You see Republicans have gotten used to "compromise" meaning that they act like selfish, spoiled rotten children until everyone lets them have their way. Even this President has been guilty of it more than once. Now, in the current debate Republicans expect "compromise" to entail slashing programs that help Americans while letting the rich and Corporate America take a free pass for the economy they wrecked. Obama seemed to dash those hopes:
In a blistering rebuke of Republicans, President Barack Obama on Wednesday pressed lawmakers to accept tax increases as part of a deal to cut the nation's deficits and avoid a crippling government default. "Let's get it done," Obama challenged, chiding Congress for frequent absences from Washington.
Obama sought to reframe the entire debt debate in terms people would care about, accusing Republicans of protecting tax breaks for corporate jet owners on the backs of college students who would lose their federal aid — even though there is no direct relationship between that tax provision and any particular budget cut. He spoke of eliminating tax cuts that favor the rich and oil companies — "I don't think that's real radical" he said — but Republicans contend the White House is pursuing far broader tax changes that would undermine job creation.
And he even took a sharp tone toward the business leaders that his White House has tried to court. "The business community is always complaining about regulations," he said in response to one question. "Frankly, they want to be able to do whatever they think is going to maximize their profits."
Obama declared that is a "hard deadline" and warned that waiting too long could spook capital markets and prompt investors to bail. Here, too, he tried to put heat on Congress by saying lawmakers should cancel any plans to take days off in July if they can't make substantial progress by the end of this week.
http://beta.news.yahoo.com/...
However, predictably Republicans weren't buying it. The Prince of Orange and Speaker of the House of Hypocrites gave the usual talking points of the greediest and least patriotic among us all the while knowing they have tried to destroy more American jobs every since they took over the House:
The House speaker, John A. Boehner, flatly rejected Mr. Obama’s call for new tax revenues, saying the “president’s remarks ignore legislative and economic reality.”
In a toughly worded statement, Mr. Boehner said the House would vote to raise the debt limit, as the White House has demanded, only if the administration agreed to a deal that contained deep spending cuts and no tax increases.
“The American people know tax hikes destroy jobs,” Mr. Boehner said. “They also know Washington has been on a spending binge for many years, and they will only tolerate a debt-limit increase if we stop it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/...
What really destroys jobs is Republicans in office. They have destroyed more jobs in the last thirty years than anyone can imagine. And in fact folks like John Boehner are about the only ones the Bush Tax Cuts ever helped, the rest of us got shafted:
A distributional analysis of the 2001-08 tax changes shows that the top 1% of earners (making over $620,442) received 38% of the tax cuts. The lower 60% of filers (making less than $67,715) received less than 20% of the total benefit of Bush’s tax policies.
The Bush-era tax cuts were designed to reduce taxes for the wealthy, and the benefits of faster growth were then supposed to trickle down to the middle class. But the economic impact of cutting capital gains rates and lowering the top marginal tax rates never materialized for working families. Inflation-adjusted median weekly earnings fell by 2.3% during the 2002-07 economic expansion, which holds the distinction for being the worst economic expansion since World War II.
http://www.epi.org/...
And in fact these tax cuts and the other failed policies Republicans rubber-stamped are the main drivers of our debt and deficits:
Yet with all this Republicans refuse to budge on tax cuts for the greediest and least patriotic among us to help pay for the debt they ran up and the economy they crashed. This despite asking millions of Americans to sacrifice and despite the fact that some sensible Republicans who are not eaten alive with their own greed and hatred for the working people of their country have admitted that revenue increases will be needed to address our huge debt:
The Hill: Bush Economic Advisor Mankiw "Knows Both Tax Increases And Spending Cuts Are Required." In a June 28 The Hill op-ed, Mark Mellman, president of The Mellman Group, cited a number of conservative economists and economic advisors who say that some form of revenue increases should be part of a solution to lowering the deficit.
President Reagan's budget director, David Stockman, knows raising revenue must be an essential component of any fiscal cure. "It is simply unrealistic to say that raising revenue isn't part of the solution. It's a measure of how far off the deep end Republicans have gone with this religious catechism about taxes," says Stockman, one of the biggest budget cutters of all time.
Stein: "We've Got To Raise Taxes. There Is Just No Way Around It." On the June 25 edition of Fox Business' Cavuto on Business, guest Ben Stein said: "We've got to raise taxes. There is just no way around it. The deficit situation is so serious that while I wish we did not have to raise taxes, we just can't cut spending enough."
http://mediamatters.org/...
[I]t is Republican dogma that tax increases are so offensive that they are willing to walk away from trillions of dollars of spending cuts that the Obama administration has agreed to and risk defaulting on the national debt just to prevent so much as $1 of tax increase from being enacted. While obviously any tax increase needs to be carefully considered, there is no doubt that closing loopholes and eliminating many tax subsidies would have the same effect as cutting spending. If Republicans believe that cutting spending is stimulative, they can't logically oppose cuts in spending through the tax code.
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/...
So in other words everyone but the greedy ideologues in the Republican Party understand that everyone must sacrifice for their nation at this point in it's history. Everyone has a stake and everyone must give in a little. However, Republicans continue to insist that the very people who caused the problems should be the only ones exempt from sacrifice. Funny thing, it includes almost all of them.
Let us hope President Obama does not cave in like so many times before. He is on the right side of this argument and the elites should not get a free ride. It is time that our nation once again believes in equality and sanity and that once again Americans are patriotic about something besides war and greed.
We can only hope.
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