Sequester Sillies 2013: Part 2

[Feoric]

Welcome to another exciting installment of Democracy in Peril: Crisis of Capitalism. We left off our previous installment with the Fiscal Cliff "negotiations", which brings us here: The Sequester.

Before we begin, let's recap what was accomplished as of December 31st 2012:

(a) Income taxes: An increase to a 39.6 percent for individuals making more than $400,000 a year and families making more than $450,000. The previous for those earners was 35 percent.
(b) Payroll tax: The 2% cut in the Social Security tax for all earners will be allowed to expire.
(c) Estate tax: The estate tax will have a $5 million exemption per individual, $10 million exemption per a couple with additional inheritance taxed at 40 percent.
(d) Alternative minimum tax: A permanent patch to keep more Americans from being subject to the increased tax level, which would have affected an estimated 30 million taxpayers next year.
(e) Doc fix: Stops a 27 percent reduction in payments to Medicare providers using spending cuts as offsets.
Federal employees: 2012 pay freeze re-imposed.
(f) PEP and Pease deduction caps: The Personal Exemption Phase-out will be reinstated with a starting threshold for those making $250,000. The âEUoePeaseâEU deduction will be reinstated for those making $300,000 or more. Under former President George W. Bush, these deduction caps were suspended.
(g) Dividends and capital gains: Taxed at 20 percent for individuals making at least $400,000 and $450,000 for families.
(h) Unemployment benefits: Additional benefits for the long-term unemployed are extended through the end of 2013. Those benefits expired on Friday.
(i) Business tax credits: Tax credits for businesses, including Research and Experimentation Tax Credit and the Production Tax Credit, are extended through the end of 2013.
(j) Stimulus tax credits: A five-year extension of tax credits largely used by lower- and middle-class workers that were expanded as part of the stimulus, including the Child Tax Credit, Earned Income Tax Credit and college tuition tax credit.

And last but not least, the spooky sequester.

Not this fucking bullshit again. What the fuck is a sequester, god damn it?

This goes back to the Budget Control Act of 2011, when America was having a taste of Tea Party insanity. The act raised the debt ceiling, but there was a catch: it put into place several budget control mechanisms. One of these mechanisms was the Joint Congressional Budget Reduction Committee, otherwise known as the "Super Committee," whose goal was to come up with a bipartisan solution to reduce the deficit. Yeah, right. It didn't work out and the Committee failed, to nobody's surprise.

As a result of the bipartisan failure, this activated another budgetary mechanism called the Automatic Budget Sequestration Cuts.

Per Wikipedia:

"The agreement also specified an incentive for Congress to act. If Congress failed to produce a deficit reduction bill with at least $1.2 trillion in cuts, then Congress could grant a $1.2 trillion increase in the debt ceiling but this would trigger across-the-board cuts. These cuts would apply to mandatory and discretionary spending in the years 2013 to 2021 and be in an amount equal to the difference between $1.2 trillion and the amount of deficit reduction enacted from the joint committee. There would be some exemptions: reductions would apply to Medicare providers, but not to Social Security, Medicaid, civil and military employee pay, or veterans. Medicare benefits would be limited to a 2% reduction.

As originally envisioned, these caps would equally affect security and non-security programs. Security programs would include the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Nuclear Security Administration, some management functions of the intelligence community and international affairs from the U.S. State Department. However, because the Joint Select Committee did not report any legislation to Congress, the act reset these caps to defense (essentially the DOD) and non-defense categories."

tl;dr: across the board cuts. Everything in the accounting book is cut by 8%. This will cut about 85 billion dollars from the budget.

This is supposed to take effect on March 1st, 2013. AKA this coming Friday. ABC gives a pretty good rundown of the "schedule" of how this will play out. I'm 90% positive it will, but not enough to bet my account on it like the AWB renewal.

Pay attention to March 27th, which is when the continuing resolution ends. Unless a new continuing resolution is passed on March 27th, the government shuts down. Like I said in the previous Fiscal Cliff thread, the debt ceiling issue was designed to pop up again at around the same time the sequester would take place. Yes, we have to deal with the debt ceiling again. Sorry.

So here we are! Enjoy the Mobius strip of insanity which is our Congress.

