This fiscal cliff talk is rather interesting to me now that I have a more detached perspective.
I truly believe America is going to collapse now. I also truly believe that by the time the Republicans get another chance to sweep into power in 2014 (as they did in 2010) it will be far too little and far too late. I think Americans voted this month to die by national suicide. And, yeah, I think it serves us right if we implode. That said, I happen to live here. My family lives here. We’ve got children to think about. I don’t want to suffer and I don’t want any of my family to suffer. So I’m in that position of believing something is going to happen and that we deserve to have it happen on the one hand, with the realization that not only I but my family will be harmed when it does happen.
The result? I’m no longer praying for America, or for the wisdom of our leaders or for the wisdom of the American people. They were fools when it mattered most and I realize they will continue to be fools as it matters most. At the same time, I’m certainly not praying or hoping for a fiscal implosion that will send America reeling into a depression that will make the Great Depression look like a lovely walk on a sunny beach. I’m someone who views this as an outsider; I live here, but it has nothing to do with me. And I’m focusing on claiming my citizenship in heaven more and worrying about my citizenship in America less.
I’m not overly exited about it or overly worried about it. I already know that Americans have reached that depraved condition in which they demand to be parasites off of someone else’s success until there are no more hosts to parasitically leach off of while borrowing half of everything they recklessly spend until we collapse and the beast comes.
It’s really more an interesting academic question: what precisely will be the mechanism by which the Antichrist comes and Democrats worship him and take his mark? What will be that final card that gets pulled from the house of cards we call our economy that will send the entire system down the drain so the beast can come riding in on his white horse – as he is depicted in Revelation chapter 6 – to save the day?
But I have seen so many naked lies pass for truth, and I’m at least going to try to document some of those lies at the moment when it matters.
Such as this one: Democrats – that’s right, DEMOCRATS – have been calling for us to go off the fiscal cliff if they don’t get exactly what they want. And Republicans – that’s right, REPUBLICANS – are shocked by the callous willingness of the Democrat Party to allow implosion and the suffering that will result from that implosion.
From the überliberal Washington Post:
Democrats threaten to go over ‘fiscal cliff’ if GOP fails to raise taxes
By Lori Montgomery,
Jul 16, 2012 01:00 AM EDTDemocrats are making increasingly explicit threats about their willingness to let nearly $600 billion worth of tax hikes and spending cuts take effect in January unless Republicans drop their opposition to higher taxes for the nation’s wealthiest households.
Emboldened by signs that GOP resistance to new taxes may be weakening, senior Democrats say they are prepared to weather a fiscal event that could plunge the nation back into recession if the new year arrives without an acceptable compromise.
In a speech Monday, Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the Senate’s No. 4 Democrat and the leader of the caucus’s campaign arm, plans to make the clearest case yet for going over what some have called the “fiscal cliff.”
“If we can’t get a good deal, a balanced deal that calls on the wealthy to pay their fair share, then I will absolutely continue this debate into 2013,” Murray plans to say, according to excerpts of the speech provided to The Washington Post.
READ: Everything you need to know about the fiscal cliff
If the tax cuts from the George W. Bush era expire and taxes go up for everyone, the debate will be reset, Murray is expected to say. “Every proposal will be a tax-cut proposal,” according to the excerpts, and Republicans would no longer be “boxed in” by their pledge not to raise taxes.
“If middle-class families start seeing more money coming out of their paychecks next year, are Republicans really going to stand up and fight for new tax cuts for the rich? Are they going to continue opposing the Democrats’ middle-class tax cut once the slate has been wiped clean? I think they know this would be an untenable political position.”
Murray’s address, set to be delivered at the Brookings Institution, is meant to influence both the Nov. 6 election and the lame-duck legislative session in November and December, when the fiscal cliff will be at hand and the fight over taxes will be in full throttle. Regardless of the election’s outcome, President Obama and the current Congress will be in office for the session.
The speech comes less than a week after Obama assured Hill Democrats during a White House meeting that he would veto any attempt to maintain the Bush tax cuts on income over $250,000 a year, according to several people present. It also echoes the dismissive response by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) to Republicans seeking to undo scheduled reductions in Pentagon spending that even Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta has said would be “devastating” to national security.
