American Politics Thread 2013: I'm a cool Rodham grandma in the USA

I don't get the medical device sales tax issue.

Tina Dupuy ‏@TinaDupuy 5m
GOP: We HAVE to get something out of shutting down the government...guess a pay cut for our staffers will have to do.

story behind the medical device tax is during the writing of the ACA all the major industries affected by it were brought in and asked to give up some aspect of profitability in exchange for all the new customers the law would bring them, like insurers are now forced to take everyone regardless of preexisting conditions, everyone except the medical device people played ball, so they just taxed them

its one of the ways money is raised to run the ACA, and its a booming highly lucrative field, and theyre being babies about it so the republicans are on the job

Shows you how many weird products aren't taxed in this country.

This one weird way to get rid of your medical device tax

And of course when the Republicans seek to get rid of these taxes they never mention how it will increase the deficit, or mention a substitute way of funding the ACA.

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Charles Pierce in Esquire re the upcoming budget negotiations and the sequester:

"Current spending levels" are what's kicking the hell out of people around the country. I just thought I'd mention that, since nobody else seems to give a damn. The president already has told John Harwood on CNBC that actual increases in the income-tax rates are off the table as far as he's concerned. That leaves only "entitlement reform" as a basis for any kind of bargain, and we all know where that goes. Austerity -- misbegotten, cramped, and utterly unsuited to the nation's most immediate needs -- remains the fundamental philosophy behind economic thinking in both parties, and will be the philosophical basis for any agreement. If the replacement for the sequester are simply another system of cuts that maintains this level, it's hard to see how the Republicans don't walk away from this still with far too much of a win for their vandalism. And, of course, the monkeyhouse is still open for business.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Deal_Of_The_Month_Club?src=spr_TWITTER&spr_id=1456_26929798

its one of the ways money is raised to run the ACA, and its a booming highly lucrative field, and theyre being babies about it so the republicans are on the job

― lag∞n, Tuesday, October 15, 2013 9:39 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's a li'l more to it than that. the med device industry is located in blue/urban/research centers (MN, MA specifically) so getting rid of the tax has 'bipartisan' appeal for regional economics reasons. both klobuchar and franken have been pushing the issue for a long time, for instance. warren, too? i think?

The president already has told John Harwood on CNBC that actual increases in the income-tax rates are off the table as far as he's concerned.

oh god charles pierce do you really believe obama wouldnt take income tax raises if he could get them, hes already done it once in the form of the expiration of the bush tax cuts on the wealthy, you are a very silly man

well they won the biggest midterm wave election in american history and there were predictable consequences, a few weeks of bad press doesn't magically undo that, esp w/ a second term midterm that should give them the senate coming up.

xpost

be curious to see if the gop manages to shoot themselves in the foot again by running insane people

Lisa Lerer ‏@llerer 6s
Boehner described the senate bill as handing the House GOP a "hand grenade," per GOP member

ha wow what a country

"If he could get them"... Obama ultimately signed off to less re income taxes than he and Boehner had once agreed upon in their grand bargain negotiations. Obama could have and should have also pushed for making the capitol gains tax rates the same as income taxes (which was mentioned by only left-wing bloggers at the time), cutting tax loopholes,etc . Yes, Pierce is less than precise, but "reasonable adult" O has not exactly been pushing for what he could get.

the grand bargain also included entitlement cuts, the word bargain is right there in the name

imna break this down for you: there is no way to get republicans to vote for tax increases, they will not do it at all

not even if you ask for only a little bit of taxes in exchange for their wildest dreams of screwing over the poor and infirm, they will not do it

be curious to see if the gop manages to shoot themselves in the foot again by running insane people

They can only get crazier. Christine O'Donnell's going to look middle-of-the-road before 2014's over.

Boehner described the senate bill as handing the House GOP a "hand grenade," per GOP member

So who's going to jump on it and save the whole platoon?

not even if you ask for only a little bit of taxes in exchange for their wildest dreams of screwing over the poor and infirm, they will not do it

― lag∞n, Tuesday, October

So you agree with "silly" Pierce that we are stuck in a situation where the only future budget negotiations will be regarding sequester cuts or entitlement cuts

seriously: what does it matter who's president, then? Aside from the date the revolt starts.

some revolution it'll be when the president sets the date huh

So you agree with "silly" Pierce that we are stuck in a situation where the only future budget negotiations will be regarding sequester cuts or entitlement cuts

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, October 15, 2013 11:22 AM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hes silly cause he implied that it was obamas decision to take tax hikes off the table, the argument which you carried on, but as to the future who knows what it holds, the next ~3 years youre not getting any tax cuts

david mcadams otm

Constantly wielding the threat of a debt default has, ironically, undermined fiscal conservatives’ ability to extract meaningful concessions on the debt, as it has hardened Democrats’ resolve not to give in to such threats. The best way forward for those who care about controlling our nation’s debt isn’t to make more threats, but to give up the ability to conduct last-minute brinkmanship, in exchange for tying the next debt ceiling to a fixed target for debt reduction.

not getting any tax cuts

― lag∞n, Tuesday, October 15, 2013 11:51 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tax raises lol

and fwiw w/o tax increases entitlement reform is off the table too so at least we have that

black guy is president. gay people can marry. immigrants can lead dignified lives. white people will be a minority soon. i don't think there are really any bargains that will satisfy the Republican base outside of "fuck 'em and this goddamned country, too."

yeah the only way forward at this point seems to be to marginalize the republican party to the point where they have to make a change, or just wait for them to die or something

I can visualize Obama and Senate Dems like Schumer caving to entitlement reform based on some revenue-neutral tax reform gesture that falls short of being a tax increase.

