The New Year's "fiscal cliff" deal represents another Obama "victory." For whom? As pointed out in Holland's article below, the Bush tax cuts had already expired when this deal was done. This means that, after allowing the FICA tax cut to expire for all working people, Obama made a deal to give new, permanent tax cuts to the wealthy, and paved the way for Social Security and Medicare to be put on the chopping block. As I've said a number of times before (here, here, here), "the next Obama administration, claiming to be standing on the high ground of principle, will be, and will be proud to be, the first administration to cut Social Security. Guaranteed. And they’ll sell it as a 'save.' Obama and the Democratic Party really think it’s the right thing to do."
Anyone who's waiting to see whether Obama and the Democrats will finally take a stand when the Republicans hold the country hostage to the debt ceiling is showing a truly delirious capacity to ignore what has been said, done, and established before their eyes repeatedly. Obama and the Democrats will make sure this gets done. With very few, if any, principled exceptions from the left, all Democrats who need to — including Pelosi, Reid, and, yes, Bernie Sanders, all of whom voted for this mess — will vote to save reform undermine Social Security and Medicare, because, well, they just have to.
Can it be said, with a straight face, that there is anything left of Democratic-party welfare-state American liberalism than an ever more vacuous nostalgia?
Gone, baby, gone.
Some recent articles worth reading:
An Ugly, Ugly, Ugly Deal
Wall Street Pulls the Strings: Social Security Under Attack in February
Instead of doing that, the president and his vice president … offered a “compromise” that give tax breaks to the 1% of Americans who earn between $250,000 and $400,000 a year, protected up to $5 million in estate value from inheritance taxes, and left the GOP free to hold Congress and the Country hostage in February and March when Congress has to pass a new increase in the debt ceiling….
And with the government held hostage in February, and unable to borrow further without a rise in the debt ceiling, Democrats will have an excuse to go along with their demands, claiming that they had “no choice.”…{Read on}
Middle class the big loser in "fiscal cliff" deal?
(MoneyWatch) The "fiscal cliff" clash in Washington may leave middle- and lower-income Americans paying more in taxes while preserving a range of tax breaks for various industries and businesses.
After Congress opted to let a "holiday" on Social Security taxes lapse, under the bill signed into law on Wednesday working Americans will see a 2 percent increase in taxes on their gross salaries or wages. Make $50,000? That's another $1,000 in taxes withheld every year. Someone making $15,000 would pay an additional $300. But because payroll taxes are capped for incomes greater than $113,700, people whose income exceeds that threshold pay $2,274 more a year.
It's a regressive tax: The higher the income, the smaller percentage the increase represents. For everyone, meanwhile, it's a net increase… [Read on]
New York Times Article Tells Big Lies on Impact of Fiscal Cliff Deal on Rich v. Ordinary Americans
…[Read on}
From Green:
… this doesn't change the basic point of the picture, which is that it is not until income reaches around $560,000 that the change in effective tax rates at the high end of the distribution match the rate at the low end. [note: y-axis is the change in effective tax rates].
And, finally, from the Daily Mail:
Workers making $30,000 will take a bigger hit on their pay than those earning $500,000 under new fiscal deal
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