher] rates just out of spite …but rather because we need to raise a certain amount of revenue,” he said.
The president also told the group that he would not allow Republicans in Congress to try and barter a debt-ceiling increase in exchange for more spending cuts, noting that the horse-trading alone over an increase last year sent the economy reeling.
“We can’t afford to go there again,” he said. “…The only thing the debt ceiling is good as a weapon for is destroying your credit rating… I will not play that game.”
h/t Politico
A brand new poll from Public Policy Polling found that if Michelle Obama decided she wanted to follow the Hillary Clinton route once her husband leaves office in 2016 and go to the Senate, she’d have the upper hand on Mark Kirk. She leads him 51/40 in a hypothetical head to head.
Kirk’s approval numbers are ok with 34% of voters approving of him to 19% who disapprove. But those numbers are no match for the first lady, who’s seen positively by 60% of voters to 33% with a negative one.
– President Obama’s home state approval rating is 57% with 41% of voters disapproving – those are solid numbers but he can’t match Michelle’s popularity.
George Zimmerman released this colored photo showing the injuries he allegedly received on the night he killed Trayvon Martin. The photo is an obvious attempt to bolster his Stand Your Ground defense on why he killed the unarmed teenager.
My only question here is this: would Mr. Zimmerman be this bloodied if he had mind his own business and not pursued Trayvon Martin all over the neighborhood, especially after he was told by the authorities to leave Trayvon alone?
Had he listened to the police, Martin would still be alive and Zimmerman’s his blood would be on the inside, instead of being prominently displayed in this colored photo.
Try again George, this one’s not gonna fly.
Republicans have decided to release their list of demands.
After the president’s plan at a balanced approach to avoid the fiscal cliff was laughed at by Republican House Leader John Boehner, Americans waited with baited breath in anticipation of what Republicans would propose. Well the wait is over and to no one’s surprise, Republicans are still protecting the rich and asking the poor and middle class to pay more.
Here are the basics of the “balanced” plan proposed by Republicans today:
1. No new taxes on the rich.
2. Spending cuts on services benefiting the middle class to the tune of $600 billion
3. More spending cuts on what is being called “Health Services” to the tune of another $600 billion
4. Revenues from “tax reform” equaling $800 billion over 10 years.
In total, Republicans are looking to bring in $2.2 trillion dollars by cutting services that benefit the needy, while at the same time, protecting the greedy. After releasing their offer, House Speaker Boehner told the press that the plan was “credible.” He said,“what we are putting forward is a credible plan that deserves serious consideration by the White House.” He also requested that the White House respond as soon as possible.
The president’s plan in comparison looked to raise $1.6 trillion in new taxes, while letting the tax rate for those making more than $250,000 go back to what it was under the Clinton administration. It called for tax reforms and closing loopholes and cuts $400 billion in services.
Warning that “the clock is ticking,” House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi on Sunday threatened to bring about a House vote on a bill that would extend the Bush-era tax cuts for families making $250,000, but would allow the tax breaks to expire for those above the threshold.
The Democratic-controlled Senate already passed its version of the bill in July, with strong support from President Barack Obama.
“If Speaker Boehner refuses to schedule this widely supported bill for a vote, Democrats will introduce a discharge petition to automatically bring to the floor the Senate-passed middle class tax cuts,” Pelosi said in a statement.
Under a “discharge petition,” a bill can be brought to the floor without going through a committee or without approval of House leadership. The bill would need an absolute majority — 218 votes — to pass.
h/ CNN
At a recent event in Washington featuring a speech by Hillary Clinton, the performance of the Secretary of State and the reception she received from those in attendance were analyzed by David Remnick of The New Yorker, and the conclusion to him was convincing – that Hillary Clinton was running for President of the United States in 2016.
Hillary Clinton was the main speaker. In a packed ballroom of the Willard Hotel, she was greeted with a standing ovation and then a short, adoring film, a video Festschrift testifying to her years as First Lady, senator, and, above all, secretary of state. The film, an expensive-looking production, went to the trouble of collecting interviews with Israeli politicians—Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni—and American colleagues, like John Kerry. Tony Blair, striking the moony futuristic note that was general in the hall, said, “I just have an instinct that the best is yet to come.”
The film was like an international endorsement four years in advance of the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. The tone was so reverential that it resembled the sort of film that the Central Committee of the Communist Party might have produced for Leonid Brezhnev’s retirement party if Leonid Brezhnev would only have retired and the Soviets had been in possession of advanced video technology. After it was over there was a separate video from the President. Looking straight into the camera, Obama kvelled at length: “You’ve been at my side at some of the most important moments of my Administration.”
