Nancy Pelosi: No Fiscal Cliff Deal Without Tax Hikes For Rich

The president announced, from the get-go, before any pressure by Republicans, that he doesn't really mean it when he says he won't budge, so my strongest hope is for Pelosi. She is more likely to get Democrats to stand strong against any deal to allow the rich to keep their Bush tax cuts.

Pelosi has much more backbone than Obama. What is wrong with him that after 4 years of being used as a door mat by the minority party, he still expresses his willingness to yield before negotiations even begin, before the Republicans even make their demands? That is gross incompetence as a negotiator.

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Nancy Pelosi has been no friend to Democratic voters.  See here.  And here.  

Obama has been able to cut deals with Boehner that have been bad for the 99% because Pelosi has  delivered the votes he needed, over the objections of her own caucus.  The war supplemental that included the $108 billion in IMF funding, the healthcare bill with the anti-choice language and no public option, the deal to extend the Bush tax cuts and the Libya war defunding vote are just a few prominent examples.

The latest union- and job-killing free trade bills, S.Korea AFTA and CAFTA - Pelosi voted yea.

And H.R.347: Goodbye, First Amendment: ‘Trespass Bill’ will make protest illegal, outlaws protests in instances where some government officials are nearby, whether or not you even know it, anywhere in the country.- Pelosi voted yea.

And look who voted for NDAA - Pelosi!

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Nancy Pelosi: No Fiscal Cliff Deal Without Tax Hikes For Rich

Lie number 3) U.S. corporatio­ns are over-taxed­.

Example: Republican presidenti­al candidate Tim Pawlenty

We have the highest corporate tax rate, or one of them, in the OECD nations.

Actually, as measured in terms of share of GDP, the U.S. has the lowest corporate tax burden of any OECD nation. While the official tax bracket may seems high -- 35 percent -- if one takes into account various loopholes and tax dodges, the effective tax rate is considerab­ly lower, or around 27 percent, which comes in as slightly higher than average for OECD members. And according to ace tax report David Cay Johnston, the bigger you are, the less you pay -- the effective tax rate for the biggest U.S. corporatio­ns is only about 15 percent.

There you have it, for future handy reference. Poor people do pay taxes, the biggest corporatio­ns don't pay enough, and the United States, as a whole, has a low tax burden overall.
About Bush Tax Cuts
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Nancy Pelosi: No Fiscal Cliff Deal Without Tax Hikes For Rich

Lie number 2) The U.S. suffers from high taxes.

Example: The Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore:

What all this means is that in the late 1980s, the U.S. was nearly the lowest taxed nation in the world, and a quarter century later we're nearly the highest.

Totally untrue. As measured in terms of total tax revenue as a share of overall GDP the average tax burden for countries that are members of the Organizati­on for Economic Cooperatio­n and Developmen­t in 2008 was 44.8 percent. The U.S. -- 26.1 percent. The U.S. pays less taxes, as a share of GDP, than Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Austria, France, Netherland­s, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada, Spain, Switzerlan­d and Japan.

Furthermor­e, as Bruce Bartlett explains in detail in The New York Times the current U.S. federal tax burden, measured, again, as a share of GDP, is only 14.8 percent -- a 60-year low.

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About Bush Tax Cuts
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Nancy Pelosi: No Fiscal Cliff Deal Without Tax Hikes For Rich

The Top 3 Lies About Taxes:

Lie Number 1.) Poor people don't pay taxes.

Example: From The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities­:

At a hearing last month, Senator Charles Grassley said, "According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, 49 percent of households are paying 100 percent of taxes coming in to the federal government­." At the same hearing, Cato Institute Senior Fellow Alan Reynolds asserted, "Poor people don't pay taxes in this country." Last April, referring to a Tax Policy Center estimate of households with no federal income tax liability in 2009, Fox Business host Stuart Varney said on Fox and Friends, "Yes, 47 percent of households pay not a single dime in taxes."

