Obama is responsible for biggest middle class tax cut in history

[ProSense]

BIGGEST. TAX CUT. EVER...:

Chris Hayes had a similar observation.

On the politics side of the ledger, Ben Smith notes Obama's emphasis on the tax cuts in the bill. I'm not necessarily a fan, though politically it's true that every single Republican member of congress can now be accused of "Voting against the biggest tax cut in history" come next election." Clearly, this hasn't escaped the White House's notice.

The ARRA:

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, abbreviated ARRA (Pub.L. 111-5), is an economic stimulus package enacted by the 111th United States Congress in February 2009. The Act of Congress was based largely on proposals made by President Barack Obama and was intended to provide a stimulus to the U.S. economy in the wake of the economic downturn. The measures are nominally worth $787 billion. The Act includes federal tax cuts, expansion of unemployment benefits and other social welfare provisions, and domestic spending in education, health care, and infrastructure, including the energy sector. The Act also includes numerous non-economic recovery related items that were either part of longer-term plans (e.g. a study of the effectiveness of medical treatments) or desired by Congress (e.g. a limitation on executive compensation in federally aided banks added by Senator Dodd and Rep. Frank). The government action is much larger than the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, which consisted primarily of tax rebate checks.

Add to that the home buyers credit, cash for clunkers and student financial aid.

Does all of this add up to more or less than the TARP?

The ARRA benefitted millions of Americans.

[Fading Captain]

1. Tax cuts? WHile schools close? City budgets are slashed?

Democrats are proud of this?

[Swamp Rat]

3. How are school closures and slashed city budgets related to this middle class tax cut?

:shrug:

[Fading Captain]

13. I hate "middle class tax cut" Democrats

Sorry. If you're a Democrat, and you want health care, and you want quality education, and clean drinking water, and everything else, you PAY FOR IT with TAXES. Higher Taxes.

I am in the middle class, on the lower end, perhaps. And I am suspicious of any Democrat who calls for middle class tax cuts.

[ProSense]

14. "you PAY FOR IT with TAXES. Higher Taxes." That's simplistic

Raising taxes is not a solution to anything if goverments waste money. On principle, good government services require people to pay their fair share of taxes. Still, the tax cuts weren't made willy nilly like Bush's tax cuts to benefit the rich. People were in need of any relief due to one of the worst economic crises.

[Fading Captain]

17. It's a feel-good tactic

A tax cut was unnecessary. The revenue would have been better spent with a real public-works/infrastructure program for America.

The amazing thing about the ARRA was the list of projects submitted by local governments for consideration. These weren't just all about fancy brick paver sidewalks. These were about improving water systems to meet state and federal guidelines.
And these are projects that won't be funded without help from somewhere.

Screw tax cuts. Raises everyone's taxes. Fix the infrastructure of the country. Put people to work.
Reap the rewards.

[ProSense]

19. That's your opinion. n/t

[liberal_at_heart]

22. I agree

I think the reason Europe and the UK are so far ahead of us in infrastructure, transportation, and green energy is because they actually don't mind paying taxes if it used for the betterment of the public.

[jpak]

47. Political and Economic nonsense

The Bush billionaire tax cuts will expire in 2010 and Obama and the Democrats have no intention of extending them.

Giving the middle class tax cuts will stimulate the economy far more than Bush's tax cut for the rich.

Sorry to inform you...

[hfojvt]

90. sure they will but there are at least four problems

1) it continues to push the Republican talking point of tax cuts = good
2) the middle class always seems to be upwardly defined, thus families making $150,000 or $180,000 or $240,000 are called 'middle class' even though they make more money than 90% of all other households in this country
3) poorer people, who already pay no income taxes, or very little, are left out and get next to nothing
4) it's not as big of an economic stimulus as more social spending is

[hfojvt]

89. I hear you

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/62

[HughMoran]

32. Well, if the middle class has more money, perhaps they'll approve more money for schools

Schools are a local issue and budgets are decided by local voters (at least in my area.)

A middle class tax cut could easily be good for schools. Hows that for logical thinking?

[ProSense]

5. Now you're upset because he helped people? The ARRA was more than tax cuts. Here:

Stimulus Aided Teachers, Laborers: Report


Yes, Democrats should be proud of this. In fact, some people wanted even more money attached to the stimulus.

[Raineyb]

30. Only if you think using a Republican meme about tax cuts is the way to govern.

Republicans, who apparently can't add, think that tax cuts bring in more revenue. It's complete nonsense and bragging about tax cuts only plays into that meme. Brag about it if you wish but you're only feeding a false and numerically ridiculous meme that needs to be squashed.

