Quote:
Originally Posted by Relentless
$250K in New York is pretty much middle class. $250K in Mississippi is a boat load of cash. One of the biggest failings of the whole discussion has been ignoring cost of living and treating all regions as if their income levels were equal from the start. Raising rates is silly by itself when so many people aren't paying the rates already stated (as we have agreed for that last 50 threads about tax reform). This 'deal' does not include a buffet rule, does nothing about carried interest, includes a 20% rate on dividends over 400K... it's pretty obvious what happened.
Obama, McConnell, Boehner and Pelosi did the bidding of billionaires at the expense of millionaires. That shouldn't surprise anyone in light of Citizens United with the last elections being bankrolled by only a handful of people. Now someone who makes 1M and actually produces something will be taxed a few points more, while someone making 100M on carried interest will continue to pay 13%. Trustfunders who dump money into tax free investments will continue to pay 0, etc.... It's a shameful outcome, but not one that was hard to predict.
I'm particularly amused by the way they are selling Cantor as some kind of independent voice and Boehner as 'powerful enough even to keep Cantor in line.' It's comical to watch the 6 or 7 people who jointly made this decision more than a month ago all acting now as if they are adversaries.  |
I don't know that I agree with you on the timeframe. Whether it was *little theater* or not is only the sidebar anyhow.
What they passed was absolutely shameful. The deficit reduction will barely keep the country going for 36 hours. I am going to be paying more tax now, What I did this morning was give myself a 6% raise. Then at the end of this month, we will have a small across the board price hike on everything we make. At the end of the day, it's still the middle class that will pay more.
I was listening to the news last night and the economists are clearly concerned about another drop in the bond rating. I don't know enough about it to even understand the ramifications. But if it's anything like my company's D&B rating, if we drop even a little it's more difficult to buy,sell and borrow money.