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“…he will be able to restore the Clinton tax rates simply, with his veto pen, if necessary, in 2013″
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Is this a simple case of pay me now, or pay me later (assuming he’ll be re-elected)?

If Obama and the left believe so firmly that raising taxes is the absolute right thing to do and will have no economic impact why doesn’t Obambi demand that his fellow Democrats pass a bill to raise taxes now?

I hereby refer you to Remedial Civics 085…

…and Remedial Political Science 071…

This seems like an appropriate response to this dumb as a post comment

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN-drEG7wms&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0

AP poll — 6 in ten Americans say cut spending rather than raise taxes. Voters prefer spending cuts to tax hikes 62% – 29%
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The American people get it, but it seems to elude Obama.
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It’s the spending, stupid!

Republicans, colleagues of Paul Ryan’s, voted for the Bush tax cuts — which, as Obama noted, added $500 billion per year to the deficit — and they also voted for the (unpaid for) wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a massive (unpaid for) Medicare prescription-drug benefit.
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Ryan voted for all those things, and to refuse to allow negotiation for prescription drugs even though it could have saved tens of billions of dollars. Self-link with substantiation for each of those points here: http://poisonyourmind.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/omnibus-paul-ryan-post/
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Ryan’s stubborn insistence on a continuation of low tax rates for the wealthy.
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Ryan’s plan would actually cut their taxes. Which would be great, in theory, cutting taxes is funner than raising them, but as it happens, when we’ve enacted these tax cuts we’ve ballooned our deficit, while the Bush Sr. & Clinton tax hikes of the early 1990s set the stage for economic growth & surpluses. Plus, roughly all the benefits of the economic growth of the past 30 years have gone to the top few percent. So bumping income taxes back to surplus-era levels on the wealthiest is a simple, proven, conservative policy. I genuinely don’t get why the GOP hates it so much.
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There were those —most famously Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan — who saw it as a conservative ploy to reduce spending.
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That was the theory that Greenspan & Milton Friedman advanced. Bruce Bartlett writes about its discrediting by history here: http://www.forbes.com/2010/05/06/tax-cuts-republicans-starve-the-beast-columnists-bruce-bartlett_print.html

How about Gutless 101 and Moral Bankruptcy 101 for you and the Empty Suit

Thanks to Ryan, everything — the ridiculous farm subsidies, the inefficient job-training programs, even the defense budget — is now on the table..

Other than this, you’re pretty much spot on, Joe…it’s one thing to propose cuts to these items, it’s another to convince representatives from districts receiving federal funds to give them up.

Everyone wants to cut the budget, but generally not their own.

“The FY 2012 budget request for DHS is $57.0 billion in total funding,”

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/land-of-the-free-home-of-the-brave/

Oh good grief. Of course the American people don’t want their taxes raised. Who ever does.

Yet fiscal reality says you cannot get the budget back somewhere close to balance without cuts and revenue increases, which means taxes are going to have to go up, loop holes are going to need to be closed.

Even the likes of Bartlett and Stockman, no fiscal liberals by anybody’s stretch of the imagination admit this fact.

http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/2205/imbalanced-budget-ryan-gives-wealthy-free-pass

http://www.slate.com/BLOGS/blogs/weigel/archive/2011/04/13/as-ronald-reagan-s-own-budget-director-said.aspx

6 in ten Americans say cut spending rather than raise taxes.

Until they’re asked what they actually want to see cut, at which point they point to everything except where the actual spending goes……

Joe Klein is the last dimwit on earth insisting that Obamao is not a virulent, militant, fundamentalist, extremist, anti-American marxist lunatic.

Obamao is so stupid that he has no idea who the hell is paying the taxes and carrying the load in the United States.

Who is carrying the load? It ain’t the bottom 75% of income earners, boys and girls.

Tax Year 2008
Percentiles Ranked by AGI
AGI Threshold on Percentiles
Percentage of Federal Personal Income Tax Paid

Top 1%
$380,354
38.02

Top 5%
$159,619
58.72

Top 10%
$113,799
69.94

Top 25%
$67,280
86.34

Top 50%
$33,048
97.30

Bottom 50%
<$33,048
2.7

Note: AGI is Adjusted Gross Income
Source: Internal Revenue Service

http://www.ntu.org/news-and-issues/taxes/excise-tax/

The facts about the distribution of wealth show that the very wealthiest actually pay less in taxes than most people: http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-17350-9_things_the_rich_dont_want_you_to_know_about_taxes.html

Good column, Joe. One quibble about the “Brontosaurus” size of Medicare and Medicaid — Medicare is slightly smaller than the Pentagon budget and Medicaid is way smaller. So if those two items get “brontosaurus” status, what status does the military budget get?