[ProSense]

65. Republican meme? Bragging?

Tax cuts included food stamps, homeless aid, child care, unemployment benefits, etc. You are the one pushing a false meme.

[shraby]

9. Must I remind you that Bush had the biggest tax cuts for

the upper crust while starting 2..thats two wars PLUS a downturn in the economy toward the end of his term and never recinded them to pay for the wars or for when the economy started tanking.

[Canuckistanian]

23. Are schools affected by federal income taxes? And Cities?

I'm just asking.

Here in Canada, they're completely separate.

[jpak]

45. The stimulus package put big money into state and local governements

It save tens of thousands of those jobs nationwide.

And yes, I as a Democrat am proud of that.

Again, is today low information day or what?

[anonymous171]

2. Not enough. Sorry. If he had increased the taxes for the rich by that amount, I might be impressed.

[truedelphi]

4. + 1. n/t

[Cha]

8. The middle class who benefitted

from these tax cuts thanks you for nothing.

[MichiganVote]

18. +2 n/t

[SammyWinstonJack]

20. +1 nt

[ProSense]

24. If he had, you still wouldn't be impressed.

Move the goal post. He bailed out banks, but screwed us. He didn't screw us exactly, but not impressed because he didn't screw the rich.

The health care debate includes taxing the insurance companies and the wealthy, but that's still not enough for some.

[anonymous171]

25. By bailing out the banks he did indeed screw all of us.

[ProSense]

27. Right, because the banks failing would benefit us all tremendously.

Ridiculous.

[anonymous171]

29. The US government could have bought the banks instead

All the bailouts did was continue the status quo and reward the banks for their bad behavior.

[ProSense]

34. So you're not impressed with the stimulus because Obama didn't nationalize the banks?

Easy to say, but who has every tried? Who among the candidates was actually going to proceed down this path? Obama should have nationalized the banks is easy to say when you aren't considering the political feasibility. It's not like this debate didn't happen. This is no different from expecting Obama to push for single payer when he is dealing with the political reality of what can pass as he tries to reform the health care system.

Obama is credited with stopping the U.S. from sliding into one of the worst economic disasters since the Great Depression. Obama has a mess to clean up, and despite the handwringing about whether he did enough or did it fast enough to please his critics, he is not responsible for the policies that lead to this crisis. Yes, he is responsible for bringing the U.S. out of a disaster created in large part by the policies of his predecessors, specifically Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush.

[anonymous171]

38. Obama rewarded the banks for gambling with their customers money

Now that they have all of our money, there is no fucking way they might do that again :sarcasm:

[ProSense]

41. Several big banks paid back the money and

the TARP is still a tiny amount compared to what it would have taken to nationalize these instutions when there status was unknown.

[girl gone mad]

31. Breaking up the banks..

and forcing them through a bankruptcy process where the bondholders rightly would have taken losses and board members and management would have been replaced absolutely would have been more beneficial in the long run. Instead, we shifted all of the burden of the banks' bad gambling debts onto the taxpayer. Take a break from relentless posting and spend an hour or two researching how well propping up zombie banks has worked in Japan for the past two decades. Sorry, but this administration and the previous one badly mishandled the banking crisis.

[ProSense]

36. Right, and people would still be attacking Obama for

spending the trillions it would have taken to initiate the process of taking ownership of banks that make AIG look solvent. Did anyone know the viability of these insititutions?

[girl gone mad]

44. It wasn't necessary to spend trillions or take ownership.

Yes, it would be expensive, but with bondholders taking a haircut, much less so than essentially handing over our treasury department to these institutions. We could have had private buyers mapped out quickly, thus the label "pre-privatization" preferred by many who endorsed the idea. Determining the viability of the banks is what should have been done in lieu of the phony "stress tests". It's really not nearly as difficult as you would like us to imagine it to be.

Instead, we got the worst of all worlds. A big, expensive bailout with no regulatory reform, most of the same players who created the mess still in charge and reaping huge bonuses, bondholders made whole, losses papered over, too big to fails made even bigger, investment banks using bailout monies for market speculation and manipulation (so predictable), and the right wing still screaming that Obama enacted a socialist takeover of the banks.

[ProSense]

48. "Yes, it would be expensive..."

And still no one knew their viability. It would have been a much bigger gamble.

[jpak]

42. Bailing out the banks saved us from a Great Depression

Sorry to inform you of this.

