This is getting borderline ridiculous. Your choice is 39.6 percent on the the earned income dollar after $450,000 or the first dollar over $250,000. Your choice is 20 percent on the investment income dollar after $450,000 or 28 percent. Your choice is a 55 percent estate tax or 40 percent. Your choice is locking in the bulk of the most extensive tax cut permanently or not.

This is a no-brainer; you get the best deal on taxes you can and you take it. You fight spending and regain lost ground on taxes the day after.

Perhaps, but we’d expect some spending cuts to go with it, even at the cost of lowering the threshold for tax increases? I mean, Republicans were saying that the goal all along was to tackle the debt, and not just take the tax issue off the table?

Johnson, Toomey, Coburn et al should have voted against it and provided cover for House Republicans, on that principle.

In any case, our strategy has been further mucked up.

Of course, House Republicans can take the case directly to the people- do they really think a 41:1 ratio is balanced at all, to say nothing about whether it is a plan in the first place?

But, of course, they do deserve some benefit of the doubt here.

Is RS still journalism? The headline doesn’t match the article content which has nothing about Obama saying anything. And the sourcing of the “reports” is thin gruel… someone else says that someone else said that who-knows-who said something. And this not a diary entry but from the Editor. Who I get is mad as heck that R’s are breaking the pledge. But still.

But anyway, even with just a few dozen GOPers, it should be able to pass. Boehner may not even have to do anything, the Conference will be ripped in half as it is.

No, it’s not balanced at all. But it’s considerably better than the 340:1 alternative. And with taxes locked in; Obama’s has no cards left to play. He can bluster all he wants, but at the end of the day he can’t raise the debt ceiling himself or end sequester.

in 1 year, Obama will point to all the extra revenue from the tax hikes, and claim the deficit is making “progress”. numbers and statistics, lies and liars.

Respectfully, what makes you think that our Party leadership is capable of that? After the last debt ceiling debacle, the Speaker said that he’d gotten 98% of what he wanted….a year later, we’ve burned through another trillion dollars, we’re deeper into debt, and we’ve seen so serious curbs in spending as a result of his “deal.” Then, there is this mess. Sequestration was designed to ensure that we had actual spending cuts, By forcing the bipartisan committee to make hard choices or face steep cliffs. They didn’t make the hard choices. Now, it appears that our party leadership is going to trade away the cliffs, too. What makes you think that it will be any different next time? We had an opportunity here for real, significant, lasting spending cuts. Our party leadership wasted.

I’d rather not have to suffer along with the “Blue state” Obama supporters.

Wrong. We did not trade away spending cuts. Sequester will still take effect, only on March 1 instead of January 1. More importantly, we’re already at the debt limit and this deal does nothing to change that.

Taxes were going up *anyway*. If the objective is to keep taxes low, I fail to see how returning to pre-2001 earned and investment income rates helps achieve it.

Interesting. So how do you defend letting investment income rates rise from 15 to 28 percent when you can get away 20? How do you defend letting estate taxes rise to 55 percent when you can get away with 40? How do you defend going back to the Clinton era tax regime with NO spending cuts in return when you could have split the difference?

Obama could not have won without the support of wealthy libs in Hollywood, Wall Street and in urban areas. These deviants support him because they like his no-accountability social philosophy. They are sheltered from accountability for their stupidity because they can hire lawyers and accountants who manipulate the tax laws to their advantage. Take this away from them, and they feel the pain; most of these people are committed to their pocketbooks, not their politics. It puts Obama in a fix. The GOP turns the class warfare around on Obama, gives him the tax raises he asks for; if Obama objects, the GOP could say he just wants to protect his wealthy supporters. If Obama accepts, those wealthy supporters turn on him.

Of course this requires brains and guts, two things in very very short supply in the GOP, and on the American right in general.

We’re all going to suffer a lot more if we don’t take the Senate in the midterms. Even Chucky Schumer was trying to avoid a 250k hike on his “rich” (in reality upper middle class, and in much of NY middle class) constituency. If the GOP was clever they’d have thrown in limiting or eliminating the deductibility of state and local income taxes above those thresholds as well. Short term pain for long term gain.

You illustrate my point: the link posted in the article only claims Ed Henry reported that someone told him the “WH” said this. Presumably “WH” means some unnamed staffer there. But based on Erick’s misleading headline you think that Ed Henry reported Obama saying that which I don’t see “reported” anywhere.