[Ceratisa]

How do you feel about estate taxes Feoric?

[Feoric]

At 2/26/13 06:54 PM, Ceratisa wrote: How do you feel about estate taxes Feoric?

In principle I'm in favor of the estate tax, but I see it purely as a numbers issue instead of a moral issue. People who oppose the estate tax see it as a moral issue that they are fundamentally opposed to instead of a strict numbers thing. They'd have to, because the number of people affected by the estate tax compared to the number of people who actually dislike the estate tax is way out of whack.

Taxes on the wealthy just need to be higher, even slightly so. The problem with that is the political climate, where the GOP would literally rather have the government shut down or risk technical default than compromising. If a deal can be worked out to raise tax rates on the wealthy, but the estate tax is not raised or even cut, but we're still bringing in more revenue, then I would have no problem with that deal. It's not an issue I care a lot about, honestly, compared to other things. The estate tax has been rather efficiently demonized via scare memes (people know it as the "death tax") so there's really no room to make it a centerpiece of negotiations, since so many people oppose it and it effects such few people.

[Camarohusky]

At 2/26/13 10:27 PM, Feoric wrote: Taxes on the wealthy just need to be higher, even slightly so.

Taxes on all people need to be higher. People drank the low tax kool-aid in the 1980s-mid 2000s when th economy was doing well enough to erase most of the complete and udder financial idiocy of the idea. Now that the economy has slowed, we're all used to the Soma of unrealistically low taxes and cannot fathom returing the taxes to prosperous levels

We may blame Congress for not doing their job, rightfully so, but we got ourselves into this mess by our collective entitlement attitude toward government. Unless we're willing to buck up and get out of it, we're only going to hurt ourselves further.

[Famas]

At 2/26/13 10:54 PM, Camarohusky wrote:

At 2/26/13 10:27 PM, Feoric wrote: Taxes on the wealthy just need to be higher, even slightly so.

Taxes on all people need to be higher. People drank the low tax kool-aid in the 1980s-mid 2000s when th economy was doing well enough to erase most of the complete and udder financial idiocy of the idea. Now that the economy has slowed, we're all used to the Soma of unrealistically low taxes and cannot fathom returing the taxes to prosperous levels

We may blame Congress for not doing their job, rightfully so, but we got ourselves into this mess by our collective entitlement attitude toward government. Unless we're willing to buck up and get out of it, we're only going to hurt ourselves further.

The low tax platform was pretty much specifically engineered by neoliberals to grow from a standard campaign promise into a core party element, as republican strategists saw it to be ridiculously fucking easy to instill permanent stigmas in regards to adjusting tax rates in the minds of their constituents as opposed to designing broader economic strategies that tiptoe around explaining how tax codes can and do in fact marginalize the voter base they try to convince can become upper tier income earners too if they just "try hard enough to pull themselves up by their bootstraps".

I mean I'm not going to defend millions of Americans having ill conceived notions about what actually constitute 'fair' in the name of taxation, but you have to admit it's hard not to have some amount of sympathy for said people when their ideas are pretty much the results of a highly effective advertisement campaign birthed from the efforts of a conservative think tank that had done their collective homework.

Basically what I'm saying is that said campaign platform has basically made a very large percentage of the United States population into die hard Pepsi fans, and no matter how much you show them that sucking it up and purchasing the generic store brand soda will prevent their house from digging deeper and deeper into poverty through pie charts and bar graphs and lectures, they're still going to be sitting in their basement sipping collector's edition bottles of Crystal Pepsi out of ther Confederate flag tumbler until they die of undernourishment.

[Feoric]

At 2/26/13 10:54 PM, Camarohusky wrote: Taxes on all people need to be higher. People drank the low tax kool-aid in the 1980s-mid 2000s when th economy was doing well enough to erase most of the complete and udder financial idiocy of the idea. Now that the economy has slowed, we're all used to the Soma of unrealistically low taxes and cannot fathom returing the taxes to prosperous levels

I agree that taxes on everyone does need to happen and an overhaul of our tax code would be ideal so that brackets curve out alongside income. But of course, what politician who's interested in keeping his job would support such a policy? It's going to be a long arduous journey, so we may as well start with raising taxes on the people who are hurt the least and let the economy get stronger in the meantime. Raising taxes on everyone during a recession is just not good policy, and while our economy is doing a lot better than it was under Obama's first term, it's still fragile.