If that had not happened that global financial system would have collapsed and we would be in some seriously deep shit.

Is today low information day or what?

[anonymous171]

49. The same thing could have been accomplished in a variety of different ways

Most of which did not involve corporate welfare.

[jpak]

53. There was no alternative at that time - sorry

to do nothing was to risk everything

just be glad those bailouts happened - we'd be seeing 25% unemployment by now.

so tell us all about your secret plan to rescue the financial sector...

:evilgrin:

[girl gone mad]

69. Complete nonsense.

There were many alternatives. What do you economists like Krugman, Stiglitz, Roubini and Galbraith were screaming about? We did exactly the thing we told Japan not to do in the 90s. Poured trillions into zombie banks rather than forcing the gamblers to take rightful losses.

[Deja Q]

33. Agreed. 8% or whatever it is is less per individual and more of us make up, by far, the rich (link)

http://www.jrlc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=81&Itemid=158

[jpak]

40. The Bush billionaire tax cuts expire next year and Obama has no intention of extending them

sorry to inform you of this fact that has been out there since the campaign in 2008.

that will raise taxes on the rich

impressed?

prolly not

[Cha]

6. Thank Goodness we have

President Obama in office now. Thanks for all this info on what exactly is the reality of his work so far.

[laughingliberal]

7. While your facts are all true it's not going to bring many enthusiastic voters out

in 2010 if we don't have some miraculous job recovery. It was a mistake to let the Republicans intimidate us into cutting the stimulus back from the $1 trillion (minimum) that was needed to get things moving somewhat quickly. I realize we needed the 3 Republican votes we got by whittling it down and things would be worse if we had passed nothing but most voters are not well informed on this. Most see a ton of money spent between the TARP and the stimulus and no improvement in their situations.

[ProSense]

11. You're right

it's going to be important for people see improvement. People can debated the pace of improvement. Still, there was bound to be a period of reversal before the data actually showed job gains. Whenever that occurs, perception will change. That needs to happen before the election.

[liberal_at_heart]

10. Where is the money?

Most of the ARRA hasn't even been spent yet. Why? Cash for clunkers is no longer being funded and they are dragging their feet on extending the home buyers credit. Students are still having trouble getting loans. Small business owners can't get loans. It all looks good on paper but the money is not getting to the people who need it.

[ProSense]

15. "they are dragging their feet on extending the home buyers credit." Not so

Signed into law.

[liberal_at_heart]

16. good. where is the rest of the 85% of the money that hasn't been spent yet?

Why are they sitting on that money? They didn't sit on the banks money. The banks got their money right away.

[ProSense]

21. They are not sitting on the money.

As Christina Romner stated, the effects of stimulus will peak in mid 2010.

[liberal_at_heart]

26. the banks didn't have to wait till 2010 for the "effects of the the stimulus to peak"

Talk about liquidity. That was liquid money. The government poured that money like water from the well. The banks got their money and we still haven't gotten ours yet. We are still waiting for our money.

[ProSense]

28. Obama sucks for only spending $300 billion so far on Americans and bailing out the banks.

Ludicrous. The money is going to fund programs and projects. In fact, some of the TARP repayment are going to be channeled back into the ecomony, which will result in job creation.

[liberal_at_heart]

39. there is nothing saying we have to agree on this

You are entitled to your opinion. I'm not 100% against Obama or even Congress. I think they have done some good. They funded Cobra and food stamps. I think that Obama probably saved us from a second great depression. But I feel they are not doing enough fast enough. This job summit should have happened when he first took office. We have been bleeding jobs since 2008. This is not new news. He was aware of this when he took office. And why hasn't he done anything to ensure that the very banks we saved actually loan money to small business owners? Why did he abandon the regulations that he was planning on putting on banks? If there is more financial aid available why are students still having a hard time getting loans? Where are the green jobs? Where are the jobs that were going to rebuild our roads, our electrical grid? Why is 2010 the magical number? Why couldn't these jobs have been available during the first, second, or even third quarter of the year? How about the first quarter of next year? Like I said I'm not 100% against Obama or even Congress. I don't think Obama gets enough credit for saving us from a second great depression. But for some reason the red tape of Washington has hung things up in a time when we can't afford for things to be hung up.

[Bonn1997]

12. If it doesn't help create jobs, no one will care.

[Deja Q]

35. Agreed, wholly. No more hemorraging of our economy. When that happens, then we can say

how proud of our country we finally feel.

