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Obama on
"fiscal cliff": I'm happy to be flexible
In his first television interview since his re-election, President Obama
pushed his proposal to avert the so-called "fiscal cliff" but also
signaled that he is open to some movement on some key components of his
proposal, including raising taxes on the wealthy. Although Mr. Obama told Bloomberg
TV a deal is not possible without an increase to the tax rate for those
making over $250,000, he would not answer specifically when asked if the rate
on the wealthy must increase from the current 35 percent to the pre-Bush rate
of 39.6 percent, signaling there may be wiggle room on how much of a hike he'll
demand. "I'm prepared to make some
tough decisions," Mr. Obama said. However, he reaffirmed that no
matter what, the tax rate on the wealthy must go up. "We're not going
to be able to get a deal without it." When asked for clarification,
White House spokesperson Jay Carney said "rates have to go up," but
spoke in a similar line as his boss by refusing to draw a line in the sand over
the percentage. He said the Republicans have yet to offer a proposal that would
raise tax rates on the wealthy.
~~~~~~
Obama More Secretive
Than Ever
“My administration,” President Obama wrote on his first day in office,
“is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government.”
Those were strong and hopeful words. Four years later, it is becoming more
and more clear that they were just words.
On Monday afternoon, open-government advocates assembled in a
congressional hearing room to ponder what had become of the Obama
administration’s lofty vows of transparency.
“It’s been a really tough slog,” said Anne Weismann of Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “The lack of effective leadership in
the White House, in the executive branch, has really made it difficult to have
more significant progress.” “They’ve been reluctant to take positions,” said
Hudson Hollister of the Data Transparency Coalition, “and translate that to
real action.”
~~~~~~
Norquist: Obama
'Hostile and 'Insulting' to GOP on Debt Deal
Low-tax crusader and Republican strategist Grover Norquist tells Newsmax
that House Speaker John Boehner’s plan to raise $800 billion in new revenue
could be a negotiating tactic designed to show “how out of line” President
Obama is. He also says some Republicans have the “fantasy” that Obama has
become more moderate on taxes and spending since his re-election. And he asserts
that Republicans can hold hostage the increase in the debt ceiling that
Obama needs if he remains “hostile” and “insulting” to Republicans in his
negotiations.
~~~~~~
Santorum: Obama
Already Has 'The Deal He Likes
Former Sen. Rick
Santorum says President Barack Obama already has the budget deal he wants from
Congress and is willing to allow the Dec. 31 deadline on sequestration to
expire in order to make Republicans look bad. "He's saying no because he
likes the deal he has in place," Santorum told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren Monday night, referring to
the deficit reduction law passed last year that triggers automatic spending
cuts and tax increases beginning in 2013 if lawmakers and the president fail to
reach a long-term budget agreement. "The reason I think he's saying no
— and I think he will say no to just about anything the Republicans put forward
— is because the fallback position is better for him than any deal that the
Republicans are going to put forward," the Pennsylvania Republican
continued. "And the fallback position is a tax increase on everybody . . .
He can then have his big increases in taxes, and then at the same time blame
Republicans for taxes going up on lower-income people. That's a win for
him."
~~~~~~
Ron Paul: We
Already Went Over the Fiscal Cliff
Are you worried about the fiscal cliff? You should be. Not the one that
faces us on January 1. The one the government has already taken us over. Ron
Paul explains:
As the year draws to an end, America faces yet another
Congressionally-manufactured crisis which will likely end in yet another 11th
hour compromise, resulting in more government growth touted as “saving” the
economy. While cutting taxes is always a good idea, setting up a ticking time
bomb with a sunset provision, as the Bush tax cuts did, is terrible policy. Congress
should have just cut taxes. But instead, we have a crisis that is sure not to
go to waste. The hysteria surrounding the January 1 deadline for the Budget
Control Act’s spending cuts and expiration of the Bush tax cuts seems all too
familiar. Even the language is predictably hysterical: if government reduces
planned spending increases by even a tiny amount, the economy will go over a
“fiscal cliff.” This is nonsense. This rhetoric is based on the belief that
government spending sustains the economy, when in fact the opposite is true.