We may blame Congress for not doing their job, rightfully so, but we got ourselves into this mess by our collective entitlement attitude toward government. Unless we're willing to buck up and get out of it, we're only going to hurt ourselves further.

I don't think the issue here has to do with a feeling of entitlement, it has to do with generations of voters desperately clinging on to a philosophy which is rapidly losing public support. This inevitably results in polarization and feel-good sensationalism. It's no coincidence the Tea Party arrived when it did. That's hardly "us" as a collective.

[Ceratisa]

In principle I oppose the estate tax. But that is because I don't believe in taxing someone twice. Sure you can make sure people aren't getting out of being taxed the first time, I don't really mind that. But I don't believe double taxing is appropriate.
(Income, estate)

And we need to be careful how much we tax our wealthy. They will move away like they did in France. We need to remember the wealthy can live anywhere they want.

[Feoric]

At 2/26/13 11:26 PM, Ceratisa wrote: In principle I oppose the estate tax. But that is because I don't believe in taxing someone twice. Sure you can make sure people aren't getting out of being taxed the first time, I don't really mind that. But I don't believe double taxing is appropriate.
(Income, estate)

What about federal and state taxes?

And we need to be careful how much we tax our wealthy. They will move away like they did in France. We need to remember the wealthy can live anywhere they want.

No they won't:

"If capital flight is a problem like you are saying, I want to know why wealthy people tend to live in places like New York (which has an 8.97% top rate) and California (which has an 10.5% top rate), instead of South Dakota (which has 0 income taxes).

Fun fact: people who renounce citizenship are still taxed by the US for 10 years afterwards. This is only if you are deemed to be expatriating for primarily tax avoidance reasons. The IRS presumes anyone with a net worth of more than $2 million (or average annual tax liability of somewhere within the $40k figure) over the past three years is expatriating for tax evasion. You can try to convince them that this isn't the reason why you're expatriating, but good luck trying to do that. Voluntarily surrendering a green card is viewed in the same light as expatriating, so you don't necessarily have to be a citizen for this to apply to you."

This is a scare tactic and you're eating it up.

[LemonCrush]

At 2/26/13 10:54 PM, Camarohusky wrote: Taxes on all people need to be higher.

Actually, the Federal Govt. needs to stop spending so much and giving away money so taxes don't need to be high.

[Famas]

At 2/27/13 01:24 AM, LemonCrush wrote:

At 2/26/13 10:54 PM, Camarohusky wrote: Taxes on all people need to be higher.

Actually, the Federal Govt. needs to stop giving away money

Please elaborate on this. Who are they "giving away" money to?

[Ceratisa]

At 2/26/13 11:32 PM, Feoric wrote:

At 2/26/13 11:26 PM, Ceratisa wrote: In principle I oppose the estate tax. But that is because I don't believe in taxing someone twice. Sure you can make sure people aren't getting out of being taxed the first time, I don't really mind that. But I don't believe double taxing is appropriate.
(Income, estate)

What about federal and state taxes?

And we need to be careful how much we tax our wealthy. They will move away like they did in France. We need to remember the wealthy can live anywhere they want.

No they won't:

"If capital flight is a problem like you are saying, I want to know why wealthy people tend to live in places like New York (which has an 8.97% top rate) and California (which has an 10.5% top rate), instead of South Dakota (which has 0 income taxes).

Fun fact: people who renounce citizenship are still taxed by the US for 10 years afterwards. This is only if you are deemed to be expatriating for primarily tax avoidance reasons. The IRS presumes anyone with a net worth of more than $2 million (or average annual tax liability of somewhere within the $40k figure) over the past three years is expatriating for tax evasion. You can try to convince them that this isn't the reason why you're expatriating, but good luck trying to do that. Voluntarily surrendering a green card is viewed in the same light as expatriating, so you don't necessarily have to be a citizen for this to apply to you."

This is a scare tactic and you're eating it up.