You’re dodging the question to venture into theoretical. I didn’t ask you restate some obvious conjecture about confiscatory taxation’s impact on behavior. I certainly don’t care to discuss whatever magic wand you intend to wave to “make [wealth liberals'] foolishness expensive.” I asked you what you thought you were taking away from wealthy elites by walking from this deal.

Seeing as I actually bothered to read what you had to say and respond directly, a courtesy you don’t see any need to return, I’ll leave it to others can judge as to who is being intentionally dense.

Starve the beast by raising taxes? How did going Galt in the 1990s work out?

Let’s face it. Even when marginal rates were 70 percent, we slapped on two whopping entitlements on top of Social Security. When they were 90 percent, government spending reached 120 percent of GDP. Getting a handle on spending is going to require more than an aphorism. It requires actual leverage, and historically that leverage has no connection whatsoever to tax policy. However, we do have legal instruments in the form of sequester and, even more importantly, the debt ceiling.

The only thing dumber than throwing out all the Bush tax cuts would be to accept a deal in which we throw out those two tools. Fortunately, the Democrats are generously (or foolishly, or out of fear) giving us an out that preserves most of those cuts while still leaving us with our most potent instruments to get a handle on spending. We’d be fools not to seize this opportunity.

Genius, I started in the theoretical. This whole conversation started because you decided to comment upon a response I made to someone else which was quite obviously, at least to someone who read my comment carefully, theoretical. (The comment I made about guts and brains, signifying a counter factual, makes that painfully clear.) I was arguing that the House GOP should play a bit of class warfare, offering the sort of bill I was talking about instead of boner’ weak plan b. if Obama refused it, use the class warfare angle, stating that the policies that would go into effect by default in 2013 would still protect the rich (I.e. the loopholes/protections would still be in place). In short, double down on Obama’s own policies and then be ready to capitalize on the dims reaction to the proposal. I believe the entire conversation should be changed. I don’t believe we should fight on the field the democrats have selected.
Just do me a favor and don’t respond to my comments if I’m not talking to or about you.

Friend, you were responding to ragingatriot’s reply to me, in which you proposed the singularly stupid idea of giving Obama all the tax increases he wants PLUS an giant “screw you” on deductions. That’s not theoretical, that’s a hard proposal–dumb as it is.

I don’t even care how you figure handing Obama exactly what he wants plus eliminating deductions amounts to “play[ing] a bit of class warfare.” I want to know why you think any of this “do exactly what the Dems want” business results in a GOP win any time in the foreseeable future. I suspect your hope is a confluence of stagnation and Democratic incumbency will result in a backlash against liberal overreach. Given a long enough time scale and a theoretically maximized tax burden, you might have even had a point. But we also deal with reality, and the reality is that even you’re only proposing Obama’s 250K cap with deductions eliminated. So tell us, wise one. How does your small ball tantrum achieve anything?

If you don’t want me to respond to your comments, go talk about something else. Or just butt out.

How is averting a $5 trillion tax hike selling you out? How is securing a deal that preserves the vast majority of the low ordinary income tax rates while locking in a 20 percent cap on investment income selling you out? How is achieving all that without surrendering sequester or the debt ceiling selling you out?

Seriously, how can we dare call ourselves conservatives if our plan amounts to doing exactly what the Democrats want: forcing a return to the Clinton era tax rates while whining meekly as they trash us over a middle class tax hike? What part of that strikes you as a good idea? Do you like the idea of investment in small and new businesses getting taxed at 28 percent? Do you like the idea of every taxpayer in America taking home at least three percent less a year? Do you like the idea of negotiating with Democrats who will insist on even higher top tax rates just to lower them for the middle class? Who will insist on taxing all investment income as ordinary income in exchange for surrendering the debt ceiling weapon and reconfiguring the sequester to protect their golden calves?

What is your interest here?

Well, I’m a bit like Rep. Amash on Plan B here. I want it to pass, at least compared to the alternative, but I wouldn’t vote for it unless it’s absolutely necessary, and I’d probably vote for an amendment.

I think that the poverty threshold would be something like $29,000 for each family.

Would you eliminate the wage cap on payroll tax? If not, it’d become a regressive tax rather than a flat tax.

And you’re willing to return to the Clinton era tax rates simply because you can’t reach your ideal world?