What "We" Got, What "They" Got
Dec. 10th, 2010 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redneckgaijinBen Smith reports on a chart being circulated by the White House in support of the great tax compromise.
Like so much else coming out of the White House, it's bullshit- not least because it defines "We" as Democrats, when Obama is trying his damndest to divorce himself from his political allies.
I would prefer to put it differently: what do THEY, the RICH conservatives, get, and what do WE, the rest of the country, get?
WE get:
* $900,000,000,000 added to the deficit over the next two years alone
* Extension of 99-week eligibility for unemployment benefits in only 43 states for only one year, with no benefits for those who have used up those 99 weeks
* Continuance of the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, which Republicans supported anyway and would be in no serious danger had Democrats not seriously bungled things
* Replacement of the Making Work Pay Tax Credit for households making less than $80,000 with a 2% reduction of payroll taxes- meaning households under $40,000 see a net tax HIKE
* Continuance of the same Bush tax cuts which had null stimulative effect on the economy over the past ten years
THEY get:
* 900,000,000,000 more reasons to gut services to the poor, regulatory agencies, and basic legal protections for American citizens
* Continuance of the lowest taxation levels on the highest income brackets since before the Great Depression
* Democratic endorsement of the Republican talking point that tax cuts for the wealthy are stimulative and that the wealthy should always get tax cuts in preference to anyone else
* A 100% tax write-off of equipment expenses for big business
* Tax benefits for green energy that only the super-wealthy can afford to cash in
* A cut in Social Security taxes which destroys the solvency of that program and opens it wide open to being privatized or abolished
* The public image of having forced Obama to cave in to all their demands and then even to go beyond their demands and give them things they didn't ask for, like the weaker estate tax
And, last but not least:
* The ability to tell voters in 2012 that Obama wants to raise THEIR taxes, thus ensuring Republican party unity and major independent support for any Republican candidate in the general election.
On the whole, not exactly what I would call "win-win."
I really hope this "compromise" collapses. Go, Pelosi- hold out.
Like so much else coming out of the White House, it's bullshit- not least because it defines "We" as Democrats, when Obama is trying his damndest to divorce himself from his political allies.
I would prefer to put it differently: what do THEY, the RICH conservatives, get, and what do WE, the rest of the country, get?
WE get:
* $900,000,000,000 added to the deficit over the next two years alone
* Extension of 99-week eligibility for unemployment benefits in only 43 states for only one year, with no benefits for those who have used up those 99 weeks
* Continuance of the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, which Republicans supported anyway and would be in no serious danger had Democrats not seriously bungled things
* Replacement of the Making Work Pay Tax Credit for households making less than $80,000 with a 2% reduction of payroll taxes- meaning households under $40,000 see a net tax HIKE
* Continuance of the same Bush tax cuts which had null stimulative effect on the economy over the past ten years
THEY get:
* 900,000,000,000 more reasons to gut services to the poor, regulatory agencies, and basic legal protections for American citizens
* Continuance of the lowest taxation levels on the highest income brackets since before the Great Depression
* Democratic endorsement of the Republican talking point that tax cuts for the wealthy are stimulative and that the wealthy should always get tax cuts in preference to anyone else
* A 100% tax write-off of equipment expenses for big business
* Tax benefits for green energy that only the super-wealthy can afford to cash in
* A cut in Social Security taxes which destroys the solvency of that program and opens it wide open to being privatized or abolished
* The public image of having forced Obama to cave in to all their demands and then even to go beyond their demands and give them things they didn't ask for, like the weaker estate tax
And, last but not least:
* The ability to tell voters in 2012 that Obama wants to raise THEIR taxes, thus ensuring Republican party unity and major independent support for any Republican candidate in the general election.
On the whole, not exactly what I would call "win-win."
I really hope this "compromise" collapses. Go, Pelosi- hold out.
