I write this open letter with the greatest respect for you, and for the office of the President; please regard my comments in that context.
Sir, you made a bad deal with the Republican leadership.
It is my fervent hope that the Democrats in both the House and the Senate will not cooperate with you in enacting the legislative details of that bad deal. While your negotiation may benefit the country in some small ways, it is not in any way, shape or form in the best interests of the country.
If I may refer you, Mr. President, to the following excerpt from noted conservative Ron Paul's closing address upon leaving the House of Representatives to illustrate what I mean:
"Special interests have replaced the concern that the Founders had for general welfare. Vote trading is seen as good politics. The errand-boy mentality is ordinary, the defender of liberty is seen as bizarre. It's difficult for one who loves true liberty and utterly detests the power of the state to come to Washington for a period of time and not leave a true cynic."The Republicans are the errand boys of the wealthiest 1 to 2% or our population, and corporations.
Sir, if the wealthy few who would overwhelmingly benefit by the continuation of the Bush tax cuts do not already have sufficient wealth to invest in jobs, they are not going to do so as a result of this deal either. The gap in the wealth held by these very few Americans has only grown in recent decades; obscenely so during the Bush administration. While the incomes held by the remaining 98% have remained at best stagnant, and in many cases declined substantially.
Our deficit is too large, Mr. President, to afford the continuation of waiving estate taxes, or any of the other provisions piled onto this bad agreement by the Republicans.
Every credible economist and expert agrees that these tax cuts will harm our country by dramatically increasing the deficit, and will NOT deliver the results claimed by the Republican leadership.
DADT, the DREAM ACT, assistance to the responders from 9/11, and yes - even the long term unemployed, have struggled this long. Making a bad deal in the 11th hour does not serve the people affected by that legislation; it does not serve the rest of us well either.
Rather than attempting to rally the Democrats to your 'deal', Mr. President, you should be rallying the Democrats in Congress, and the American people, to fight these proposals made by Republicans even more vigorously.
Repudiate this bad deal Mr. President. It's not like you have any reason to expect the Republicans are acting in good faith anyway. But far more important, what they propose is WRONG.
The Republicans claimed they want to make you a one term president. Any expectation you have of revisiting these issues in 2012 is unduly optimistic. If you renege on your campaign promises on these issues, the Republicans will in all probability succeed in their goal of making you a one term president.
I know that if you do this, I will not support you. Some of my colleagues have already expressed a greater disappointment in your accomplishments and failures than I have. Show some backbone, Mr. President. Withdraw your agreement for this deal, support the Democrats in opposing these proposals. Should they pass in 2011, find the courage to veto them. Show yourself to be a stronger leader, and be less concerned about bipartisan cooperation. You do not have good faith or good will from the GOP; only with both is genuine bipartisan negotiation possible.
It is not too late.
Merry Christmas to you and yours, and best wishes for a courageous and successful New Year.
Dog Gone
penigma.blogspot.com
If you recall one of his promises was not to raise taxes on anyone making under 200k per year. If these cuts expire he will be raising taxes on all of the people in the country who pay taxes, not just the rich. And people can play with words all they want about how he did not raise taxes he let previous cuts expire but if the amount I pay in April 15th goes up by $1200 without my income going up then taxes have been raised and I think most people will see it the same way.
ReplyDeletettuck wrote:
ReplyDelete"If you recall one of his promises was not to raise taxes on anyone making under 200k per year."
He also promised not to let the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy damage the economy by enlarging the deficit and by it failling to provide the promised benefits.
Several analyses show that the Republican deal will in fact result in higher taxes for people like you Tuck, and will hurt you as well in creating a larger deficit, and a weaker economy, a deficit for which people like you who pay taxes will disproportionately be responsible.
Obama and the democrats have repeatedly attempted to provide tax relief on people making under 200k a year. Obama can - and I believe will - do everything he can to live up to that promise.
It will be the Republicans who obstruct the tax cuts to 98-99% of the tax payers, and it is the Republicans who should be held accountable.
The same Republicans who want to cut all spending which benfits people who make less than 200k a year, while not similarly affecting spending which benefits those making over 200k a year.
I watched President Clinton's speech as a guest at the White House on behalf of President Obama. The one thing that President Clinton said which at first appeared to be a good argument, but then did not appear to be so on closer scrutiny, was that Obama was making a deal now that was better than the deal he could make with the Republicans in January, on behalf of tax payers.
No. The deal he made now is the same deal that he could make then, maybe even worse now.
In January, Obama can place the burden for that $1200 you write about on the conservatives where it belongs. The deal now is precisely because of January, not in avoidance of it.
Obama should veto tax cuts until he gets the deal he promised. Even Boehner admitted he would vote for tax cuts for the middle class if that was the only deal he could get.
Make that the only deal Boehner CAN get. Take a cue from the obstructionist style of the Republicans, in a limited way.
Play politics as effectively, from the position of the minority, Mr. Obama. It is a different strategy, yes. But there are strategies which work.
THAT is the lesson of the Clinton years. Don't make a bad deal.
Remind people like Tuck who it is that is refusing to pass tax benefits for them - it isn't OBAMA, and it isn't the Dems!
