Debt
January 8, 2013 — John Hinderaker
The current federal debt ceiling will be reached next month, and Democrats have been furiously posturing to limit the gains that Republicans can make in exchange for the House’s agreement to raise it. President Obama insists that he will not negotiate over the debt ceiling–not ever, not for anything–and Republicans should agree to raise it without getting anything in return. (This is much the same as his position on taxes.)
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January 7, 2013 — John Hinderaker
If you doubt whether the Left has gone around the bend, all you have to do is read Paul Krugman. Today, on the New York Times web site, Krugman argued that President Obama should circumvent the debt ceiling by having the Treasury Department mint a trillion-dollar coin, which would then be handed over to the Federal Reserve, thereby freeing up a trillion dollars in additional borrowing. Apparently this was a
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January 4, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
The White House reportedly is interested in a “grand bargain” with Republicans as a means of avoiding the sequester and getting out from under the debt-ceiling. The bargain would involve raising revenue by ending or limiting certain deductions and cutting some spending, or at least pretending to. The White House’s strategy sounds like a variation on a very old George Burns and Gracie Allen routine. George holds four cigars and
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January 2, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Yuval Levin argues that the left should be disappointed by the “fiscal cliff” deal. Why? Because “their best opportunity in a generation for increasing tax rates (which is the only fiscal reform they seem to want)” has come and gone with only a minimal increase in tax revenue achieved: This deal is projected to yield $620 billion in revenue over a decade — increasing projected federal revenue by about 1.7
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January 1, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Politico has posted the full text of the fiscal cliff legislation. I hope you have more luck working with it than I did. The political logic of the cliff — the fact that, absent compromise tax rates were set to increase on all taxpayers — always meant that a compromise on taxes would favor Obama and the Democrats. The compromise reached is consistent with that logic. The $450,000 per household
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December 31, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Robert Costa reports that, according to senior Republican Senate aides, the tax side of the fiscal-cliff deal has been finalized. The basic framework is as follows: — Current tax rates would be permanently extended for singles making $400,000 or below, and permanently extended for couples making $450,000 or below; — For singles, capital gains and dividends of $400,000 or below would be permanently taxed at 15 percent; capital gains and
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December 31, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
President Obama has just completed his highly partisan remarks on fiscal cliff negotiations to a highly partisan crowd at the White House. If Obama actually wants a deal, he should hope that no Republican legislators were watching. And one can now better understand why Speaker Boehner became so frustrated after dealing on a sustained basis with this arrogant man. Stripping away Obama’s self-serving cheap shots at Congress — which some
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December 29, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
There are somewhat conflicting rumors about the status of “fiscal cliff” talks between Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell. Byron York reported that a deal is close, one in which tax rates would rise only for those making $400,000 (or conceivably $500,000) a year and in which there would be a few other cliff-related fixes. But Politico says that there are no signs yet of a breakthrough. It’s not clear that
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December 28, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
At the White House on Friday, President Obama apparently told the “summoned” that he wants Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell to reach a deal on the income threshold for tax hikes along, I assume, with a few other partial “cliff” fixes. If they don’t reach a deal, Obama will have Reid call for a Senate vote on Obama’s plan to increase taxes on everyone earning $250,000 or more, plus an
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December 28, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
The “fiscal cliff” consists of two elements — tax increases and spending cuts. The tax side is essentially a win-win for President Obama. Either he extracts a large amount of money for the government through across-the-board tax hikes he can blame on Republicans or he extracts a smaller amount of money from well-off Americans, thereby satisfying his emotional desire to stick it to Republicans and the well-off. The spending cuts,
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December 28, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Ezra Klein is a self-styled “wonk blogger” for the Washington Post. His work does, indeed, have a wonkish quality. But if you strip that veneer away, he’s just another liberal columnist who writes intellectually dishonest pieces intended to show that Republicans are intellectually dishonest. In other words, E.J. Dionne with a calculator or Dana Milbank with a smaller smirk. Consider the recent column in which Klein argues that conservatives aren’t
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December 24, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Over the weekend, I suggested that we should go over “half of the fiscal cliff.” In that scenario, the deadline for avoiding the cliff would pass, Congress would subsequently grant retroactive tax relief for the vast majority of Americans, and the mandatory spending cuts would remain (though hopefully with relief for the Defense Department). The “half of the cliff” scenario is far from ideal. It would mean that some tax
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December 23, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Most people think that Barack Obama is winning his argument with John Boehner. That is probably true, since Boehner has barely engaged in public debate, preferring to pursue the fool’s game of secret negotiations. The same thing is happening around the world, as demagogic politicians lie to voters, assuring them that the status quo is sustainable. Just vote for more government, and the money will magically appear. Somehow. American voters
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December 20, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Speaker Boehner has pulled his “Plan B” for averting the year-end “fiscal cliff” because, in the words of the Washington Post, “he fail[ed] to persuade conservative Republicans to extend tax cuts for the vast majority of Americans and let tax rates rise for millionaires.” I quote the Post’s characterization because this is how the vote will be portrayed throughout the mainstream media and how it will be perceived by most
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December 18, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
President Obama has made a counteroffer to Speaker Boehner that puts the two men within shouting distance of a deal that Boehner could present to his caucus. But much shouting — or at least much negotiating — remains before such a deal could be finalized. With that in mind, Boehner appears to be seeking whatever incremental leverage might be had. On the dealmaking side, Obama now says he will settle
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December 17, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Speaker Boehner has offered to postpone for a year any new fight over the federal debt limit. The Washington Post says that this concession is “breathing new life into the stalled talks over the year-end ‘fiscal cliff’.” And, in fact, Obama met with Boehner for more talks this morning. However, what the Post means by “new life,” I fear, is that, as a result of Boehner’s concession, the White House
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December 10, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
According to the Washington Post, “the contours of a deal to avert the ‘fiscal cliff’ are becoming increasingly clear.” That deal would consist of three elements: First, tax rates on the “wealthy” would increase, as President Obama insists they must, but by a bit less than he proposes and perhaps with a more realistic definition of who is wealthy. Some deductions would also be limited, as Republicans have proposed, in
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