Yeah, it was bound to happen. Mr. Nice-Guy-In-Chief seems as though he's had just about enough of the B.S., and delivered a well deserved smack down on Congress with his Press Conference Yesterday.
"Before we ask our seniors to pay more for Medicare, before we cut our children's schools, we should ask corporate jet owners to pay more," he said. "I don't think that's real radical. I think the majority of Americans agree with that."
As reported by Talking Points Memo.
President Obama opened up his press conference with jabs at Congress for failing to pass a series of bills aimed at creating jobs and at Republicans for refusing to end tax breaks on the wealthy.
Acknowledging widespread pessimism among Americans over the state of the economy, Obama urged patience.
"The struggles of middle class families were a big problem before the recession hit in 2007," he said. "They weren't created overnight, and the truth is our economic challenges are not going to be solved overnight."
And it seems like what he's said has invigorated some of the Dems, like Senator Chuck Schumer.
"Speaker Boehner should realize we're in a different world than we were even a few months ago," Schumer told reporters at the Capitol Wednesday. "He needs Democrats to pass a bill through the House."
A number of Republican House members have said they won't vote to raise the debt limit at all, or only under certain, highly partisan circumstances. Schumer's math suggests that means he'll need Democratic votes to pass a viable debt limit bill, and that means new revenues will have to be part of the equation.
As I've written before history shows that lower taxes have not neccesarily led to stronger economic growth, and higher taxes have not proven to be "job killing".
Back in the 1950s, when the top marginal tax rate was more than 90 percent, real annual growth averaged more than 4 percent. During the last eight years, when the top marginal rate was just 35 percent, real growth was less than half that. Altogether, in years when the top marginal rate was lower than 39.6 percent the top rate during the 1990s annual real growth averaged 2.1 percent. In years when the rate was 39.6 percent or higher, real growth averaged 3.8 percent. The pattern is the same regardless of threshold. Take 50 percent, for example. Growth in years when the tax rate was less than 50 percent averaged 2.7 percent. In years with tax rates at or more than 50 percent, growth was 3.7 percent.
It's clear that the Recovery Act did Work as we head into 13 straight months of job growth.
What we need is for those positive job numbers to continue to increase, but the GOP plan of "austerity" isn't going to make that happen.
In fact those states that have spent more have been the ones who've created more jobs - not the ones who've spent less.
Steep state spending cuts have gone hand-in-hand with rising unemployment rates, falling private-sector payroll employment, and lower growth in state’s gross domestic product, or GDP — the sum of all goods and services produced by labor and equipment in each state, less imports.
Take private sector jobs, for example. This graph shows that state spending is not just about jobs for public service workers, but also has far reaching consequences for private businesses and their workers. The downward sloping red line shows the relationship between cuts to state spending and changes in private sector employment relative to the national average since the start of the Great Recession. States that cut spending are seeing significantly more job losses in the private sector than states maintaining or increasing spending levels. For every 10 percent cut in state spending, state economies lost 1.6 percent of their private-sector jobs.
Tax revenues really are at their lowest point in decades.
Meanwhile U.S. Corporations are using these low tax rates to make record profits and sitting on them until they hatch or sending jobs overseas instead of creating American jobs.
The CBO has already stated that if Congress Does Nothing the Budget will come to balance in 2016 - which is Decades Sooner than the Ryan plan or anything the Republicans have even suggested such as permanently extending the Bush Tax Cuts (shown in the second chart below).
Of course this scenario depends on retaining the Affordable Care Act as is, and a complete end to all of the Bush Tax Cuts. Unfortunately President Obama stands against raising taxes on the middle class - so he has to make up the difference somewhere. He has shown he's willing to make some cuts as long as they don't place children, the elderly, sick and poor in danger or at a further disadvantage than they already have, but as of yesterday he has also shown
where he draws the line in the sand. Revenues HAVE to be raised.
When you have heavy lifting to do, why not ask the countries strongest members to do the toughest pushing and pulling first, rather than shoving the most vulnerable under the bus to get crushed?
This is now a where the game of Debt Ceiling Chicken truly begins, and more importantly where we can help. We need to back the President up and let the Speaker know that we agree with him".
"Before we ask our seniors to pay more for Medicare, before we cut our children's schools, we should ask corporate jet owners to pay more," he said. "I don't think that's real radical. I think the majority of Americans agree with that."
I think the majority of Americans really do agree with that. (The Polls Clearly Confirm it by 2 to 1)
On taxes, the poll reported that roughly two out of three registered voters — 64 percent — would be in favor of increasing taxes on annual income over $250,000. President Obama reiterated in his deficit-reduction speech last week that he favored allowing taxes to rise on families in that income level.
...
Meanwhile, fully four in five registered voters oppose cutting Medicare and Medicaid. The House GOP’s fiscal 2012 budget, largely crafted by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), makes fundamental long-term changes to both health entitlement programs, converting Medicaid into a block grant and turning Medicare into a type of voucher system.
Democrats (92 percent), Republicans (73 percent) and independents (75 percent) all opposed cuts to the two programs, the McClatchy-Marist poll found.
I think it's time to prove it to Mr. Boehner.
Send a Message to Beohner : http://www.speaker.gov/...
Office of the Speaker
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