[girl gone mad]

37. TARP was not the only banking bailout.

You're practicing a bit of intellectual dishonesty in attempting to make a direct comparison between several consumer based stimulus programs and just one relatively small sliver of the government largesse which was showered on big finance. Add up PPIP, FDIC, Fannie, Freddie, AIG, TLGP, TAF, TALF, CPFF, MMIFF and all of the various backdoor bailouts and you'll come up with a very different, albeit far more valid, analysis.

[ProSense]

43. "You're practicing a bit of intellectual dishonesty" Nonsense

First of all, not all the TARP funds were distributed. Second, some of the biggest, not all, have repaid huge sums.

[girl gone mad]

46. Our losses thus far are over $100B, just on tarp.

We have not earned a profit.

Ask yourself how banks are earning money to pay back tarp and why some were so eager to pay it back. I think the answer to that question goes a long way toward explaining the malaise the general public feels about the administration's handling of the economy.

[ProSense]

51. How much would our losses have been if

they had been nationalized and the government had been left holding a Pandora's Box?

[AllentownJake]

54. Probably the same

The banks have been effectively nationalized. The Fed is buying bad assets which are backed up by the Fed's ability to print money.

This approach only has kept share holders and executives whole. BTW there has been no fumigating of the rat's nest in this approach either.

Oh and the regulations congress are debating are a joke.

[ProSense]

55. "The banks have been effectively nationalized. " Nonsense. n/t

[AllentownJake]

58. Great come back

How much of Citi-Group does the government own? How much has the FED taken on in exchange for liquidity.

Stick to Health Care you have no idea about anything going on with the economy.

[ProSense]

59. It was, and I should have also said: tell that to the people who wanted the banks nationalized. n/t

[AllentownJake]

60. The FDIC is cleaning up a giant mess every Friday

slowly but surely in the Regional Market.

The 13 big boys are the elephant in the room that no one is effectively dealing with as far as banking reform goes.

Bernie Sanders has a bill that is going to go nowhere that urges their smashing.

There is no need to nationalize, just seize and smash using the capital requirement rules.

[ProSense]

61. The FDIC isn't using TARP funds. n/t

[AllentownJake]

62. Where did I say they were?

The FDIC has their own reserve fund which has been depleted to the point of being insolvent. That is why they are making firms pay their premiums in advance.

Some of the big boys have paid back TARP, some are in the process, and some aren't paying their dividends. What is your point.

TARP is a minor scandal compared to how Tim Geithner handled the AIG derivative payouts. The man belongs in an orange jump suit.

[ProSense]

63. Why are you discussing the FDIC?

The FDIC was never a solution for dealing with the largest financial institutions. You claimed that nationalizing the banks isn't necessary, that is after saying they're effectively nationalized. What's your point?

[AllentownJake]

64. Talking to you about banking

is like trying to explain things to a table.

[ProSense]

66. "is like trying to explain things to a table." There you go again,

resorting to name calling to punctuate your failed argument.

[AllentownJake]

67. There really wasn't an argument

There was you typing what I said with a question mark and than you posting something that has nothing to with what I posted.

The normal par for the course, I stuck up for Barack on the Tax cuts down thread, at least I'm fair.

[girl gone mad]

68. More like a lazy susan.

She just goes around and around in circles, never really getting anywhere.

[ProSense]

70. You still haven't explained why

nationalizing the banks, which you agree would have been expensive was worth it given that no one knew what risks were associated. Now here you are swapping insults about me with someone who said, "There is no need to nationalize."

[girl gone mad]

72. It's not worth having the argument with you.

Brilliant economists like Stiglitz and Galbraith favored pre-privatization over the zombification path we embarked on. You would have people believe that these guys are idiots who didn't understand any of the risks involved, while dopes like Geithner and Summers (who never even saw the crisis coming) made the best possible decisions on our behalf. Ha! If you can't look take a lesson from Japan's recent history of failure, and, more importantly, the broad public discontent we now see as a direct result of the actions taken by Treasury, then there is no getting through to you. I'm not interested in debating an agent of propaganda.

[ProSense]

75. You pretend to know what you're talking about.

Maybe you know the facts, but you spend most of your time trying to spin doom (see FDIC comment below).

"Brilliant economists like Stiglitz and Galbraith favored pre-privatization over the zombification path we embarked on. You would have people believe that these guys are idiots..."

No, you just made this up, just like you make up a lot of the things you say.