During the White House meeting, Obama never directly addressed whether he is prepared to let the new year arrive without taking action to avoid the cliff. According to the excerpts, Murray will say Monday that she hopes an agreement can be reached before then: “Democrats are willing to compromise. We just need a partner.”
Still, Democratic lawmakers emerged from the meeting invigorated for the year-end battle to preserve the Bush tax cuts solely for the middle class.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has lambasted the Democrats’ position as an “outrageous ultimatum.”
“At a moment when the American people are reeling from the slowest recovery in modern times . . . and just five months away from the economic body blow that will result if tax rates spike, as scheduled, on January 1st, the president’s solution is to take more money away from the very business folks we are counting on to create the jobs that we need,” McConnell said in a speech Thursday on the Senate floor. “Naturally, Republicans oppose this. The way we see it, nobody should see an income tax hike right now.”
A risky strategy
The term “fiscal cliff” refers to the sharp drop in the 2013 budget deficit that would result from policies in current law. Thanks to a deal Obama cut with Republicans in 2010, the Bush tax cuts — and dozens of other tax provisions — are set to expire in December, raising taxes for virtually every U.S. household next year.
Meanwhile, during the debt-limit showdown last summer, lawmakers approved a plan to implement $110 billion in automatic spending cuts next year. A legislative “supercommittee” appointed to find an alternative deficit-reduction strategy disbanded without reaching agreement.
Republicans say Democrats are responsible for the impasse, noting that GOP members on the supercommittee offered to raise revenue through an overhaul of the tax code.
“We were on the record saying we would agree to a conventionally scored tax increase if they would clear out the tax code, make it fairer, flatter and simpler and begin to take us off the road to bankruptcy on entitlements. And they weren’t willing to do it,” said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.), the GOP supercommittee chairman.
[…]
Here is a link from the Fox News article: “Democrats Willing to Let Country Fall Off ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Over Bush-era Tax Cuts“:
Senate Democrats appear willing to use your paycheck to play political hardball on taxes unless Republicans agree to President Obama’s plan to raise taxes on America’s top earners.
A top Senate Democrat warned Monday that, if Republicans don’t relent, her caucus is willing to let all the Bush-era tax rates expire at the end of the year — in effect threatening to let the country fall off what many in Washington call the “fiscal cliff.”
That cliff is approaching at the start of 2013, when the Bush tax cuts are set to expire and billions of dollars in automatic spending cuts — spawned by last summer’s debt-ceiling debate — are set to take effect. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are hoping to shift around those spending cuts to spare key areas like defense, and to temporarily extend the Bush tax rates for at least some Americans. Some have warned a failure to do so could send the nation back into recession.
But Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., indicated Democrats are willing to let the deadline pass in order to better their negotiating position.
“So if we can’t get a good deal, a balanced deal that calls on the wealthy to pay their fair share, then I will absolutely continue this debate into 2013 rather than lock in a long-term deal this year that throws middle-class families under the bus,” she said in prepared remarks for a speech she plans to give Monday afternoon at the Brookings Institution. Murray is head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the campaign arm for Senate Democrats.
[…]
Which party has clearly offered compromises? The Republican Party, which has repeatedly said at the very highest levels (including at the level of GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney during his campaign along with John Boehner and the entire Republican leadership) to allow tax revenue increases by ending many tax loopholes that favor the rich or simply by capping the exemptions at a certain dollar level such as $50,000. This would raise nearly as much revenue as what Obama called for.
What has Obama offered by way of “compromise”? Well, he is now demanding DOUBLE what he demanded the last time. His starting position was to hike taxes on the rich whose investment and job creation is vital to economic growth, and his current position hasn’t changed so much as a tiny smidge.
Somehow, in this age when we are getting ready to worship the Antichrist and take his mark on our right hands or our foreheads if we want to participate in the economy in any way, shape or form, that’s “compromise.”
Meanwhile, the Republicans – who have now offered massive compromise – are “obstructionists.” Because in this age right before the beast comes not going along with absolutely EVERYTHING the liberals want is “obstructionism.”
“Balance” is letting the Democrats have everything they demand. “Balance” is threatening economic terrorism and blowing up America if they DON’T get absolutely everything they demand.
My goal was to document this reality.
