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Fiscal cliff deal: $1 in spending cuts for every $41 in tax hikes

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the last-minute fiscal cliff deal reached by congressional leaders and President Barack Obama cuts only $15 billion in spending while increasing tax revenues by $620 billion—a 41:1 ratio of tax increases to spending cuts.

When Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush increased taxes in return for spending cuts—cuts that never ultimately came—they did so at ratios of 3:1 and 2:1.

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Way to negotiate you rethuglicans. Now when you have him “over the barrel” during the debt ceiling negotiations he can say: “why do you want old people and military to starve?”.

We are doomed and our politicians are paving the way.

trs on January 1, 2013 at 10:33 AM

That $1.00 in spending cuts must be a typo? It should read $.001 spending cuts for every $41. tax hikes if we actually got the truth out of dc?
L

letget on January 1, 2013 at 10:34 AM

winning!
/

cmsinaz on January 1, 2013 at 10:34 AM

negotiators have agreed to raise the top income tax rate from 35% to 39.6% on individuals earning more than $400,000 and married filers earning above $450,000. They will also see their dividends and CapGains tax rates go up to 20%. In addition, the Death Tax, which should be completely abolished, will increase from 35% to 40% on all assets above $5.12 million. There will be a permanent AMT patch as well, as if there already wasn’t one anyway.

What about the spending side? Here are the spending increases:

■A $30 billion one-year extension of Medicare doc fix
■A $30 billion one-year extension of 73 week unemployment insurance. Over the past four years, the federal government has collected roughly $192 billion in federal unemployment payroll taxes, while paying out $510 billion in benefits. Evidently, that’s not good enough.
■Stimulus Refundable Tax Credits: Somehow, a 5-year extension of Obama’s stimulus refundable tax credits got inserted into the deal. So he calls a tax cut a handout, and a handout a tax cut. These latter three provisions alone will easily top $100 billion a year, dwarfing the $50-$60 billion in static revenue projections from the tax cuts on the rich. So much for a balanced approach.
■Green Energy Pork: The irony is that while the rich earned every penny of their money, Obama refers to the current system – one in which the top 1% pay 37% of the taxes – as a handout to the rich. Yet, this deal extends a true handout, the 2.2 cent per kilowatt/hour wind Production Tax Credit. This is a refundable credit that can be claimed by any wind company that fails to generate a profit, of which there are many. In addition, all special interest credits passed out of the Senate Finance Committee – the real loopholes in the tax code – are included in the deal.

Dan Horowitz at RedState.

Wethal on January 1, 2013 at 10:36 AM

The GOP should never play poker!

OldEnglish on January 1, 2013 at 10:36 AM

biden looks presidential
-lsm

blech

cmsinaz on January 1, 2013 at 10:38 AM

Disgusting.

p0s3r on January 1, 2013 at 10:39 AM

OldEnglish on January 1, 2013 at 10:36 AM

LOL all you’d have to do is wait for Boehner to look at his hand, tear up, and start laying his cards on the table just to get you to like him a little.

Wanderlust on January 1, 2013 at 10:41 AM

I don’t think this passes the House. It’s a ridiculous sham of a deal. “Balanced approach”? LOL.

changer1701 on January 1, 2013 at 10:42 AM

Nothing the open-ended “quantitative easing” can’t fix.

Forward!

visions on January 1, 2013 at 10:44 AM

Liberalism .

CW on January 1, 2013 at 10:45 AM

LOL all you’d have to do is wait for Boehner to look at his hand, tear up, and start laying his cards on the table just to get you to like him a little.

Wanderlust on January 1, 2013 at 10:41 AM

This wasn’t negotiated by Boehner, genius. Boehner’s last attempt was “Plan B,” which, as you’ll recall, had a lot more cuts than this travesty and kept taxes lower, but no True Conservative could ever ever vote for it.

KingGold on January 1, 2013 at 10:49 AM

I don’t think this passes the House. It’s a ridiculous sham of a deal. “Balanced approach”? LOL.

changer1701 on January 1, 2013 at 10:42 AM

I hope it doesn’t. The senate is populated with total imbeciles.

dogsoldier on January 1, 2013 at 10:50 AM

Yet, this deal extends a true handout, the 2.2 cent per kilowatt/hour wind Production Tax Credit. This is a refundable credit that can be claimed by any wind company that fails to generate a profit, of which there are many.

Dan Horowitz at RedState.

Wethal on January 1, 2013 at 10:36 AM

The PTC extension for wind turbines included in last night’s Biden/McConnell deal is a $12 billion extension for wind projects that begin construction by 2013.

