Grover Norquist: everyone’s a winner?
A tweet from Grover Norquist:
Grover Norquist
- ✔
@GroverNorquist
The Bush tax cuts lapsed at midnight last night. Every R voting for Senate bill is cutting taxes and keeping his/her pledge.
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Oh dear God! After all this. Give me a break. This guy can turn anything into a win.
Is this not the zenith of hypocrisy? Where are the ATTA BOYS? What are the details of the new deal that has been passed?
Where are capital gains and dividends? Any details, folks?
Some stats from NYTimes.com:
The measure, brought to the House floor less than 24 hours after its passage in the Senate, was approved 257 to 167, with 85 Republicans joining 172 Democrats in voting to allow income taxes to rise for the first time in two decades, in this case for the highest-earning Americans. Voting no were 151 Republicans and 16 Democrats.
Haha! So, by Norquist’ standard, every republican who voted no voted for a tax increase, and therefore violated his pledge? Eric Cantor violated the Norquist pledge? That’s rich!
Here’s another take: Krauthhammer, “complete surrender on everything”
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/01/01/krauthammer_on_fiscal_cliff_deal_a_complete_surrender_on_everything.html
I tell you, the republicans are lost in space! They have no idea who they are or what they stand for.
I tell you, the republicans are lost in space! They have no idea who they are or what they stand for.
For once, I agree with Starry.
However, the conservatives do understand their principles. The mainstream GOP…not so much.
But, hey! Apparently, tax cuts for those making over 250K are a good thing……… Or were the Democrats just spouting ideological crap all this time?
The mainstream GOP is conservative. Just because they aren’t John Birchers doesn’t mean they aren’t conservative. Tsrgetting people as RINO is really a very ugly thing. I suppose I just don’t care much for the interlopers. The teaparty needed to start its own REAL party rather than trying to snag an existing one.
Why wouldn’t the R’s be happy with the Obama tax cuts?? People like Eric Cantor wanted to just extend the tax cuts, with no revenue – and they got 98% of that – I would think getting 98% of what I want is a win.
The Sequester remains, they just kicked it down the road by 2 months – so, cuts will come. Boehner could have had a grand bargain of a deal, within 400 Billion of what he wanted – and he walked away again. Sorry – if anyone has sour grapes over not getting a grand bargain, the blame is on the GOP leadership.
I do not know why the GOP has let Grover Norquist own them – and have so much power over them. It baffles me.
Boehner didn’t walk away. He voted for it as the Senate wrote it.
Who said he didnt?
@Moon-howler
The mainstream is not conservative. The mainstream will spend and spend just like the Democrats and grow government just as fast….they just want it to be THEIR kind of government.
Yes, the mainstream Republicans are conservatives. They just don’t wear pointy hats and dangle tea bags off themselves.
@Moon-howler
Apparently your definition of conservative is being based upon social conservatism while mine is being based upon a willingness to grow gov’t and increase spending.
So…was Bush a a conservative or progressive? He added gov’t programs, increased spending, passed the Patriot Act, and added the DHS, increasing the bureaucracy. At the same time…according to the liberals, he had unfunded wars…while they ignore the current unfunded 1/2 of all government spending. To me, Bush was a progressive centrist.
Most people who actually get into office and know what is going on realize that it isn’t as easy to live by slogans as it seems.
I don’t know what Bush was. I prefer to not narrow my labels.
If you are really governing and handling the country, you are going to have to “increase spending.” All it takes is a hurricane or a natural disaster to see that.
We are going to be paying huge amounts of money on the 40,000+ wounded from the Middle East wars over the next few decades. Unintended consequence? I expect 40k is really lowballing it.
No, not according to “liberals.” According to just about anyone there were unfunded wars. Ok, I’ll bite, who paid for them? Why do we still have them in the debt column? Were war bonds sold to pay for the wars? Were taxes raised? No, they were lowered.
I think what said it all was when the “conservatives” [sputter choke] didn’t want to pay for the extreme medical expenses incurred by those first responders who have ended up being so critically ill. They were great heroes when all the locals could press the flesh and be seen with them at all the parades. Now they are sick and dying from who knows what involved in the collapse and clean up of 9-11, no one wants to pay the bill. That is truly a national disgrace of epic proportion. Yea, stop spending and just hang those poor bastards out to die, with all their various respiratory cancers etc.
If we are in debt over something like that, or TARP, then who the hell cares?
I have lived under the debt of WWI and WWII my entire life. Ask me how much I care? Freedom isn’t free and its time a lot of folks all realized that. Hell, we are probably still paying for the Civil War. Virginia personally paid war reparations to the feds until 1930 according to the old Virginians.
You missed the point again. The wars were “unfunded” because no new taxes were raised specifically to pay for them. Guess what? THE ENTIRE BUDGET, except for Medicare/SS/and similar “entitlements” are unfunded. Everything for the “discretionary” spending and some percent of SS is funded by borrowing.
So…according to you…debt is just fine. Any debt. Fine. When the debt service is on $23 trillion and inflation hits….. say that again.