The reason Americans want to cut spending is because we are spending too much. It’s obvious Joe doesn’t want to talk about the massive spending increases we’ve had the last several years including under Bush.

For all of the angst over revenues the only revenue problem was during the recession. The MSM can no longer dominate the narrative. With spending at 24% of GDP it’s up more than 20% from Clintonian levels. Liberals want taxes back up to Clintonian levels. They’ll get that deal. When they get spending back to Clintonian levels.

Washington Post Blog:

Ryan: ‘We got a speech, not a plan.’
By Jennifer Rubin

You knew it was going to be vintage Paul Ryan when he bounded on the stage carrying his own charts. “I carry them around in my truck,” he said with a grin to the reporters sitting up front. At an event sponsored by e21, a free-market think tank, the Wisconsin Republican answered questions for 45 minutes, first from Fred Barnes and then from the audience. Pete Wehner of e21 noted in his introduction that Ryan had “smoked out the president, who had been something of a bystander” in the debate on the most critical issue of our time.

Ryan smartly chose a conservational setting, giving him the chance to demonstrate that he is entirely in command of his subject matter and not afraid to engage and respond to all manner of inquiry.

The first question was the shortest. Did he think the continuing resolution would pass? “I think so!” he said cheerily. And that’s the thing about Ryan: He is cheery, calm and without rancor. His voice never showed a trace of anger or annoyance, although his message was a tough one.

What did he expect and what did he get from the president’s speech? He responded that he “expected an olive branch” and some “details and specifics.” From conversations with Democratic colleagues, Ryan said, “I thought he’d offer some details on Social Security.” He and two colleagues from the debt commission “went with a little bit of optimism. Instead we got front-row seats to the president’s reelection speech.” When he first introduced his budget, he said, “I knew we’d get a lot of partisan attacks. We didn’t expect it from the commander in chief.” He chided the president for bringing “himself down to the political mosh pit” of hyper-partisanship.

He noted that President Obama said last year he would address the fiscal crisis, then appointed a debt commission and disavowed its report. Ryan said, “We thought he’d go back to it. Now he wants another commission, the Biden commission” in which he again wants to delegate to other people the hard work of getting our fiscal house in order. Did it damage the chances for a grand bargain? “It definitely damages them.”

In a calm and measured voice Ryan explained that the president’s game was to paint Republicans in “cartoon terms.” He recalled that the president came to a Republican gathering in Baltimore in 2010 to make an appeal for reasoned debate. “Yesterday we got the opposite of what he said we needed,” Ryan said. He noted wryly that perhaps they should have been clued in when the White House sent a campaign manager and not the budget director or the Treasury secretary to the Sunday talk shows. What we got, he said, was “a speech, not at a plan.” He called the Congressional Budget Office to ask for the data. “CBO referred me to the White House press secretary.”

Much of the president’s rhetoric was simply untrue. Ryan said the president had dismissed the Republicans’ plan for “cutting” taxes on the wealthy. This is simply wrong. “We don’t include his tax increases. We keep revenues where they are and reform the tax code along the lines of the debt commission.” He explained that broadening the base and taking away loopholes will at least get the wealthy to pay tax on more of their income. “Right now they aren’t paying any taxes on money they shelter,” he observed.

Barnes asked, “Where do we go from here?” Ryan said simply, “I think he’s basically putting all his chips on his reelection.” Perhaps they can get a “down payment” on the debt ceiling “must-pass” vote, but Ryan wasn’t optimistic the Senate would even pass a budget.

Then he whipped out his charts and essentially decimated the president’s arguments. He said that 20 cents of every dollar is used to pay for the government. If Obama’s budget is passed and followed, Ryan said his children would have to pay 40 cents of every dollar. “The president,” Ryan said, “is saying it is ‘crazy’ to keep that at 20 percent.”

Would his plan break the social compact, as Obama claimed? “That statement says that America can no longer be the way it was,” Ryan said. Obama’s message is: “‘Stick with me, America, and I will give you security. And if you go with these Republicans they are going to feed you to the wolves.’ That’s a false choice,” Ryan said.

“The president gives us one new idea,” Ryan conceded — to delegate more power to 15 unelected people who will ration care and set price controls.

Did he talk to the president and the vice president yesterday? “No.” Will he join the new Biden commission? “Don’t know. . . . I just don’t know. Why don’t we just do our jobs?”

He also debunked the idea that he wanted to destroy entitlement programs. He made a pass at unraveling Obama’s wild claims about his plan’s impact on seniors. But the essence of his approach, he said (sorry, libertarians), was to save the welfare state. “We believe you need to have a social safety net. We think there is a consensus on that.” He wants to allow those programs to function, but to make sure we are a “paycheck nation,” not one promoting dependency. Rather than wait for the debt crisis to arrive, as it has in Europe, where draconian cuts are immediately implemented, Ryan said, “If you do it now and fix this problem, we do it on our own terms.”