[AllentownJake]

78. and you put a happy spin on everything from bailouts to Stupak

:rofl:

[girl gone mad]

87. What is your point, exactly?

"you just made this up, just like you make up a lot of the things you say."

This is the type of response I would expect if, say, this conversation was taking place in a Kindergarten classroom, among 5 year olds.

Are you trying to say that Stiglitz and Galbraith were against pre-privatization? Or that they favored the creation of zombie banks via open-ended bailouts, instead? You do know about Google, don't you?

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Galbraith, are you for nationalizing banks?

JAMES GALBRAITH: You know, I think the term is a political misleading term. I learned a few months ago that in 1982, at the time of the Latin American debt crisis, the Reagan administration’s FDIC had a contingency plan to nationalize the major banks in the case that a major Latin American country—let’s say Mexico or Argentina or Brazil—had defaulted outright on its debt. This was not something that administration would have wanted to do. In the end, they didn’t have to do it. But they had a plan to do it, if it was necessary because the banks were rendered insolvent by the running to ruin of a major class of assets.

Well, we have a major class of assets—that is to say, all of these subprime mortgage-backed securities—which have run to ruin. They should never have been issued in the first place. They are very, very highly likely to default. They were issued on terms which makes them basically unmarketable, because there is not adequate loan documentation. And when there is loan documentation, that documentation evidently indicates that the loans are likely to go bad, so that nobody outside will buy them. That’s a problem that exists in the banking system, and the regulators simply have to deal with it.

And I don’t think—you know, it’s not—we’re not in 1945 in Attlee’s Britain, where we are taking the commanding heights of their economy or anything like that. We are doing what regulators always have to do, in conservative and liberal administrations, when faced with major intractable insolvencies in the financial system. If you don’t deal with that, the problem of fraud and loss just gets worse. And the losses that are incurred after insolvency are losses that fall on the taxpayer, because they come against deposits that are insured. So, one way or another, until we deal with this, the taxpayers’ liability just gets bigger and bigger.

DW-WORLD: Many experts fear that while things are bad now, we haven't seen the worst of the crisis yet. Do you share the belief that we are facing a long decline that could rival the great depression?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: We live in a very different world than during the Great Depression. Then, we had a manufacturing economy. Now we have a service-sector economy. Many people in the in the United States are already working part time because they can't get full-time jobs. People are talking more about the 'comprehensive' measures of unemployment, and these show unemployment at very high levels, around 15 percent. So it clearly is a serious downturn.

Another big difference between now and the Great Depression is then we didn't have a safety net. Now we have unemployment insurance.

DW-WORLD:Economists Nouriel Roubini and Nassim Taleb, who predicted the global economic downturn, have called for a nationalization of banks in order to stop the financial meltdown. Do you agree?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: The fact of the matter is, the banks are in very bad shape. The U.S. government has poured in hundreds of billions of dollars to very little effect. It is very clear that the banks have failed. American citizens have become majority owners in a very large number of the major banks. But they have no control. Any system where there is a separation of ownership and control is a recipe for disaster.

Nationalization is the only answer. These banks are effectively bankrupt.

[girl gone mad]

71. So? The FDIC is another example of a big bailout for the TBTF banks.

Would any of them exist right now without that FDIC guarantee in place?

The FDIC is running out of money and will need to be bailed out. Where do you think that money is going to come from, ProSense? They will hike the fees that small banks pay and those fees will be passed on to the middle class through higher interest rates on loans, lower rates on CDs, etc.

This is just another example of the banksters getting far more government assistance than just TARP, and why your comparison is incomplete.

[ProSense]

74. "The FDIC is running out of money and will need to be bailed out."

Not anytime soon

The Board of Directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation today adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPR) that would require insured institutions to prepay their estimated quarterly risk-based assessments for the fourth quarter of 2009 and for all of 2010, 2011 and 2012. The FDIC estimates that the total prepaid assessments collected would be approximately $45 billion. The FDIC Board also voted to adopt a uniform three-basis point increase in assessment rates effective on January 1, 2011, and extend the restoration period from seven to eight years.

FDIC Chairman Sheila C. Bair said, "First and foremost, bank customers should know that their insured deposits have and always will be 100 percent safe, no matter what. This commitment to depositors is absolute. The decision today is really about how and when the industry fulfills its obligation to the insurance fund. It's clear that the American people would prefer to see an end to policies that look to the federal balance sheet as a remedy for every problem. In choosing this path, it should be clear to the public that the industry will not simply tap the shoulder of the increasingly weary taxpayer. This proposal is a vote of confidence for the banking industry's resilience, and it will continue to recover its strength as we work through the significant challenges ahead."

