"The austerity crisis talks have hit a peculiar impasse. The problem isn't, as most analysts expected, taxes, where Republicans seem increasingly resigned to new revenue. It's Medicare. And the particular Medicare problem isn't that Democrats are refusing the GOP's proposed Medicare cuts. It's that Republicans are refusing to name their Medicare cuts.
Politico quotes a "top Democratic official" who paints the picture simply: "Rob Nabors [the White House negotiator], has been saying: 'This is what we want on revenues on the down payment. What's your guys' ask on the entitlement side?' And they keep looking back at us and saying: 'We want you to come up with that and pitch us.' That's not going to happen."
That's partly politics. If nothing else, Republicans are respectful of Medicare's political potency. Recall that a core Republican message in both the 2010 and 2012 elections was that Democrats, through Obamacare, were cutting Medicare too much. Republicans, already concerned about their brand, don't want to rebrand themselves as the party of Medicare cuts."*
Before the 2012 election season, Mitt Romney and Republicans denounced Obama, saying he would cut Medicare by too much! Now, during fiscal cliff negotiations, the GOP has changed its tune, saying Medicare MUST be cut down. Which is it, and why? Cenk Uygur, John Iadarola (Host, TYT University), and Mark Thompson (TV Host) break it down.
*Read more from Ezra Klein/ Washington Post:
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I would like to see the congressional salary entitlement reformed down.
Great. To do that, you don’t even need new tax rates: “What we’ve said was,
give us $1.2 Trillion in additional revenues. Which could be accomplished
without hiking taxes–uh–tax rates, but could simply be accomplished by
eliminating loopholes, eliminating some deductions, and–uh–engaging in a
tax reform process that could have lowered rates generally while broadening
the base.” President Obama – 2011
In addition, that 1.2 trillion you boast of would be over 10 years. Now,
since we are spending more than a trillion a year in debt, where do you
propose we get the other 10 trillion in the next 10 years?
Manufacturing was already in decline all across the West before Thatcher
and Reagan, well back into the 70s. The post war 50s and 60s boom couldn’t
last forever, and the rest of the world had been quickly developing and
posing competition. So booms aren’t measured by how much wealth they
generate? And don’t mix up booms with bubbles. Also, you have it backwards.
Middle class incomes are only shown to go down during the Reagan years by
NOT adjusting for inflation.
No there’s not enough money in tax breaks but they should be cut too. and
actually higher taxes actually stimulate growth like in the Clinton era
rich people had to create more jobs to make more money. not like now were
they can sit back and just let the money roll in.
It’s easy to say that the FED is behind inflation, but you don’t take into
consideration that the FED doesn’t print off more money unless the
government needs more money printed off. The FED is borrowed from to
fulfill SSI and SDI every year, if you can’t see that, you’re lost.
all is going to israel stop fighting,,
That’s just silly. The way the “rich” create wealth and “avoid” taxes is
capital gains. Capital gains comes from investments. Investments create
jobs. The Clinton era was built on Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, The Internet
Bubble, Credit Default Swaps, Sub-Prime Loans, and all the other false
gains that crashed our economy.
Turn CC on in the beginning…It says “One of the sticking points in the
pacific…” lol
Why don’t we undo everything that was added since Bush took office? That
means bringing pork-barrel Defense spending back to 297 billion, instead of
the 700++ billion it is now. And there’s a reason why the 2 Bush tax cuts
were temporary, they’re bankrupting us. Most of those tax cuts went to the
top. Then there’s The Double Irish & Dutch Sandwich corp. tax loopholes,
that’s 60+ billion a year. Another 30+ billion a year in give-aways &
subsidies for the rich. Read GOP senator Coburn’s report.
What Bush did was return taxation to reasonable levels. Now we need to
return spending to reasonable levels. The Democrats had complete control
for 2 years under Obama and they did neither loop hole closing or spending
reductions.
There is no reasonable level of taxation when yur spending close to a
trillion a year on Defense & fighting 2 wars. Did you know that we spend 6
times more on Defense than the worlds next biggest Defense spender? We’re
still fighting WWll. And the Dem’s didn’t have complete control under Obama
for 2 years. The Dem’s only had a filibuster proof senate for like 6
months. The GOP contested the the election of Al Franken, & he wasn’t sworn
in till like June of 09. And Scott Brown started Jan. 2010.
Exactly. We need to reduce spending, of all kinds, but ESPECIALLY wasteful
liberal spending, and keep taxes low. We need them especially low on
investments. If the Democrats could pass Obamacare, they could have gotten
spending under control. They didn’t. They aren’t even pretending they want
to.
Like “I will cut the deficit in half” and “health insurance rates will go
down”? Oh, sorry, wrong party.
Corporate taxes are just hidden taxes on the consumer. If they wanted them
higher, if they wanted to close loopholes, they could have done it. They
didn’t. This discussion really means nothing. Spending will go up even more
under Obama and the US is financially doomed. You can raise taxes on the
consumer and the wealthy and investments and close loop holes and it will
mean nothing. You MUST cut spending and start paying the debt and we won’t.
I want to see entitlement reform for the rich! Cut all the money that is
going to big business and oil companies. I’d like to see what all the
soulless zombie Rethuglican sheeple would have to say about that! They’d
crap their pants sooo fast, heads would spin off their necks.