It has happened in France. And it doesn't matter if they are still taxed, rich people leaving ever to avoid taxes would be an issue anyway. It was so bad it was struck down in the French Courts.
Anyway
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/escape-new-york-high-taxing-
empire-state-loses-34-million-residents-10-years
Yeah it happens. (Other websites mention this as well)

People care Feoric, people are slow to accept change though.

[LemonCrush]

At 2/27/13 02:27 AM, Famas wrote: Please elaborate on this. Who are they "giving away" money to?

http://foreignassistance.gov/CountryIntro.aspx

Includes such important allies like China, Pakistan, and Namibia!!!

[Famas]

At 2/27/13 02:48 AM, LemonCrush wrote:

At 2/27/13 02:27 AM, Famas wrote: Please elaborate on this. Who are they "giving away" money to?

http://foreignassistance.gov/CountryIntro.aspx

Includes such important allies like China, Pakistan, and Namibia!!!

I don't know how you consider foreign aid programs to be "giving money away" or what your standards for allies are that would exclude China (one of our most important centers of economic interest) and Pakistan to not be important allies.

Regardless, you could cut every last nation out of that list and we would still be in the position we are now. Your reluctance towards foreign aid doesn't negate the fact that we need to reevaluate our tax code.

[LemonCrush]

At 2/27/13 02:56 AM, Famas wrote:

I don't know how you consider foreign aid programs to be "giving money away" or what your standards for allies are that would exclude China (one of our most important centers of economic interest) and Pakistan to not be important allies.

China is not an ally, nor is Pakistan. Pakistan worked against us in the hunt for Bin Laden. China is a nation built on slave labor. They have done nothing to earn the money we give them.

Regardless, you could cut every last nation out of that list and we would still be in the position we are now. Your reluctance towards foreign aid doesn't negate the fact that we need to reevaluate our tax code.

Continuing to spend money we don't have is not going to help

[Feoric]

At 2/27/13 02:35 AM, Ceratisa wrote: It has happened in France.

France has a wealth tax. We don't. We're not France. France's wealth tax is also a pretty poor comparison for the effect a hypothetical wealth tax in the US would have because the US government asserts global tax jurisdiction as I pointed out with that tidbit with the IRS. So explain to me why capital flight is a risk if we bring tax rates to Clinton-era levels?

People care Feoric, people are slow to accept change though.

They're even slower to accept that they're wrong.

[Ceratisa]

People care Feoric, people are slow to accept change though.

They're even slower to accept that they're wrong.

You didn't address my link, people already are willing to different states because of taxes. You can't assume they won't leave the country, then after they can't be taxed anymore we'll get nothing.

[Feoric]

At 2/27/13 10:30 AM, Ceratisa wrote: You didn't address my link, people already are willing to different states because of taxes.

Did you read it?

"The Tax Foundation acknowledges that taxes are not the only reason to flee a state. 'Taxes are one of hundreds of factors that go into a person's decision to move,' it says on its website. 'Others include age, technology, job prospects and the quality/quantity of government services provided.'

The foundation also points out that the migration calculator is not definitive. 'A true study that sought to quantify the importance of taxes for locational decisions would need to account for as many other factors as possible, in addition to possible serial correlation issues between variables, especially taxes.'"

You can't assume they won't leave the country, then after they can't be taxed anymore we'll get nothing.

Do you have any interest in not arguing in circles? Wealthy people are not holding tax rates hostage. They're not going anywhere. Where the hell are they going to go? Europe? China? Where capital flight is actually a real thing?

[TheMason]

@ Feoric

Just a reminder: the sequester idea ooriginated from White House, primarily it is Sec Lew's baby...not Congress'.

Also, the super committee failed because of Democratic intransigence... not just Republican/Tea Party intransigence.

No one in the Beltway is acting like adults. Makes for a very strong argument for decentralizing and returning to Federalism.

[Camarohusky]

At 2/27/13 11:19 AM, TheMason wrote: Just a reminder: the sequester idea ooriginated from White House, primarily it is Sec Lew's baby...not Congress'.

Wasn't it actually a Tea Party idea to ensure money gets cut regardless?

Also, the super committee failed because of Democratic intransigence... not just Republican/Tea Party intransigence.