Call the Republicans bad when they are bad - and stick to it.
Because the Republicans ARE being bad. They aren't YOUR friend Tuck.
And they can do math - they just like to lie about the math to you.
Why do you let them Tuck?
I won't argue with you that we need to increase the money the govt takes in. The problem is that unless you also cut or at the very least freeze spending it won't help. Reagan made a deal to raise taxes a dollar for every 3 cut from spending, the taxes passed the spending cuts never made it to his desk. The other thing that neither party is talking about is getting jobs back from overseas. Unemployment is at about 10 or 20% depending if you count the people who gave up looking and just retired early. If you get that down to around 5% (counting everyone) the govt would take in a lot more without raising taxes, and on top of that there would be a lot of people no longer collecting unemployment so spending would go down. The estate tax needs to stay at 0% for estates under 5 million and maybe 10. Warren Buffet has bought a lot of companies because although they got 200k or so when the primary breadwinner died and the company they owned was worth 4 million, they only had about 500k in cash and owed 55% the worth of the company to the govt. How many jobs and how much tax revenue does that kill when a small company goes under or gets merged with a larger one because the owner died. I think a two yr extension is much better than doing nothing or making hasty changes in the last two weeks of the yr. And since this deal extends the current tax rates for two yrs how does it mean I will pay more?
ReplyDeleteTuck, you really should be doing your homework better on this stuff!
ReplyDeleteWhile certain segments of the population have popularized Ronald Reagan as some sort of secularized saint pseudo-best president ever, Reagan did not bring down the Berlin wall, and his fiscal policy was a disaster to the debt, and not the boon to the economy that those who would like a nice little fictional re-write to history would wish.
And as testified to by David Stockman, who designed
Reagan's policies, and who is still loudly asserting trickle down economics / tax cuts to the rich DO NOT WORK.
Reagan talked about spending cuts, but he never pursued them; he just gave them lip service.
The area we need the spending cuts in are ones like the TWO engines-for-every-plane pork that Boehner keeps in place -- the military spending even the military has tried to stop, but can't get past REPUBLICANS.
How can you write with a straight face about jobs overseas? LOOK at the post I put up about the campaign spending from groups like Karl Rove's bunch or the Chamber of Commerce. THOSE are the same groups funding the REPUBLICAN efforts to sustain and maintain - and in some cases EXPAND - the tax benefits that not only do NOT penalize shipping jobs overseas, but REWARD it with tax bonuses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Manufacturing production - manufacturing JOBS - have INCREASED under the OBAMA administration STEADILY for the last year Plus. That includes manufacturing investment and expansion.
I would advise you to listen and to read some of the stats for example that came from the Obama / Clinton address just last week - we increased the number of U.S. jobs in electric batter production as a share of the world's jobs in that area by some 20%.
Our tax policies caused CHINA to build plants that hired thousands of people HERE to build those batteries. Two of them were in Nevada, which needed the growth to reverse unemployment, desperately needed it, more than any other state.
No PORK, no wasted government money, like Boehner. Something we needed, something that will still be here EXPORTING products to the rest of the world, as well as making things we need right here.
The biggest bang for the buck we need right now is umemployment benefits extended. NOT the stupid tax breaks for the wealthiest 1% the Republicans are pursuing. (see those donations on the factcheck article to explain THAT).
Got any criticism for those Republicans Tuck? Really? Because I'm waiting....and waiting....and waiting.... and waiting.
You are applying some bizarre, weirdly selective double standards Tuck, in your government policy criticism. FACTS! Look at FACTS!
Tuck, if you really cared about your own tax cuts, or jobs sent overseas, or spending?
ReplyDeleteWhen you voted for the Republicans (if I am correct in that assumption)you voted for the wrong party, and you sent them the wrong message.
When you believe that unions, representing small donations by many people, spend anything like as much as the wealthy few or certain corporate interests, including foreign corporate interests, you voted for the wrong party and sent the Republicans the absolute wrong message.
THAT is why the Republicans, the party of NO NEW IDEAS, is insisting they are going to continue specifically, the failed tax poicies and all the other failed policies, of the Bush administration.
Wake up to the daylight nightmare you helped create.
Tuck,
ReplyDeleteI won't admonish you for needing to check facts - but instead offer some food for thought.
First, the Democrats at one time proposed raising the estate exemption to $100M - the Republicans declined - the 2600 families with more than $100M in estate wealth were too important.
Second, unless you're a fool, you don't have a company worth $4M in your personal name. At that size, it's either an S-Corp or fully incorporated, either way, your estate tax is on your portion. There are damned few family business sold for estate taxes. In fact, as I recall, the number of small businesses paying estate taxes upon the death of the primary owner is something like 1.5%, whether Warren Buffet made money on this is somewhat speculative, considering his primary source of wealth is Bershire Hathaway, which is primarily an insurance company (backing GEICO incidentally). Buffet has made his money being far smarter than the street about where things were going. As far as I know, have ever heard, he hasn't made it off of estate fire-sales. Kudos to him.
Third, as DG rightly points out, off-shoring is something staunchly defended by Republicans, not Democrats. Attempts to forestall it have failed in Congress due to blocking tactics by Republicans.