Would he like to discuss the budget one on one with Obama? He said with a smile: “I just don’t think that’s how the White House works.”

He explained that the president’s analysis that the debt was caused by two wars and the Bush tax cuts was wrong. The debt problem has been a long time in the making. “The big drivers are entitlement programs,” he said, and he readily acknowledged that “both parties are to blame.” He isn’t gloomy, however. He said with characteristic optimism, “People know this country is in trouble. They feel this in their guts.” He doesn’t think the president helped himself: “We don’t need a campaigner in chief.”

In the questioning period he provided a few news tidbits. He said the Republican House whip thinks the vote on his 2012 budget is “one of the better-looking whip counts.” He also explained what Obama’s fail-safe is all about. “If you exempt 65-70 percent of the budget,” when you go beyond the caps you get “massive taxes.”

He was also blunt on whether Obama could balance the budget in 10 (or 12) years without taxing the middle class: “It’s not mathematically possible to not tax EVERYBODY.” According to the CBO, Obama’s spending spree would eventually require that the 10 percent bracket go to 25 percent; the middle bracket go to 63 percent, and top bracket go to 88 percent. Ryan also reiterated that the media (most liberal pundits, I think) were wrong about his reliance on a Heritage Foundation model. His plan uses CBO figures only; the Heritage analysis looks at job growth.

After the event attendees expressed the view that Ryan is the most impressive voice for the Republicans. For now, it’s best that he’s not in campaign mode. But come the fall, his party and, not to be overly dramatic about it, the moment may require that he run for president.

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rdw

Paul Ryan should not run for P but might make an excellent VP candidate. Could you imagine him debating Sleepy Joe Biden on the deficit or anything else?

Joe is in panic mode. He understands liberals can’t possible win any debate on spending or deficits. Yesterdays news the Budget is up 16% over last year is devastating. You elected a mam without a shred of business experience or a clue regarding economics. You are paying the price.

He could have used his veto pen last year. The best he can hope for in 2013 is he only loses 5 Senate seats. If in front of the election he veto’s a bill to extend the tax cuts further he could lose 10 Senate seats.

RDW,
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we agree, I want tax levels back to Clinton era levels as well as spending, so how about getting out of Afghanistan, Iraq and Lybia and decrease military spending accordingly, find other savings in defense spending, reform medicare and medicaid and start a true public option, change SS cap to indefinite and let the Bush tax cuts expire now! Voila, the House progressive caucus budget plan. I never expected a conservative to sign on to this one but I guess miracles do happen, just kidding. I know you won’t go for this one but it does look like we could come to an agreement. I am sure I would not even come close to an agreement on facts with the other “conservatives” who so frequently visit this blog so I am encouraged.

rdw,
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your criticism rings rather hollow when we had businessmen like W. as president who showed even a greater lack of knowledge, (not just in economics but that is beside the point). And I don’t even want to bring up Ronald Reagan, the b-actor turned governor, turned president.
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I am curious about the 16% increase of the budget. What is that based upon? The point is rather lost on me…..

Sorry, you don’t get to decide what spending. It’s back to the 2000 baseline adjusted for inflation. Afghanistan, Iraq and and Libya are outside the process.

I am curious about the 16% increase of the budget.

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good catch. my error, my bad, It’s the deficit up by 16% over last year.

US deficit up 15.7% in first half of fiscal 2011

(AFP) – 2 days ago

WASHINGTON — The US budget deficit shot up 15.7 percent in the first six months of fiscal 2011, the Treasury Department said Wednesday as political knives were being sharpened for a new budget battle.

The Treasury reported a deficit of $829 billion for the October-March period, compared with $717 billion a year earlier, as revenue rose a sluggish 6.9 percent as the economic recovery slowly gained pace.

GWB will get very decent marks as an economic manager with his two major failings spending discipline and lethargy on the banking issues. The main culprit in the financial meltdown is Congress especially Dood, Frank and Fannie and Freddie but he’s the President. He tried reformes and was rebuffed. He should have tried harder.

GWB did an excellent job being handed an asset bubble, accounting scandals, a recession and 9/11 in his 1st 9 months. The recession was very short and his 06/2003 marginal rate tax cuts set off a nearly 5 year boom. Despite his increased spending and war funidng his 2007 recession was less than 1.5% of GDP well below the post 70′s average.

One of the things Bush did very well was pursue free trade deals which added somewhere near 1/2% to GDP each year. Obama started blocking them when he got to the Senate. Very, very foolish. He’s probably lost 1/2% of GDP as a result.

Obama did one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen a President do. The day after he won he should have turned from an economic pessimist to an optimists. But he had a crises he could not let go to waste. He continued to hammer the economy and one of the results is consumer and investor confidence has yet to climb out of the toilet.