And the Republicans single handedly made the fiscal cliff possible by looking every gift horse offer in the mouth.

No one in the Beltway is acting like adults. Makes for a very strong argument for decentralizing and returning to Federalism.

I hate the term Federalism. It is the most misused word in politics and the legal world. It means the OPPOSITE of what people use it as. Federalism doesn't mean to move away from Federal power, it actually means to support Federal power. Not sure what a better term would be, as "statism" doesn't really fit either.

[Feoric]

At 2/27/13 11:19 AM, TheMason wrote: Just a reminder: the sequester idea ooriginated from White House, primarily it is Sec Lew's baby...not Congress'.

Well, yeah, technically the administration did introduce the idea of sequestration, but I think you're missing the point here. The goal was to avoid a default that the House Republicans were threatening. After the administration introduced it, more Republicans than Democrats voted for it. Congress was the one who came up with the specific cuts in the sequester and now Republicans want to have the sequester to take effect.

Also, the super committee failed because of Democratic intransigence... not just Republican/Tea Party intransigence.

How so?

The committee failed because Cantor convinced Boehner to walk away

No one in the Beltway is acting like adults. Makes for a very strong argument for decentralizing and returning to Federalism.

Why not just go full primitivist like John Zerzan while you're at it?

[Feoric]

At 2/27/13 12:20 PM, Feoric wrote: The committee failed because Cantor convinced Boehner to walk away

God damn it, ignore this. I was talking about the Grand Bargain here, which is something completely different than the super committee.

[Warforger]

At 2/27/13 02:35 AM, Ceratisa wrote: It has happened in France. And it doesn't matter if they are still taxed, rich people leaving ever to avoid taxes would be an issue anyway. It was so bad it was struck down in the French Courts.
Anyway
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/escape-new-york-high-taxing-
empire-state-loses-34-million-residents-10-years
Yeah it happens. (Other websites mention this as well)

People care Feoric, people are slow to accept change though.

How many times does this have to be said CORRELATION DOES NOT MEAN CAUSATION. This article is hilarious, it doesn't even try to cover its tracks. For example it talks about how people are migrating from California to Texas, what it doesn't say is the roughly equal number of people moving from Texas to California. Even the people it references say that taxes are at best one factor among possible millions for emigration. New York is losing people not because of taxes but because its economy isn't growing as fast as those such as California or Texas. Simply put the biggest factor that is related to migration is jobs. People move to a new area is search of work, places have jobs because of economic development which is largely unrelated to what the government does. This is why say Texas is taking in alot of immigrants, because its economy is expanding. No one moves to new area's because "Oh taxes suck here better move!", they move because "I found a job there and I like it more". Taxes don't exactly effect job growth.

[TheMason]

At 2/27/13 11:59 AM, Camarohusky wrote:

At 2/27/13 11:19 AM, TheMason wrote: Just a reminder: the sequester idea ooriginated from White House, primarily it is Sec Lew's baby...not Congress'.

Wasn't it actually a Tea Party idea to ensure money gets cut regardless?

Yes and no. The sequester idea originated with Lew.

At about the same time the Tea Party was pointing out that Republicans typically get screwed when compromising with Democrats. The Dems get the tax rates they want and never deliver on the cuts. So when the administration offered this of their own volition...it was too good of an offer to pass up.

The problem: the Dems are better at messaging than the Republicans.

And the Republicans single handedly made the fiscal cliff possible by looking every gift horse offer in the mouth.

Really? Obama was more interested in campaigning (even though he had won re-election) than staying in DC and actually governing. What the Republicans should've done was leave DC until Obama returned to actually start negotiating.

No one in the Beltway is acting like adults. Makes for a very strong argument for decentralizing and returning to Federalism.

I hate the term Federalism. It is the most misused word in politics and the legal world. It means the OPPOSITE of what people use it as. Federalism doesn't mean to move away from Federal power, it actually means to support Federal power. Not sure what a better term would be, as "statism" doesn't really fit either.

Actually...yes...yes it does mean just that. A Federal system means there is a distribution of all powers between different levels of government. Therefore, everything from the central government (DC) to states to cities and even school districts have the power to legislate, execute laws, and administer justice. Thus sovereignty is actually shared between the levels of government.