But as a negotiating strategy and as an alternative to entitlement cuts Obama should push for "fairness" in the entire tax code(capital gains, Social Security payroll cap, income, business taxes, getting rid of loopholes, tax reform) that brings in revenue even if Republicans say it is off the table.

Is the fixed target in that NY Times editorial example gonna be at sequester levels and how will you meet it (will it be from entitlement cuts or elsewhere).

democrats had congress and the presidency for a lil while not that long ago so who knows what happens next presidential cycle, obvs something would have to be done about the filibuster tho

I can visualize Obama and Senate Dems like Schumer caving to entitlement reform based on some revenue-neutral tax reform gesture that falls short of being a tax increase.

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, October 15, 2013 12:03 PM (21 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i could see them caving for revenue positive tax reform that doesnt technically comprise 'raising taxes', the revenue neutral proposal has already been unceremoniously rejected by all the usual suspects thank god

but again i dont think republicans will go for any revenue positive thing

E.J. Dionne Jr dreams.: "Obama can't slip back into the style of deficit wrangling that so weakened him in 2011. He now has an opening to refocus on his priorities: universal pre-kindergarten education, immigration reform, rebuilding our transportation and communications systems -- and, one would like to hope, an even broader agenda for speeding growth and sharing its dividends fairly."

...and free unicorns!

amazing how the republicans can lie us into iraq but the democrats have problems enacting romneycare

have we talked about this rather interesting development

Eejay Dionne and David Brooks make for a most loathsome twosome on NPR on Fridays.

Mike Lee (GOP Sen from Utah) apparently also getting a primary challenge from the "center"

Lee’s favorable rating has dropped 10 percentage points since a June Brigham Young University poll, which doesn’t skew liberal. More than half of Utah voters see him unfavorably; 57 percent said he should be more willing to compromise. In a separate survey, a majority of Utah voters now disapprove of the Tea Party’s influence.

Like Amash, Lee will be challenged from his left. Josh Romney and Dan Liljenquist are waiting in the wings. If Lee survives that primary contest, there’s an excellent chance that Democratic Representative Jim Matheson -- who’s been gerrymandered into unwinnable districts twice but still wins -- could win a statewide race in the reddest state in the country.

amazing how the republicans can lie us into iraq but the democrats have problems enacting romneycare

― reggie (qualmsley), Tuesday, October 15, 2013 12:41 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i would just like to make a point re the meme that obama/romneycare was a republican idea - its literally true but its not really true, the concept thought up by a republican think tank just so that republicans would have an idea to propose when arguing against democrat socialized healthcare to make them seem like reasonable people who really wanted to insure everyone

as a whole they had no intention of actually passing it, a few stray moderate members aside, in reality they were always opposed to any government program that gave more people access to healthcare

romney didnt understand that cause he was never part of the conservative movement really, he was just just a weird mormon businessman stuck up in taxachusetts, a relic, he actually thought passing romneycare would help his national chances, lmao what a rube

that is interesting! xps: the amash thing. he's probably the most interesting of the tp/libertarian types running around now. apparently explains every single vote he takes on his fb page.

Justin Amash
October 9
[Vote from July 24, 2013]

I voted no on H R 2397, Department of Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2014. The bill spends $28 billion more than the current post-sequester level for FY 2013 and violates the spending caps in the Budget Control Act (the 2011 debt ceiling deal) for FY 2014 by nearly $45 billion. It funds wasteful projects, reinforces the unconstitutional indefinite detention policies that threaten Americans on U.S. soil, and continues to allow the unconstitutional bulk, suspicionless collection of Americans' telephone records.

Contrary to popular assertions, military spending has been higher under Pres. Obama than under Pres. Bush. To be credible on deficit reduction, Congress must begin making reforms to military spending, which is the federal government's second largest expenditure and nearly equal to the military spending of the rest of the world combined. When Congress passes bills like this one, no one should take Congress's commitment to reining in deficits—or protecting individual rights—seriously.

It passed 315-109.

i have a pet theory that high military spending is a major contributor to a lot of our problems, because it consists of government spending that most people dont see any tangible result for, which leads to the reasonable conclusion that taxes are bullshit that dont do anyone any good and the government is super wasteful

I wish I could put Jim Matheson and Jon Huntsman into a "sit or start" calculator, just like I do with my fantasy wide receivers.

but god forbid anyone actually vote "against the veterans" when most of the money is going to a black ops bomber that never gets produced

id like to thank the brave people in my feed who RT the wingnut memes of the day, i dont have the stomach to actually follow this stuff but its educational to get some idea of what theyre currently up to

Love Of Freedom ‏@Love0fFreedom 24 Mar 12
If #obama Legalizes 50 Million Muslims We Are Dead! They Will Kill Us! They Despise Us Just As He Does! #DeportMuslims
Retweeted by Ann Boobus

it's like a junior high cafeteria over in john birch society land

apparently explains every single vote he takes on his fb page.

This is astounding, I had no idea.

There's no limit to the crazy in Kent Cty, MI, I'm sorry to say. That's a deep, deep well.

no to shill for the guy but it is fascinating reading

https://www.facebook.com/repjustinamash

lol @ "glenn greenwood"

pparently explains every single vote he takes on his fb page.

This is astounding, I had no idea.

― Tottenham Heelspur (in orbit), Tuesday, October 15, 2013 1:29 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah thats cool as hell

Sharon Burkett Johnson Voting you out next opportunity, what are you doing to get the government back to work?

someone should post on his wall to keep up the good fight, we'll be greeted as liberators once we default