Because if we go off the cliff, it is a documented historical fact that one party and only one party publicly advocated for going off the fiscal cliff. And that is the Democrat Party.
When we collapse – notice I don’t say “if” – it will be because of reckless Democrat spending that everybody with a soul knew was utterly unsustainable. It will be because the Democrats figured out how to successfully demagogue the lowest and basest nature of the American people. It will be because Democrats have successfully baited and switched the American Dream of becoming independently successful with the Marxist Dream of government redistributionism. It will be because we turned out backs once and for all time on the notion that we grow when we provide incentives for people to work harder and to invest more and to take more risks and instead punished the people who work harder and invest more and take more risks. All that said, I believe that Democrats will be successful again: when the system crashes Democrats will exploit that collapse THAT THEY CAUSED to take complete control of the government. Because hungry, terrified people – particularly given the fact that they are bad people – will demand the government step in to help them. And that will be the moment that America fulfills the dreams of socialists ever since Karl Marx by truly officially embracing socialism.
It’s all so close now. And it will take so little to trigger the coming collapse.
Update, 11/27:
And guess what? Now EVEN MORE DEMOCRATS ARE WILLING TO THROW AMERICA INTO A DEPRESSION TO DEMONIZE THEIR WAY INTO GETTING WHATEVER THE HELL THEY WANT:
More Democrats Willing to Go Over ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Monday, 26 Nov 2012 04:21 PM By Stephen Feller
A growing number of Democrats say they are willing to let the country go off the fiscal cliff if a deal cannot be reached by Jan. 1 that raises taxes on the top two percent of earners while protecting costly entitlement programs.
Their theory in this game of chicken with Republicans is that it will be easier in January to lower taxes for 98 percent of the country while finding the best possible parts of the federal budget to cut — in line with long-held goals of the nation’s liberal party. They also think they’ll be in a better position to save most, if not all, of massive entitlements like Medicare as well as pet projects.
The fiscal cliff, originally created to force a legislatively-appointed supercommittee to make significant cuts to the federal budget, is roughly $500 billion mix of budget cuts and tax increases.
It includes the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts and Obama-era payroll tax cut, massive cuts to the military and jobless benefits, and a decrease in Medicare reimbursement rates.
This will send tax on bond interest to 44.6 percent from 35 percent; on capital gains to 25 percent from 15 percent and on dividends to 44.6 percent from 15 percent, Forbes magazine pointed out Monday.
The average family will pay an extra $2,000 to $3,000 in income taxes if Congress fails to reach an agreement before the Bush tax cuts expire on Jan. 1, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The economy would shrink by 0.5 percent, the CBO has found.
Experts have consistently predicted that the overall economy would take a massive hit if the country goes over the cliff, likely sending it into recession. Still, since July, Democrats increasingly have made the case that it wouldn’t be so bad.
Led by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Democrats have pushed the idea that the cliff is not as bad as the hype, with it being more of a “slope” than a “cliff.”
Pentagon cuts, they say, would be phased in, and the tax hikes, including the payroll hike, could also be slowed. If this happens, according to The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, there would be a few weeks at the beginning of 2013 for a deal to quickly be reached.
Sen. Charles Schumer backs Murray, also saying that Democrats can’t cave in. He and other Democrats believe that Obama won a mandate for increased taxes with the presidential election.
“[President Obama] campaigned on it clearly,” the veteran New York Democrat said on “Meet the Press.” “He didn’t back off it.”
Also weighing in on Monday in a New York Times Op-Ed was billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has said he think the country will be just fine going over the fiscal cliff.
While it’s not ideal, the founder of Berkshire Hathaway thinks that Obama must be willing to keep pushing for higher taxes on the wealthy, even if it triggers the automatic onset of tax increases and spending cuts on Jan.1.
The U.S. economy, he said, can weather it for a month or two. “We’re not going to permanently cripple ourselves,” Buffett told CNN last week.
Buffett shrugged off the Congressional Budget Office’s warnings that failure to address the fiscal cliff by Dec. 31 could lead to a recession.
“We have a very resilient economy,” said Buffett, a long-time Democrat and staunch Obama supporter. “The fact that [lawmakers] can’t get along for the month of January is not going to torpedo the economy.”
But even as some Republicans waver on taxes, others have renewed the call for no tax hikes.