What you are getting at is a Unitary or Central system of government. In these systems sovereignty is totally invested in the national government as is the majority of power. These systems work well in countries the size of European states where they do not have that large of a population and/or geographic area.

There is a 'living' view of Federalism where people look to invest more power in the Federal government and centralize it on the national level. But I think this is a perversion of the term and an attempt to couch a progressive agenda in traditional terms. I quote that ancient sage, Blues Traveler:

There is something amiss
I am being insincere
In fact I don't mean any of this
Still my confession draws you near
To confuse the issue I refer
To familiar heroes from long ago
Lyrics from eLyrics.net

[TheMason]

At 2/27/13 12:20 PM, Feoric wrote:

At 2/27/13 11:19 AM, TheMason wrote: Just a reminder: the sequester idea ooriginated from White House, primarily it is Sec Lew's baby...not Congress'.

Well, yeah, technically the administration did introduce the idea of sequestration, but I think you're missing the point here. ...

I kind of answered this in reply to Camaro. :)

No one in the Beltway is acting like adults. Makes for a very strong argument for decentralizing and returning to Federalism.

Why not just go full primitivist like John Zerzan while you're at it?

Because I understand that anarchy is just as bad as democracy: it is a system by which might makes right and civilization breaks down completely.

At least Federalism makes sense. Yes...it is not 1788 and the US is a very different country. And yet in many ways, a Unitary system of government makes more sense for the original 13 than it does for a country comprised of 50 states, over 3,000 municipalities, and over 300M people. After all, look at education. 7% of a school's funding comes from money taken from the district & state, and then funneled back to the district with a string of requirements that tie the hands of local school boards, administrators, and teachers. The educational reforms of the past 20 years have been proven to be failures and yet we cannot shake the yoke that comes with a part of school budgets that could be replaced with local levies.

[Famas]

At 2/27/13 10:30 AM, Ceratisa wrote:

People care Feoric, people are slow to accept change though.

They're even slower to accept that they're wrong.

You didn't address my link, people already are willing to different states because of taxes. You can't assume they won't leave the country, then after they can't be taxed anymore we'll get nothing.

It isn't because the tax rates are high. It's because people will do literally anything to get their tax rate as close to 0% as possible, which is insidious.

Remember when the Facebook IPO dropped? Almost a dozen new billionaires were created overnight and some of those assholes attempted to flee with their capital by migrating to Malaysia or whathaveyou only to be rejected for being a fucking idiot. As Feoric already pointed out, just because somebody attempts to leave the country doesn't mean they suddenly aren't taxable. It's not as simple as that. Besides, as a country in deficit , preventing tax shelter and loophole abuse should definitely be in our list of priorities.

There's also the problem that the capital flight argument that is commonly levied against tax increase proposals by fiscal conservatives treats rich investment earners as a precious resource that we must protect like a bird guarding her eggs. The government isn't supposed to pander its governance to 3% of the population, that's absurd.

[Ceratisa]

It's not as simple as that. Besides, as a country in deficit , preventing tax shelter and loophole abuse should definitely be in our list of priorities.

That just doesn't involve the comments about taxing the rich more or taxing money that has already been taxed. I openly stated that people and corporations should stop getting out of paying taxes.

[Famas]

At 2/27/13 08:04 PM, Ceratisa wrote:

I openly stated that people and corporations should stop getting out of paying taxes.

Yeah, but while simultaneously arguing that increasing tax rates on them could be detrimental to us, which is really confusing.

[TheMason]

At 2/27/13 08:11 PM, Famas wrote:

At 2/27/13 08:04 PM, Ceratisa wrote:

I openly stated that people and corporations should stop getting out of paying taxes.

Yeah, but while simultaneously arguing that increasing tax rates on them could be detrimental to us, which is really confusing.

It's not really that absurd once you stop to think about it rather than go along with the emotions. Tax the rich schemes often fail to bring about the desired ends and quite often hurt the 'little guy'.