FYI: GWB gets mixed reviews from conservatives. He was a pig as regards spending.

robbert5,

I’m actually OK with Clinton tax rates and cuts in military spending but you’ll never like my suggested cuts in other programs to get to the Clinton baseline on spending. But you’ve got all sorts of problems with getting the Clinton tax increases AND cutting defense.

How does the guy to ran the surge in Afghanistan and started a war in Libya cut defense spending? How does the guy who kept Secretary Gates and help promote he’s excellent reputation go against his recommendations? How does the guy who designed the deficit commission ignore the recommendation of the deficit commission for LOWER tax rates?

FYI: Gates carved out a nice political box for Obama. Gates has been aggressive in stating the only way to cut defense spending is to cut the size of the military. They just increased the size of the military within the last 5-6 years or so in a bi-partisan vote. How does Obama advocate cutting staff after just increasing staff?

FYI2: The Brits and French are asking for more support in Libya not less. Obama made it clear our role w/b limited which after stating since 2004 the military was stretched too thin he had to do. How does he square increasing demands for actions he supports which budget cuts?

freeinpa,

Obama has been in office for two and half years. He had a “leftist” Congress for the first two years. Have your federal taxes gone up?

The real question is why when they passed the Bush tax cuts, they were set to expire? The reason is the Republicans were cooking the books in order to justify raising the debt. The only way they could try to get away with it was to say the Bush tax cuts would expire.

Now they are saying they want to keep the tax cut permanent. If they wanted them to be permanent, why did they make them permanent in the first place? Was it because they were lying to us then? Now after they raised the debt they suddenly want us to believe they are interested in getting rid of the deficit? Do they take us for being fools?

Why didn’t Obama raise taxes? Despite your opinion, Obama is not stupid. During a recession, you don’t raise taxes. Obama agreed to accept all of the Bush tax cuts because Republicans weren’t going to give Obama only tax cuts for the middle class. Basically, he tax cuts for the middle class were held hostage by the Republicans.

Let me ask you a questions, why when they agreed to the Bush tax cuts, the Republicans did away with the Making Work Pay Tax Credit? This resulted in a tax increase of the poorest of workers. Why are the Republcans raising the taxes for the lower classes?

it does look like we could come to an agreement

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Actually there’s lot of opportunity for agreement but I don’t think Obama is the guy. Regarding Clinton tax rates the focus on rates is unfortunate and in error. Reagan’s great skill and achievement as a communicator was in selling the idea of marginal rate tax cuts as a tool to grow the economy by restoring incentives to work and invest. Liberals have this hangup he wanted to get rich people to pay less in taxes. That’s just dumb. He knew he needed more tax revenue if only to fund defense. He wanted to get people to stop playing tax games and start declaring their income so it could be used more productively. The 1986 tax deal which brought 28% top rates wasn’t designed to lower revenues. They cleared out most of the exemption to raise taxable income and targeted marginal rates to bring in the same revenues.

I don’t think Obama can grasp this. His immediate reaction to lowering tax rates even 1% is that it will widen income gaps and that’s politically unacceptable. It’s true because people like Warren Buffet, who abhor paying taxes, will be willing to declare more income. So the rich will declare more income but the reality is be no richer. They’ve merely moved assets around from pre-tax accounts to after-tax accounts.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/135639-poll-tax-hikes-for-rich-should-be-first-step-toward-balancing-budget
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Poll: Tax hikes on rich the first step toward balancing budget
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Raising taxes on the rich beats out cuts to defense spending, Medicare and Social Security as U.S. adults’ top preference on how to close the deficit, according to a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll.
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Sixty-one percent of Americans said that increasing taxes to the wealthy should be the first step toward balancing the budget.
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By contrast, 20 percent of respondents preferred cuts to defense spending as the first option, while 4 percent said that cutting Medicare would be the best way to start cutting the deficit. Three percent said they preferred cutting Social Security.

stupid poll which you should know since it’s vanity fair. I am not quite sure why 1st thing should so takes preference over biggest impact but it’s relatively meaningless because even going back to Clinton tax rates doesn’t close 20% of the gap. The numbers prove we have a spending rather than a revenue problem.

Sixty-one percent of Americans said that increasing taxes to the wealthy should be the first step toward balancing the budget.

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Allow me to restate: 61% said getting someone else to pay my bills is something I can support.

rdw56: First you dispute the validity of the poll and then use it to make one of your specious talking points.
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As to the poll, it is a 60 Minute/Vanity Fair Poll quoted in The Hill. And, if you google the poll was used by many other publications and web sites.

How did I use the poll to make a point?

We just had the best poll possible on tax increases. The great orator tried to pass a tax increase in just millionaires and he could not pass it despite large congressional majorities.