Prepayment of assessments will allow the industry to strengthen the cash position of the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) immediately, while allowing the capital impact of deposit insurance assessments to be felt gradually over time as the industry improves its own financial position. The banking industry has substantial liquidity to prepay assessments. As of June 30, FDIC-insured institutions held more than $1.3 trillion in liquid balances, or 22 percent more than they did a year ago. Prepaying assessments will put the industry's liquid balances to good use in conserving capital and helping to maintain the capacity of banks to lend while they rebuild the DIF. FDIC analysis indicates that this arrangement is much less likely to impair bank lending than a one-time special assessment.

[AllentownJake]

77. If the FDIC seized every bank that was in trouble and not meeting their capital requirements

It would need more money. The fact is each time one of these banks is seized it is a last resort and it is note by the heavy losses the banks have when they are taken over. In ordinary conditions they would have been seized months before the FDIC has no choice.

If they were financially sound, they wouldn't be requiring institutions to pre-pay. That simply makes no sense they would ask for pre-payment if they weren't up shits creek :rofl:

Thanks for proving my point Pro.

[TicketyBoo]

86. I'm no financial wizard,

so I may be wrong about this, but I thought that all banks prepay into the FDIC because it is insurance against failures of any member institution(s)? Isn't that the way it works?

Or is this particular prepay meant to be an even earlier payment?

[AllentownJake]

91. This is like paying your car insurance premiums for 2010 in 2009

[girl gone mad]

88. Actually, your link demonstrates the point I was making.

The FDIC's reserve ratio is mandated at a minimum of 1.15% of insured deposits, but as of September, it had slipped to below 0.22%.

This is why the FDIC needed to be bailed out through the prepay assessment scheme. Bair smartly refused to borrow the needed money from Treasury, choosing instead to effectively get a three year advance on payments from member banks. I wasn't aware that this plan had already gone into effect, but this is precisely the bailout I was referring to in my post. Banks will pass this added expense on to their customers.

[Patchuli]

50. Why not just repeal Bush's tax cuts?????!

Why do the uberwealthy get to pay so little????????!!

[liberal_at_heart]

52. yes, wasn't that one of his campaign promises?

[AllentownJake]

57. They will expire next year

There is no need for a congressional battle over raising taxes. Wasted political capital over something that will happen if you simply don't act.

[HughMoran]

79. Agreed

When exactly do they expire (so I can celebrate)?

[AllentownJake]

80. Happy New Year

1/1/2010

[HughMoran]

81. Sweet!

I wonder if the Republicans are going to make a fuss?

[AllentownJake]

82. No the Health Care debate will be going on in the Senate till late December

Early January.

They probably will raise a hissy fit in January but they know it isn't going anywhere than.

[HughMoran]

83. Dems can say that Repubs raised taxes by dragging out the healthcare debate

I can spin it any way I like ;)

[AllentownJake]

84. The fact is with the defict numbers at their current level

no one is talking tax cuts for a while.

[HughMoran]

85. I thought the Republican cure for all of our ills was tax cuts

Recession? Cut taxes!

Toothache? Cut taxes!

Need funds to fight 2 wars? Cut Taxes!

Wages stagnant? Cut taxes! (on the rich - don't worry, they'll throw scraps to the middle class & below)

Depression caused by cutting taxes? Cut taxes some more!

[AllentownJake]

56. They are going to expire

No need for a political battle over it. I honestly agree with that approach.

[Hekate]

73. ProSense, I really appreciate your posts. They are an antidote to the wearying parade of gloom at DU

I never expected President Obama to walk on water, nor to solve all our woes in a month or a hundred days or whatever artificial timeline people wanted to refer to. Both Mr. H and I listened to what he SAID during the campaign and Mr. H in particular observed that he was going to govern "right down the middle." And he was a Constitutional law professor at one point, so that's good.

George W. Bush was a nightmare, and there is too much damage to undo to get everything done quickly.

President Obama's gotten a lot done so far, and some of us can actually see that. So thanks again for being the voice of reality here.

Hekate

Just on general principles :yourock:

[Number23]

76. +1 "President Obama's gotten a lot done so far, and some of us can actually see that."

Yep.

[Toucano]

92. Nothing. But. Spin.

Nobody is going to buy this.

Federal spending does not equal a middle class tax cut anymore than Bush's tax rebate checks could be properly called a stimulus.