Every dollar the government spends is a dollar taken from consumers,
businessmen, or investors. Reducing spending can only help the economy by
putting money back in the hands of ordinary Americans. Politicians who claim to
support the free market and the lower and middle-class should take this to
heart.
~~~~~~
Rising Taxes Part of Elite Global Strategy? Irving Kristo
Free-Market
Analysis: Taxes are going up around the
world and it's time to offer the possibility that it is deliberate.
Of course it is deliberate in terms of individual countries. Our point
is that the tax increases are seemingly being orchestrated as part of a larger
policy aimed at reinforcing world government. The powers-that-be that control central banks
and have put in place a world government infrastructure are engaged in a series
of moves to bring us closer to the goal of global
governance. Our perception that taxes are being deliberately raised the
world over was buttressed lately by a number of articles commenting on this
phenomenon. Here's an excerpt from one such article entitled "No Escape:
Taxes Rise Globally," that was posted recently at the Independent Journal
Review:
Governments around the world are becoming more and
more hostile to the 'makers' as we move into 2013. These days, if you are
earning more than $1 million per year, finding any kind of tax shelter is
becoming harder to do, especially if you are trying to find a tax haven
overseas. In addition, you won't find any breaks being overlooked, especially
since the IRS
is heavily scrutinizing earnings of all shapes and sizes ...if you've made it,
then they want to see it.
The New York Times has a 3-page report, concerning how taxes are going
higher around the globe, and scrutiny of earnings is becoming so thorough it's
getting scary:
"Taxes on earnings, investment income, sales
and a few other things have gone up already in many countries, and further
increases are possible, including a huge one in the United States.
"Another source of unease and doubt for
taxpayers is a trend toward increases of other sorts: in scrutiny by revenue
authorities, reporting requirements for individuals and businesses, and
legislation to close tax code loopholes.
"Also, it's not like these rates are being
hiked slowly by any measure. No, especially in European countries like France,
tax rates on folks earning roughly $1.28 million are seeing a 75% tax rate
under President François Hollande ...a move some tax experts say is laughable:
" 'It's perhaps the most foolish set of tax
policies under discussion in all of Europe,' said J.D. Foster, a senior fellow
at the Heritage Foundation. 'You just have to laugh and ask whether he was
elected for the sole purpose of destroying the French Republic. Everyone says
they want a growth agenda, then everything they do harms growth.' "
The answer to Mr.
Foster's rhetorical question is "yes," the elites trying to create
global government ARE likely trying to destroy France, at least in its current
incarnation.
~~~~~~
Obama’s America?
America Deserves Better Than This By Michelle Zook
My father will be the first to tell you that he squeaked through high
school. Upon graduation, he went to work in his dad’s business, changing tires,
and kept right on doing that until he left to drive trucks. All his life, he’s
been a blue collar man. Even now that he has an office job, you can tell some
days that he would really rather just be out, driving a truck. He was proud we
both graduated college, even if he never got the chance — or even really wanted
— to go. Every morning he was home, he got up with us, made us breakfast, put
on Rush Limbaugh, and quizzed us about the news. After I finished college, he
would call me, and say, “Have you heard what Michael Savage is saying?” or
“What do you think of what Congress is doing?” and I knew that meant Daddy
wanted to visit, and this was his way of connecting. So when I look at politics and policy, I
inherently evaluate them by his standards and values. In all my years, what I
have never heard him talk about is how the government needs to raise taxes — on
anyone. While my father may be blue collar (and proud of it), he’s the
old-school, pro-capitalist, non-union, Southern blue collar. In a world that
seems to inherently pit white-collar, upwardly mobile, upper middle class
against the blue collar, lower to lower middle class, my father is that rare
hybrid that taught me early on that nothing in life is free and life isn’t
always fair, but you do the best you can, and if you work hard, you can do
anything you want. Men like my father are what make it all the more insulting that this
country has strayed so far from its roots. My parents believed in the America
Ronald Reagan espoused, that the American dream was still alive, and that the
government didn’t have to be there to hold your hand, that the government owed
you nothing, and that, as Gerald Ford said, a government big enough to give you
everything you want is a government big enough to take it from you. Yet our president encourages people to tweet
their Congressional representatives with the #My2K hashtag, telling them what
they would have to give up if the government didn’t raise taxes on those making
more than $250,000. One of the most shocking images to come out of this
campaign was a woman talking about how the president got her a free cell phone.