Fourth, while you got a very small tax cut under Bush, you ALSO got saddled with the vast debt created to fund much larger tax cuts for the rich. Net-net, you're about $25,000.00 in the hole in federal debt. Considering your "tax cut" was fueled/payed for by debt, all you really got is a deferment, you got NO cut at all. Whereas, if you made $1M, you DID get a real cut, because your share of the debt is far smaller than the total tax savings you saw.
Fifth, the Bush tax cuts resulted in .. oh yeah, a massive reduction in on-shore productivity - so extending them isn't going to "save jobs". The 10-20% unemployment figure, please do remember, started in 2008 - and hasn't gotten better since January 2009 because, despite making vast profits, companies aren't hiring on-shore.
In short, everything you say you are concerned about the Republicans are promoting doing the exact opposite.
They are going to extend tax cuts, deepening the debt unless they raise YOUR taxes, rather than the rich (oh, and/or delay your retirement, shrink your Medicare benefits, etc.. - all of which should just be called cutting your benefits to keep the rich from paying what they paid in 2001).
They are going to explode the debt to do so, just as Bush did. Obama's debt spending is mostly stimulus and bailout. Healthcare is a TINY fraction of the total, some 90Billion a year as I recall. By contrast, the tax cuts for the rich are 450 Billion per year.
What's really going on here is they are promising jobs (which don't appear) if you keep these TEMPORARY tax cuts rather than letting them go back to NORMAL. To pay for it, they're cutting your benefits, and what you get from it is.. jobs moved overseas while profits get pocketted by those same captains of industry who promised you jobs - all while your schools, roads and country continue to deteriorate.
It's ONLY and EVER about tax cuts for the rich, that's the one axiom I've learned in paying close attention to politics since 1976. It's what Reagan did, what Bush did, and what they're going to do again, and saying they'll cut spending is all talk. Reagan quadruppled the debt, Bush doubled it.
I may be one of those that DG referred to as being deeply disappointed in President Obama. I am not naive enough to have truly believed that he could do all the things that he said he would... but I could dream, couldn't I?
ReplyDeleteWhat I didn't dream was that he would turn into a spineless president, who allows the Republicans to push him around, and then babbles about the "deal" that he got with the republicans as being good for the country. Hogwash. This somewhat reminds me of a old news-reel clip of Chamberlain after the Munich Peace conferences in 1938. "Peace in our time". Of course, Chamberlain was widely reviled after the war, and historians today debate his policy of appeasement.
The problems is, the Republicans are bullies. You can't appease a bully, and giving a bully what he wants doesn't help either. Mr. Obama is weak, and like all bullies, when they see weakness, they pounce on it, and use that weakness.
Penigma's assessment of the effects of this tax bill are correct. It will do nothing, and I repeat nothing, to produce jobs. Tuck, do you have any evidence, I repeat ANY evidence (empirical or otherwise) that would suggest that the "trickle down" effect of giving more money to the rich produces jobs?
I am amazed that the Tea Party, who supposedly hates the deficit, would not be ranting and foaming at the mouth at this bill, since it will raise the deficit by almost 900 billion (that's just short of a trillion, BTW). Oh, I forgot.. the Tea Party is just an extension of the Republicans... so of course they won't object.
The Republicans wish of having a one term Mr. Obama may very well come true. If Mr. Obama signs this legislation, I will NOT vote for him again.
Yes, dear ToE, you were specifically one of the people I thought of as being disappointed with Obama, when I wrote this post.
ReplyDeleteHow very perceptive of you to notice!
I keep hoping (and praying and praying....) that the public Obama we see is not the whole package of his presidency, that there is more behind the scenes. That he is steering a course of dignity and restraint in public, unlike the smirking, clownish last President.
I rejoice that he is at the very least more articulate. The contrast between the intellectual reach, and the grasp of complexity was only made more sharp for me when I watched former President Clinton speak after Obama last week. They appeared to me to be men of equivalent vision.
I am still undecided if 'no-drama' Obama is simply trying too hard to be the president of everyone, including the belligerant Republicans. I believe we also are so accustomed to invasions of the privacy of public figures, where we seem to have, as a nation, acquired the habits of voyeurs, believing we have and are entitled to have, full knowledge of everything about certain figures.
We don't, of course. But I suspect that President Obama is more buttoned down than what we are used to seeing in our national leader.
I am thinking back to how Obama handled the pirate case in the beginning of his presidency. He didn't make a lot of speeches, took his time - not letting the pirates set the schedule. He didn't discuss his plans to resolve the hostage situation ahead of time; he just did it --- or more precisely, allowed the experts who were trained to do these jobs do it, not micro-managed the problem, and not making it into more of a media circus than it already was.
I phoned the offices of both my senators earlier today, to request they NOT vote in favor of the Obama 'deal' with Republicans. There had been a lot of those calls before mine, according to the staff of both offices.
I think this deal might fail ---- and I'm not so sure that might not suit the President just as well, if not better, than his deal suited him.
I wouldn't want to play poker against the President. Strong is not the same as loud, as my granny used to say.