“A tax increase never created a new job in this country,” Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., said on “Fox News Sunday.” “It doesn’t make any sense to us to raise taxes on job creators in this time of economic challenge.”
And House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has said raising tax rates will stymie job creation. But he also said he is willing to raise revenue through tax reform and by eliminating “loopholes” in the tax code.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., has not said whether he would vote for tax increases.
“A lot has been said about this pledge,” Cantor said on MSNBC Monday morning, referring to the popular no-tax pledge pushed by anti-tax activist Grover Norquist.
“I will tell you when I go to the constituents that re-elected me, it is not about that pledge, it really is about trying to solve problems,” Cantor said. “And as we know, this election we just went through is very much about, number one, what are we going to do to reclaim a momentum in this economy? How do we get us back to that? And, two, how do you solve a problem?”
Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, echoed Cantor, saying in an interview that reforming the outdated tax code could stir up new revenues without raising tax rates.
“We need to create growth, which creates jobs, not damaging growth by huge tax increases,” Sessions told Fox News.
A CNN/ORC International poll released Monday shows a solid majority of respondents — two-thirds — supports the Democratic stance that any agreement should include a mix of spending cuts and tax increases. Of that total, Republicans favor such an approach by 52 to 44 percent.
Even if effects of the cliff felt by Americans could be held off temporarily, the markets may not fare so well.
“Markets are going to go into an absolute tailspin, and I don’t think we want to risk that, especially with leadership right now trying to find a deal,” said Gabriel Horwitz, director of the economic program for Third Way, a centrist think tank. “I think the market reaction is going to happen immediately.”
“Rather than stop the country from going over the fiscal cliff and preventing the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax relief, they are prepared to Thelma-and-Louise the American economy right over the cliff,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the top Republican on the Finance Committee. “That is an astonishing admission.”
William Galston, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, told CNN that Murray’s form of brinksmanshipis best avoided.
“To be sure, no one believes that non-agreement by December 31 would be the end of the story. After a period of finger-pointing, discussions would resume,” Galston wrote last week in a New Republic opinion piece. “But equally, no one knows how the failure to reach agreement before the end of 2012 would affect the dynamics of the negotiations.”
In addition, “we can be reasonably sure … that national and global markets would react adversely and that businesses, which are already retreating from planned investments in new plant and equipment, would become even more uncertain and risk-averse.”
Murray said in July, and again after the election in November, that without increasing taxes for some Americans, Democrats would balk at any deal Republicans propose.
By waiting until January to cut taxes for the bottom 98 percent, rather than increasing taxes for the top two percent, it may be easier for Republicans to support the concept – based on timing and semantics, Murray and other Democrats seem to think.
“We can’t accept an unfair deal that piles all of this on the middle class and tells them they have to support it,” Murray said on ABC in November. “We have to make sure that the wealthiest of Americans pay their fair share. If Republicans, many of whom were elected after campaigning against tax hikes, won’t agree, Democrats shouldn’t blink… We’ll start over next year and whatever we do will be a tax cut for whatever package we put together. That may be the way to get past this.”
While many Republicans are now saying that they’d be willing to violate Norquist’s pledge under the right circumstances, removing the spectre of actually voting to raise taxes would make it easier for them, she surmises.
Sen. Lindsey Graham said on ABC this Sunday that the pledge was not his major concern, as long as Democrats offer cuts to entitlements and other drains on the budget alongside the tax hikes.
“I will violate the pledge, long story short, for the good of the country, only if Democrats will do entitlement reform,” Graham said.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told ABC that it’s not her “role to go to the table with a threat… I think it’s my role to go to the table with some ideas, to be receptive to what we can come to agreement on.”
However not all Democrats agree that the threat of going over the cliff should not exist.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, have circulated a letter demanding that Obama start negotiations at a 1-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to revenue increases, putting them in line with many in the party who want to see a harder line taken by Democrats.
Increasing federal revenue is the most important part of any negotiation, and though a deal before reaching the cliff is ideal, Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., joined many others in his party and said waiting until January may be the best option.
“If the Republicans can’t see their way to significant additional revenues targeted toward the people who are best off and targeted toward passive income and other things like that, then we’re better off going over the cliff and readdressing this with a better Congress in January,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. “And we would have plenty of time to fix it.”
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