When the videos were over (and as the evening moved on), there was much chatter about what Clinton would do after she steps down from the Cabinet next month—get a haircut; take a few weeks sleeping off jet lag at Canyon Ranch; read the polls and the political landscape; do good works; do good works for the good people of, say, Iowa—and so on. Everyone had a theory of which they were one hundred percent certain. There wasn’t much doubt about the ultimate direction. 2007-8 was but a memory and 2016 was within sight. She’s running.
“I am somewhat overwhelmed, but I’m obviously thinking I should sit down,” Clinton said as the videos concluded. “I prepared some remarks for tonight, but then I thought maybe we could just watch that video a few more times. And then the next time, I could count the hairstyles, which is one of my favorite pastimes.” An old joke with Hillary, but the crowd, tickled to be there, rosy with wine, roared.
When I was growing up, I had a good friend named Cliff. He was smart and funny, OK, corny, and a bit nerdy, but he had a good heart and I’m sure he’s doing wonderful things with his life.
Meanwhile, his name is being dragged through the mud.
This Fiscal Cliff business is terrible for anyone named Cliff and it’s even worse that it’s hogging the headlines around the holidays with no end in sight. The media is absolutely breathless at the thought that on January 1…very little will happen. Yes, tax rates will go up and federal spending will go down, but it will take a few weeks or months for the real effect to take hold. Of course, the real impact will be on the stock market and on business spending because if there’s no deal then they’ll have to make serious decisions that could tilt us back into recession.
In the meantime, the political posturing is so bad a team of chiropractors is on 24-hour call on Pennsylvania Avenue. Maybe that stretch that has all of the homeless people sleeping under scaffolding. The president and John Boehner could do worse than to meet there just to remind themselves of what effects their actions have on the country.
What’s obvious is that the Republican Party has learned very little from last month’s election. It’s clear that the public will blame the GOP if there is no deal because, unlike the far right, most Americans have a sense of fairness that says that wealthy people need to pay more and some social programs need to be cut because that’s what we do when we have a problem in this country. We compromise. We talk to each other. We each contribute what we can to solve the issue.
The Republican establishment doesn’t understand this and it’s in President Obama’s best interest to remind people daily that the failure will fall squarely on one political party. Grover Norquist’s notorious no-tax pledge has always been a bad idea, and its effects on our system have resulted in a government that teeters between not being able to pay its bills and doing just enough with what it has to mess things up. Ronald Reagan famously said that government is the problem, then set us on a fiscal course that ensured a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Elections have consequences and fortunately, this year’s results shifted the debate away from obstructionism and towards practical solutions. Unfortunately, political change take time. The Democrats didn’t realize how much they had lost the message after 1984 and it took them at least 8 years to regroup and find the Clintonian third way. The Supreme Court robbed the country of a slow recovery from the excesses of the Gingrich revolution in 2000, and the hardened right was able to solidify its gains in 2010.
It could take until 2016 or even 2018 for the left to realize what this past election promised. Marriage equality, a path to citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants, a fairer tax code, universal health care and biting financial regulation will get pushed this term in the Congress, but real progress will be slow. The last clawing cuts of the Republican conservatives will draw blood for a while longer, to the detriment of society at large. Perhaps the next president, who will be a Democrat, can push these things over the finish line. History will remember and celebrate Barack Obama for setting the table.
So as another week dawns and we wonder what new twists the political debate will take, keep in mind that we are seeing the end of an era. It was an era of excess and stubbornness, with some necessary reforms, but ultimately as much a failed experiment of the right as the end of the 1970s was for the left. The fiscal cliff is but a symptom. The GOP will lose more than they gain because they have to if we are to move forward. My hope is with the future.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest
Alan Hicks divides long days between the insurance business he started in the late 1970s and the barbecue restaurant he opened with his sons three years ago. He earned more than $250,000 last year and said taxes took more than 40 percent. What’s worse, in his view, is that others — the wealthy, hiding in loopholes; the poor, living on government benefits — are not paying their fair share.
“It feels like the harder we work, the more they take from us,” said Mr. Hicks, 55, as he waited for a meat truck one recent afternoon. “And it seems like there’s an awful lot of people in the United States who don’t pay any taxes.”
These are common sentiments in the eastern suburbs of St. Louis, a region of fading factory towns fringed by new subdivisions. Here, as across the country, people like Mr. Hicks are pained by the conviction that they are paying ever more to finance the expansion of government.
But in fact, most Americans in 2010 paid far less in total taxes — federal, state and local — than they would have paid 30 years ago. According to an analysis by The New York Times, the combination of all income taxes, sales taxes and property taxes took a smaller share of their income than it took from households with the same inflation-adjusted income in 1980.
Households earning more than $200,000 benefited from the largest percentage declines in total taxation as a share of income. Middle-income households benefited, too. More than 85 percent of households with earnings above $25,000 paid less in total taxes than comparable households in 1980.