Its funny how you always go for the emotional hyperbole whenever spending reductions are suggested. So there are no other programs that can be cut? Are there no reforms? We are doomed to become Greece? You think its going to be painful now to cut spending…wait until 2020. Congress is too cowardly to prioritize.
Oh stop it.
Chicken Little. We are doomed.
You should’ve seen Norquist sqirm, when he was being interviewed by Wolf Blitzer yesterday!
@Cargosquid
Cargo- what would you cut to balance the budget and reduce the deficit?
My understanding of the situation is that the major driver of our future financial challenges (and already the majority of our spending) is Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The military is next in the percentage of the budget. So what do we cut in those four programs?
Just turn all the seniors over to the death panels that the idiotic tea party led by Sarah Palin invented. then they can die and not be a burden. Then the tea party can take all the money that the seniors paid in all those years and go start a war–a funded war, with their money.
There. A solution. Now will the tea party bake the whistle off their kettle?
@middleman
To begin with…Congress needs to determine priorities. Impossible, I know.
I would eliminate the departments of Education and Energy. Reduce HUD, maybe eliminate it. Eliminate the Dept of Homeland Security. Roll the ATF back into the FBI and Treasury Dept. I would re-examine our military needs. Do we need as many carrier groups as we do? What programs…like the Navy’s problematic LCS program and the extra engine funding for the F35 that the military says it doesn’t need…..can be cut? Since Obama announced our date of surrender for Afghanistan years in advance and Osama is dead…pull out now. Save lives and money. Unless we are getting something for our aid, reduce foreign aid, especially if there is a revolution in said country.
We need to reform the welfare programs again, return the work requirement, and bring back unemployment insurance back to being just that….not two years or more of welfare.
Take SS completely out of the budget. Whatever is paid into the SS Fund is what it runs on. Reform it. Raise the age requirement. Phase it out over the next 30 years. Or turn it into private accounts that turn all the tax money into savings bonds.
Basically, do whatever we can to bring spending down to 17-18% of GDP. That is our historic average. Stop the freaking useless bailouts and stimulus spending. If a company cannot stand on its own….it fails.
The problem is that the average citizen thinks that the money from the government is free and that they are entitled to it. And that include the business that are subsidized.
We need to reform the tax code to a simple flat tax. We need to rein in the regulations and make it easy to start and run businesses again. We need to get government out of the business of medicine and insurance. Reduce the government to what it is actually authorized by the Constitution and we have plenty of money to pay down the debt.
Of course, I realize that most of those here think that every thing done by the gov’t is constitutional under the supposed welfare clause. So, as I’ve said earlier….. we are in the neverending cycle of spending. We WILL become the Wiemar Republic.
Nice plan for a third world nation.
Getting rid of regulation is putting a little too much faith in the human spirit.
As for getting rid of energy, education and hud, won’t every happen. Shouldn’t happen in the case of Energy in particular. In coming years that will be one of our biggest issues.
Not sure what you are calling welfare programs. I don’t think you really know much about them or how difficult it is for people to get on them. Its an easy hand wave to talk like someone is getting something for nothing.
Social security–how about you just give yours up if you don’t approve of it. Those of us who have paid in thousands and thousands for year feel differently and are tired of punks like you coming along trying to take away social security. What do you plan on living on, just out of curiosity? Got a rich relative who is being taxed to death?
If I recall correctly, I believe you were on who was railing against pensions also? Screw you.
“Last year we started reducing the deficit though one trillion dollars in spending cuts. In the agreement we reached this week we reduce the deficit even more by asking the wealthiest two percent to pay higher taxes for the first time in two decades.”
President Obama
Really? Reduced. And people want to know why I say that the President lies with a straight face to the American people.
The Bush tax cuts did more to create the current debt and deficit situation we face more than anything else, including the two wars.
Cargo- thanks for answering my query. Unlike the House Republicans, you are willing to name your cuts, and I appreciate that. Lets start with where we agree (are you surprised?).
Homeland Security is ripe for reform. Instead of eliminating redundancy and saving money it has been used as a vehicle for abuse by contractors and the agencies. And they refuse to coordinate anything. Now we have an Army CIA unit, the FBI doing ATF work, etc. A lot of savings to be had here.
Agreement again on military needs. You list some excellent examples of waste. The military is about 30% of the budget and has grown exponentially in the past 12 years. Lots of savings available here.
On Social Security we start to diverge (surprise again!). Reform we must, but I think means-testing and taxing full income, not just the first $105,000.00 will do the trick. According to the experts, these adjustments fix it for over 70 years. Immigration reform will get more people paying into SS and will also help.
On Medicare/Medicaid, I’d start with putting a task force together to root out disability fraud. It’s a huge and growing problem. Longer-term, we need to change the way medical care is provided in this country- from service-based compensation to outcome-based. The Affordable Care Act begins to address this, but we need to go much further. The Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic are pioneering here. The major cost driver for Medicare/Medicaid is the cost of medicine, and we can do much better- other countries do.
