I’m not completely happy with the deal (another thirteen weeks? really?), but I can live with it for now. I don’t think Republicans will extend unemployment again, unless they get it paid for with spending cuts elsewhere.

I also hope they try to make the Bush Tax Cuts permanent.

thirteen-month extension on UI.

Of course, knowing how the Republicans operate.. it *could* be thirtenn-months. Who knows with this bunch?

I’m opposed to the (once again) further extension of unemployment benefits. However, the reality is that the Democrats still control the Senate and the White House. Extending unemployment benefits isn’t any kind of ‘permanent’ policy initiative that will cripple national security or create a new entitlement. Besides, don’t we win on the tax issue and thus having it as an issue leading up to 2012 is a good thing, no?

It could have been a lot worse.

But I’m not buying this.

I expected Dems to ask for more than this. Now I expect enough Dems will bark to get the package sent back for more goodies.

While there’s any number of reasons why it would be a Bad Thing for me to be a Congress Critter, if I’d been there I’d have refused to raise a finger to extend the Bush tax rates until the Dems admitted that for the last 8 years or so they’ve been misrepresenting them as nothing more than “tax cuts for the rich”.

the dems are free to pursue the rest of their agenda; Start, Dream Act, repealing DADT. I was hoping this tax deal would drag on till the last minute so they wouldn’t have time for anything else.

I agree 100%–the GOP won this fight.

We got what we wanted. They got what was going to be hard to deny.

We get the issue for Nov 2012

The democrats have to face the fact that 30 years of campaigning for tax cuts for the rich was a big lie.

I have no inside information. But I would be surprised if the Democratic majority in Congress (as opposed to the Administration) gives up so easily.

Think of Congress as having four groups:

1. Fiscal conservatives (all Republicans) who oppose tax increases of pretty much any sort and want to cut spending in order to reduce the deficit. In the view of this group, the Feds have a spending problem and not a revenue problem.

2. Fiscal conservatives (all Republicans) who would accept some tax increases as an element of a deal to reduce the deficit, but who would primarily cut spending. In the UK for example, the new Government has agreed on roughly 3 pounds of spending cuts for each pound of tax increases. The proportions of spending cuts to tax increases within this group would vary, but all would cut spending more than raise taxes.

3. Fiscal moderates (mainly Democrats) who would accept some spending cuts as an element of a deal to reduce the deficit, but would rely primarily on raising taxes to reduce the deficit. As in group 2, the proportions of spending cuts to tax increases would vary, but everybody in this group would raise taxes more than cut spending.

4. Fiscal liberals (all Democrats, including the leadership in both chambers) who would raise taxes and spending also. This group sees no problem with deficits and would increase the deficits if they could. In the view of this group, the Feds don’t have a spending problem, but do have a revenue problem, i.e. taxes are too low.

Now note that 3 of the 4 groups would be prepared to see some tax increases, but they would disagree regarding how much to raise taxes.

I understand that rumors are flowing that a deal between the Administration and the Republicans has been cut. But can such a deal as described by the article draw a majority in Congress? I am not so sure. The liberals, including the leadership in both chambers, will not really be in favor of such a deal.

Don’t get me wrong; I am not advocating tax increases. I am only saying that the Democrats still hold a majority and most, if not all, of them want to see at least some tax increases. They can cause that without a vote at all.

for all the others. Our system requires morals to make that second voluntary sale!

And in thanks for these weak republicans being so accommodating, he goes on TV and totally demonizes and destroys the republicans by all the same lines of “tax breaks for wealthiest 2%, republicans only care about the rich etc”.

Good Job Republicans.

The 35% Death Tax is unacceptable – they need to push that staying at 0%.

So the GOP needs to stall on that element and push it into the next Congress where we’ll be much better positioned to keep the Death Tax at zero.

Get ready for two years of Obama campaigning for 2012 as THE TAX CUTTER president. That measly 2% payroll tax cut is going to get used over and over and over…..the GOP better get someone willing to use O’s entire name in campaign ads this time or we’re really, really, sunk.

WAY LESS THAN HALF A TAX PIE?

The December 6th tax buzz is not good IMHO (if final)…

Obama gets more debt on us with another year of hush money welfare checks to the jobless plus the tax rates are not permanent. This means the whole tax issue was punted to the next election to lull voters into believing the demo-socialists have a clue on managing the economy while reducing the 13 trillion of debt they laid on American workers.

On top of that the inheritance tax relief was also not made permanent.

The OzBama acts like a tax cutter with a mere 1 year small reduction in Social Security taxes. We all remember his Party took SS out of its lockbox, dumped it into the general fund, spent is all and then taxed it! What gall. A real move would have been to exempt SS from federal taxes permanently but he is doing things simply to get a bump to campaign on in 2012.

There is NO reason to trust demo-socialists on taxes, the record is clear. How about a Flat Tax of 10% on that 40% (2/5) of wage earners that pay NO federal tax. They have NO “skin in the game”.
Oh, that is the base for the demo-socialist votes to tax the rest of us.

http://theconservativecrawfish.wordpress.co

On top of the last 99 weeks ?
Are you kidding me…?
Those people will be junk when those benefits run out.
Some how I have a hard time believing that after three years of sitting on their butt that these people will be ready to return to work.
They will all become fat cheeto munching alcoholics who’ll sleep till noon then watch T.V. all day.
They’ll be ruined.

In my opinion if you want to receive that sort of govt. help you should be required to give perform at least twenty hours of work a week just to get people out of bed in the morning and to make sure they are not scamming the system by working under the table.