$12 billion of wind pork to inflate electricity costs for the rest of us.

$12 billion down a known rat hole.

petefrt on January 1, 2013 at 10:51 AM

Forward!

visions on January 1, 2013 at 10:44 AM

That slogan – especially today – reminds me of The Charge of The Light Brigade.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!
“Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred…

becomes

“Forward, the Senate Brigade!
“Charge our grandchildren” Obama said:
Into the valley of Debt
Rolled the one hundred.

Drained Brain on January 1, 2013 at 10:53 AM

Molon Labe

trs on January 1, 2013 at 10:53 AM

The GOP should never play poker marbles!

OldEnglish on January 1, 2013 at 10:36 AM

FIFY. They haven’t got any!

Shy Guy on January 1, 2013 at 10:54 AM

Erick Erickson on last night’s Senate ‘deal’:

Ironically, this plan generates less revenue than even John Boehner’s Plan B option. But both options, as I have long maintained, were only about breaking the will of the GOP and getting the GOP to violate its tax pledge.

Well, today the White House is telling Fox New’s Ed Henry that this was the game all along. According to Ed Henry, the White House staff is saying that getting the GOP to break their tax pledge is, “One of the most consequential policy achievements of the last couple of decades.” The plan cuts $1.00 in spending for every $41.00 in tax increases. Contrary to what Senator Pat Toomey is claiming today, everyone’s taxes will also go up – the 99% and the 1%.

That will be the headline if the House Republicans vote for this plan.

Marco Rubio and Rand Paul were defiant. They know what is at stake.

Now, many of you think this is the best deal we can get. I understand that. But consider this — the White House has designed this solely for purposes of getting the GOP to break their tax pledge. Any way we play the game we lose.

The only way to even think of winning is to not play this game.

House Republicans should reject this deal, go over the cliff, and then from any vantage point they will not be voting to raise taxes. They can shift the argument from tax increases and decreases to tax reform.

They should go over the cliff.

petefrt on January 1, 2013 at 10:58 AM

Yay Republicans! (The new closet Democrats.)

This fiscal cliff thing was always a scam so that both Republicans and Democrats could raise taxes using the fog of the “fiscal cliff”.

albill on January 1, 2013 at 10:59 AM

Shouldn’t this be reversed? $41 in cuts for ever $1 tax increase?

Mommynator on January 1, 2013 at 11:03 AM

This gives me a blood clot.

Pork-Chop on January 1, 2013 at 11:04 AM

Furious.

Fallon on January 1, 2013 at 11:06 AM

I’ve filed my last tax return.

wolly4321 on January 1, 2013 at 11:06 AM

You gotta love it. Even ‘conservative’ sites like breitbart and hotair headline spending increases as spending cuts. At least they mention that in the past the spending cuts never actually happened. Yay for baseline budgeting! Oh wait, we haven’t had a budget for a while now, how can we have baseline budgeting without a budget? It’s so confusing.

Fenris on January 1, 2013 at 11:10 AM

We were better off with sequestration. This is what happens when we make tax rates a bigger issue than spending.

Caiwyn on January 1, 2013 at 11:11 AM

FIFY. They haven’t got any!

Shy Guy on January 1, 2013 at 10:54 AM

True, but they do have a hole – which they keep digging!

OldEnglish on January 1, 2013 at 11:19 AM

True, but they do have a hole – which they keep digging sticking their head up into!

OldEnglish on January 1, 2013 at 11:19 AM

Do I have to fix everything for you?!

:)

Shy Guy on January 1, 2013 at 11:31 AM

Shy Guy on January 1, 2013 at 11:31 AM

Heh! I was trying to be genteel. :)

OldEnglish on January 1, 2013 at 11:40 AM

The 0bama regimes goal all along has been the destruction of the GOP and the creation of a defacto one party state.

Contact your house rep, and tell them in no uncertain terms to vote against this.

And pray.

Rebar on January 1, 2013 at 12:22 PM

Next person who uses the term “rethuglicans” within earshot of me gets a free donkey punch.

connertown on January 1, 2013 at 1:12 PM

We’re saved….

*facedesk*

Yakko77 on January 1, 2013 at 1:15 PM

Next person who uses the term “rethuglicans” within earshot of me gets a free donkey punch.

connertown on January 1, 2013 at 1:12 PM

How about “rebumblicans”? Because my little brother has more strategical ability than this pack of clowns by a long shot.

MelonCollie on January 1, 2013 at 3:36 PM