Energy, Education, HUD- you can zero them all out with no real discernible effect on the deficit. Attacks on these agencies are more philosophically based that budgetary. Respectively, big oil and big religion are behind the effort to eliminate first two. Studies have shown no real lasting effect from gov’t. regulations on corporate profits, and no real effect on the deficit one way or the other.
Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and the military is where the big money is. We know what needs to be done. It’s frustrating that the lobbyists are in control…
The lobbyists who “control” social security and medicare are the people watching out for those who have paid in for years.
How on earth are you going to talk people into paying in to all these programs and then means testing those people? I hope I misunderstood.
MM, I am gathering that these issues are a long way off for you, judging from your response.
I see red when I see medicaid lumped in with social security and MediCARE. They should not even be part of the same conversation. People specifically pay into these programs as do the employers. Adding on to when people can draw ss or medicare is absurd. The social security is totally simple. Lift the ceiling off the contribution for flat tax it after a certain point. MediCARE rate can also be upped on the workers. Obviously people simply don’t know how much people on mediCARE pay out of their own pockets. The whole MediCARE D needs to have the drub companies absorbing a lot of the cost rather than the govt. and bulk buying from Canada should be permitted. but it has nothing to do with medicaid.
For the record, my granmother once thought that I was talking about her medicare and she said if I touched it or talked bad about it she would slit my throat. She wasn’t even 5 feet tall. This was back in the beginning of medicare and I doubt if I knew what it was even.
Boehner walked away, for the second time, from negotiations and a bigger deal.
@Cargosquid
cargo, you really do drink the kool aid.
SS does run on the SS money that it gets in. It Does Not take away from the budget – which is why it should not be on the table as part of deficit reduction. It does need to be reformed to remain solvent. SS should not become the cash cow to pay for other things.
The work requirement was not removed from TANF – states were given the option to get a waiver IF they could show better outcomes (ie, more working).
@Moon-howler
Moon- I think you misunderstood me. Means testing is a process to assess who really needs help from social security. There are various ways to do it, but basically you don’t pay SS to rich people. In my scenario, you get back what you paid in, but no more if you have ample other income.
I’m less than 7 years from SS, by the way…
I didn’t misunderstand. Why would a rich person want to pay in for years, especially with an uncapped ceiling, only to get nothing? Now, if there is some sort of reward to your favorite charity for not taking social security, that could be incentive.
I would agree with that…if rich people can’t take out more than they put in. Fair.
Glad to hear you aren’t so far away from that mighty old check that everyone seems to be treating like a welfare check.
@Pat.Herve
Actually, SS is currently drawing from the general fund in order to meet all requirements.
what is that supposed to mean?
@Moon-howler
Moon- you did misunderstand. If you read it again, you’ll see I said you get back what you paid in- no more, no less.
I am being a poor communicator. I changed mid-stream after re-reading. I should have erased the first part. I am on track now. thanks for your patience.
That’s all well and good if they really do mean the wealthy. I always fear “wealthy” is going to be $100k or something like that.
@middleman
SS is already means tested – ie, if your retirement income is $32K – $44K it is 50% taxed (thanks Reagan), and over $44K 85% is taxed (thanks Clinton). Effectively reducing the amount of SS you receive, but also moving the money from the SS trust fund to the general fund. Also, high income earners do stop paying at $133K this year, the employer portion does not stop – meaning that the HCE people still fund SS with no additional benefit.
That’s fairly low to get taxed by the way. You also pay more for medicare if you are above a certain amount. Let’s face it, $44k is really not very much money. So lets say you have a pension giving you 30k and a 401k givng you 20k and ss giving you $25k you are screwed. $75k is not sitting in the lap of luxury.
@Cargosquid
we might have a technicality here – The SS Trust fund is loaned to the Fed’s (and they pay interest) – The trust fund is solvent, meaning that the fund has money in it for the next 20ish years. The General Fund has been used to pay back the loaned money to the Trust.
So, the General Fund is being used to pay our debt to the SS Trust – not to fund SS.
That is how I read it and that is how it has always worked. The general fund pays back because it was set up for the overage to be used as a loan for other things. Regardless of how badly we bitch and moan about hand in the cookie jar, it is all perfectly legal. It sounds like an accounting nightmare for sure.
@Pat.Herve
Great info, Pat.
That means we need a lot more immigrants (or babies) to support us in the future.
@Pat.Herve
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/business/economy/25social.html?_r=0
This year, the system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, an important threshold it was not expected to cross until at least 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
This is what I meant.
@Cargosquid
Yes, tis true. But, what is happening, is that the Feds are paying back money that the SS Trust loaned to the Feds (and they merrily spent it) – it is not free money coming from the Feds out of our budget. Which is why SS Reform should not be dropped in with budget and other tax negotiations. It has a funding stream, and remains solvent for about 20 years. It needs to be tweaked, but it is not spending out of our budget. Servicing of the debt is out of our budget, but the Feds cannot reneg on what was promised to those that invested. For those that want to negotiate SS and Budget together, really want the SS Trust to have a surplus so that they have more money to spend, and never pay back that debt.
@Pat.Herve
Interesting info from the NYTimes.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/01/06/sunday-review/social-securitys-flawed-forecasting.html?ref=sunday