I would like to say that there’s a clear path of where to go from here. I
wish I could say that our country was bigger than just one president. But the
truth is that the trouble didn’t start with Barack Obama. It started with Teddy
Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson. It got bigger with FDR and LBJ, and Jimmy
Carter, and, yes, even the Bushes and Bill Clinton continued on this path. Over a hundred
years, and we had plenty of warning signs — but now we want to turn the ship.
And we must turn this ship. People like my father, people like
many of you, have worked their whole lives, sometimes living paycheck to
paycheck, just to provide for their families and do the right thing. The
right thing isn’t turning your back as your country goes up in flames, and it’s
not hiking taxes on the rich and taking more money “because they can afford
it”. You deserve better than what’s happening to your country. You deserve
better than what the politicians — including the GOP — are allowing to happen
to your country. You need to
decide what that is and participate in making it happen! You cannot wait for someone to tell you, you
must know within yourself!
~~~~~~~
House Dems: Debt
Limit Should Be Off the Table By Elizabeth Harrington
The House
Democratic leadership said Wednesday that the debt ceiling “ought not be a
negotiating item” in Congress, thereby ceding their constitutional authority to
borrow money to President Barack Obama. “The debt limit ought not to be held
hostage to anything,” said
Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) during a press conference on Capitol Hill.
“It hurt our economy. We were downgraded for the first time in my career, and I
think in history, by one of the rating agencies. “The credit worthiness of
America ought not to be put at risk,” he said. “It ought not to be a
negotiating item.”
~~~~~~
Gallup: 53 Percent
of Democrats Have ‘Positive Image’ of Socialism By Jon Street
According to a recent Gallup poll that asked participants if they have a
positive or negative image of socialism, 53 percent of Democrats and “leaning
democrats” said they have a positive image.
See above
~~~~~~
Detroit
Councilwoman’s Actual Rant: We Voted for You, Obama, Now Give Us Some of That
Gov’t ‘Bacon’
More from the Left Wing Nut cases.
Speaking before the Detroit City Council on Tuesday, Councilwoman JoAnn
Watson said President Barack Obama owes the ailing city a government bailout
because its residents supported him in the 2012 presidential election. “Our people in an overwhelming way
supported the re-election of this president and there ought to be a quid pro
quo and you ought to exercise leadership on that,” said Watson, according to
FOX 2 Detroit. “Of course, not just that, but why not?” “After the election
of Jimmy Carter, the honorable Coleman Alexander Young [Detroit’s former mayor
of 20 years and former vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee], he
went to Washington, D.C. and came home with some bacon,” she added. “That’s
what you do.” As of this writing, the White House has announced no plans to
bailout the crumbling Motor City. Watch
~~~~~~
7 Reasons Socialism
Will Make You Poorer Than Capitalism
Given what we know in
2012, saying that capitalism will make a society richer than socialism should
be about as controversial as saying the earth is round, not flat. Yet, a recent
Gallup poll shows that more liberals have a positive view of socialism than capitalism.
This is only possible because there are so many perverse incentives that drive
the promotion of socialism. If you're a politician, socialism puts power in
your hands while capitalism takes it away. If you want to use the government
to control people's lives, socialism is a wonderful vehicle to do just that
while capitalism robs you of that opportunity. If you would rather live off the dole than to work or alternately,
prefer to make money off "who you know" instead of "how good a
service you provide," again socialism works better for you. Now
take into account the fact that there are no
pure socialist or capitalist economies left and it becomes very easy to muddy
the water and keep people from realizing the obvious economic superiority of
capitalism. Continue
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