When you take money away from individuals in the form of taxes and give it to the government, you are siphoning money out of the economy to launder it through the government to give to local public officials to provide you with a service. Part of this process is filtering it up then down through multiple layers of bureacracy. This money is thus taken away from re-investment in one's company, investment in another's company, or even local and state governments trying to issue bonds to pay for better roads or education. (When you hear about bond issues in local and state elections...they're not selling them to the middle or lower classes!)

Secondly, ever hear of the luxury tax? Sounds great: let's tax things that people consume but do not need such as fur coats and yachts. They tried this under FDR to make the rich pay 'their fair share', but eventually they did away with most of them except the ones that disproportionally effected the poor and middle class! How did a tax aimed at the rich end up unfairly hurting the poor and middle class? Because not enough people were buying yachts and fur coats to cover the cost of administering the tax so it was a money looser for the Feds. However, taxes on things like liquor and tobacco were on things that people from all walks of life consumed. A poor person did not pay less than a millionaire buying the same bottle of whiskey. But, the poor person did pay a higher percentage of their income on these taxes.

The absurdity is thinking soaking the rich is a good idea.

[Feoric]

I'll respond to this part since it cuts into my post:

At 2/27/13 07:14 PM, TheMason wrote: Yes and no. The sequester idea originated with Lew.

At about the same time the Tea Party was pointing out that Republicans typically get screwed when compromising with Democrats. The Dems get the tax rates they want and never deliver on the cuts. So when the administration offered this of their own volition...it was too good of an offer to pass up.

There's no debating that the sequester originated within the administration, but you're overlooking the role it played during the numerous negotiations. It had bipartisan support because the sequester was to act as a sword of damocles: if a deal was not reached and bipartisanship could not be accomplished, then a disastrous austerity mechanism would kick in and the sword would fall on the economy. It was assumed that this threat would force lawmakers to reach a deal. Except it didn't work out that way. Here's why:

"Cantor was one of the most influential political forces in ObamaâEUTMs first term. In June of 2011, the President and the Speaker began working toward a Grand Bargain of major tax increases and spending cuts to address the governmentâEUTMs long-term budget deficits. Until late June, Boehner had managed to keep these talks secret from Cantor. On July 21st, Boehner paused in his discussions with Obama to talk to Cantor and outline the proposed deal. As Obama waited by the phone for a response from the Speaker, Cantor struck. Cantor told me that it was a "fair assessment" that he talked Boehner out of accepting ObamaâEUTMs deal. He said he told Boehner that it would be better, instead, to take the issues of taxes and spending to the voters and "have it out" with the Democrats in the election. Why give Obama an enormous political victory, and potentially help him win reelection, when they might be able to negotiate a more favorable deal with a new Republican President? Boehner told Obama there was no deal. Instead of a Grand Bargain, Cantor and the House Republicans made a grand bet."

And when did the Republicans ever get screwed over by the Democrats during the negotiations? Have you been following the story at all? Because this is astonishingly wrong. If you were you should remember Obama offering a deal that included 1 trillion in spending cuts, and the GOP walked away from it like a bunch of idiots. If Cantor wasn't such a retard the GOP would have accepted Obama's 2011 deal. Which included Medicare at 67 and reducing the top tax rate to 28 percent. The Republicans have been begging Obama to put the 2011 deal back on the table because they now realize that Eric Cantor was very wrong and never should have bet on Obama losing the election under such grave consequences.

I have absolutely no idea where you're getting this notion that Republicans get "screwed" when compromising with the Democrats. Jesus Christ, I wish. My biggest criticism of him is that he is just a terrible negotiator. The guy's been caving in to the GOP all the time. And you know what's the funniest thing about that? The insanity of the Tea Party keeps saving him from himself when the GOP takes a hard line on "no tax hikes ever." Think about this for a second: Eric Cantor effectively saved us from Medicare eligibility at 67. This is why I love politics. You can't make this shit up.

The problem: the Dems are better at messaging than the Republicans.

Is this gallows humor or something? Democrats are fucking atrocious at this compared to Republicans.

[Feoric]

At 2/27/13 09:07 PM, TheMason wrote: The absurdity is thinking soaking the rich is a good idea.

What's absurd is pointing to the luxury tax as an example of why not raising the top marginal rates on the wealthiest Americans is not a good idea. Nobody here has called for it.