I believe that this compromise is another victory for the so-called moderates (actually progressive) in the Republican party that has no real interest in limiting the scope and power of the federal government. How do they propose to pay for 13 more months of unemployment benefits, other than more borrowing from the Chinese?

Obama looks like a common sense moderate that stood up to his left-wing base while getting to demonize Republicans. He actually went even FURTHER than Republicans to cut taxes for the middle-class.

I really think Republicans could have had this play out where Obama had egg all over his face. I’m amazed there weren’t some hardliners like DeMint that would be against a deal like this.

All of the whining from the Kos-Krowd is meaningless, they’re not going anywhere in 2012 despite this move.

Obama scored big points today with independent voters.

Way to go Republicans. You had Obama cornered and you blinked.

Two years from now I predict we will hear something along the lines of “we tried it your way again, and it still didnt work.”

Where is the incentive for business to hire, if they are only going to be in this postition again in 24 months? Where is the incentive for a person to find a job if they are continuing to recieve a check for the next thirteen?

Once again the Republicans come up empty.

If the economy gets better, we can point say “see? extending the Bush tax cuts was the right thing to do!”. And the platform for saying so will be because the cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of 2012! So of course, we need to have a discussion on the extension before the election. After all, “we don’t want to get it stuck in a Lame Duck congress like the Dems allowed to happen last time”. So in short, if the economy improves, we take credit. Obama will get a little, but the media has already named these the “Bush tax cuts”. So just how much credit can O take? Especially given we can point out his campaign pledge to eliminate them — which is it Mr. President, are you an economy-killer or just a pledge-breaker?

If the economy doesn’t get better, the Dems will get tossed out of office regardless, because everyone blames the President for bad economies, even if it’s unfair.

2% payroll tax decrease is NICE by the way. That’s one to two grand in everyone’s paychecks … but since it just decreases withholding, it can provide stimulus without anyone giving the O-ster credit for it. Spread out over 26 pay periods, everyone just magically has an extra couple of grand and they don’t really notice. We political folk might give him some credit, but we already know who we’re voting against in 2012, and this isn’t close to changing our minds.

…with a golden rope, apparently. Folks, I understand that it’s fun and everything to score everything below 100% as an F, but it’s frankly a luxury that we can’t afford right now. We made the Democrats eat a promise that they didn’t want to eat. One that they really didn’t want to eat: the closest equivalent for our side would have been making Bush retreat from Iraq.

It’s OK to be pleased about it. Honest to God.

He looked angry and very unpresidential. Why the hell is he making a speech about HIS negotiations about tax policy? That is Congress’ purview. Am I wrong, or did he just tell them they were irrelevant? Is he daring Pelosi to disagree? In the end, it’s not his decision to make.

So unemployment will run out in the middle of Democrat primary season in 2012, and Obama’ll have to run to the left on record because whichever crazy socialist the Firedoglake people run against him will be out there talking about how people have a right to unemployment and that we need to extended it forever.

But without the House, Obama won’t have the votes to extend it at all. So he’ll have to come out in favor of a big extension, and then publicly conclude that the Reps just won’t let him go from 145 weeks to 200 weeks or whatever number. I’m betting that when the people hear Obama complain that the Reps are the only thing standing between the nation and 200+ weeks of unemployment as the first real argument of election season, that sets up for us pretty nicely.

Please bear with me here. Obviously this is not 100% what any of us want, but after the misery of being powerless the last 2 years, this is a big rebuke to the Lefties.

– those of us with businesses finally get a reprieve for 2 years on our taxes. Big relief for me
– there was NO DECOUPLING of higher income rates with the rest. Which means…
– this same debate will come up in 2 years. I think this will be a substantial issue for us to reopen this debate in the runup to the 2012 election, both for the White House and congressional races across the country
– the non-decoupling means we have a good change to extend all the rates permanently in 2012 or early 2013. Big win here.
– the Republicans don’t have to swallow the poison pill of filibustering an unemployment extension. We are all against it, but politically it was going to be inevitable to pass and the Dems didn’t get to score many cheap points against us on this issue, as I feared they would
– Obama has now infuriated the left. I think this may be the last straw for a lot of his fringe supporters. I expect all kinds of revolt by the lefty media and blogs, this will demoralize the Left and force them even further left in 2012 and try to run more liberal folks all across the country– forcing the Left overall further left is a huge strategic win for us long term and in 2012 especially nationwide

take that extra 2% and save/invest in their reirement. I KNOW I will ‘cuz 2% is about an extra $2,000/year since I’m always at or near the top of SS earnings… that extra 2% saved/invested will earn a LOT more than the measly amount earned in SS.

“Besides, it’s Christmas: the optics are bad.”

Aha – A moment of truth at Red State (America’s Grinch)

They are antithetical to democracy. Why should a batch of losers that were dispatched in an election be making decisions on legislation? Elections have consequences and Congresses must complete their work before the elections are conducted.

The Dems managed to plant the GOP feet further into the cement of greed. The Dems fought for the middle class, the GOP fought for the rich. End of story.

The tea party (like me) is starting to pick up on this guys. The GOP is not RED. Its not conservative. Its self serving – serving the rich – serving themselves and their rich buddies.

We’re just all the dupes, held at bay by Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Hannity, Fox News, etc.

Time to stand back and watch the facade crumble…

…the payroll-tax reduction for me? I know it’s temporary, and it’s 2%, but both the employee and the employer pay this tax, right?

So is it 2% for the employee, and no reduction for the employer?(bad for hiring)

Or is it 1% each? (no big deal for either party).

Or is it 2% each?(now that would be a big deal!)

Or is it 2% just for the employer? (good for hiring, but the employee sees nothing.)

The devil and the details….