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities­' Chuck Marr and Brian Highsmith provide the definitive takedown of this myth.

In 2009, Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation found that 51 percent of households owed no federal income tax.  According to Marr and Highsmith, that figure was inflated by special recession-­related factors -- In a more typical year, "35 to 40 percent of households pay no federal income tax."

But that doesn't mean that these households pay no federal taxes at all.  Far from it: Nearly all working Americans pay payroll taxes to fund Medicare and Social Security.  In 2007, the poorest Americans -- taxpayers in the bottom fifth of income -- paid 8.8 percent of their income as payroll taxes.  The next fifth paid almost ten percent.  The top 20 percent of earners paid only 5.7 percent.

And of course, these numbers don't include state and local taxes or excise fees like gas taxes, which tend to have a regressive impact that hits poorer Americans harder.  Bottom line: only 14 percent of Americans don't pay either federal income taxes or payroll taxes -- and that group is made up primarily of "low-incom­e people who are elderly, unable to work due to a serious disability­, or students."

The rich have gotten rich off of the sweat and labor of others and then have taken those profits to buy politician­s who've gamed the system so that they wouldn't have to pay taxes through all manner of tax schemes not available to the poor and middle classes.  The rich also "closed the door" on the ways that initially enabled them to amass their "seed money" for creating their businesses­.

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Nancy Pelosi: No Fiscal Cliff Deal Without Tax Hikes For Rich

There should be tax HIKES on corporatio­ns and the rich. There should be massive cuts to the military. Banks should be threatened with nationaliz­ation unless they begin lending to small businesses­. There have been more than 3.5 million home foreclosur­es but there are 11 million more in the pipeline — There must be principal write-down­s.

About Bush Tax Cuts

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Nancy Pelosi: No Fiscal Cliff Deal Without Tax Hikes For Rich

I asked for months, "If Obama wins, what do you think he will say he has a mandate to do?" and got no responses.

At the Democratic Convention, Bill Clinton and Obama embraced Simpson-Bowles and not long ago Nancy Pelosi said she will support it.  Obama echoed the sentiment in his speech before the convention (during the debates, both Obama and Romney agreed that they liked Simpson-Bowles).  Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin told Andrea Mitchell that Obama’s going to use Simpson-Bowles as the template for budget talks.

Simpson-Bowles (Catfood Commission) plan cuts Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security (Social Security wasn't even on their plate to be considered) and puts the burden on the poor and middle classes, and lets the rich keep their ill-gotten booty.

Today's Democrats are yesterday's Republicans.

There should be tax HIKES on corporatio­ns and the rich. There should be massive cuts to the military. Banks should be threatened with nationaliz­ation unless they begin lending to small businesses­. There have been more than 3.5 million home foreclosur­es but there are 11 million more in the pipeline — There must be principal write-down­s.

Democratic politician­s should be beating this drum, loudly, constantly, and pushing the People’s Budget instead of working off of a set of corporate lobbyists’ plans.

Why aren’t Obama, Pelosi, Reid and Democrats talking about the Progressiv­e Caucus’s budget and plan to balance the budget (reduces the deficit by $5.1 trillion)? It beats Obama’s AND Republican­s’ plans.

As Krugman has said, the Progressiv­es’ budget:

“balances the budget through higher taxes and defense cuts, plus some tougher bargaining by Medicare (and a public option to reduce the costs of the Affordable Care Act). The proposed tax hikes would fall on higher incomes, raising the cap on payroll taxes (takes care of Social Security’s solvency forever)..­. and unlike the Ryan plan, it actually makes sense.”

But Obama already is broadcasting he's willing to put safety net and entitlement programs on the table for cuts.  He takes solutions that work for the People, the vast majority of Americans, off the table. Obama kneecaps and handicaps the Democratic voters who put him and Democrats into power before negotiations even begin.

Let the Bush tax cuts expire.

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Boehner Pushes Obama To Relocate Fiscal Cliff Farther Down The Road

"I think there's only one logical thing to do," said the Ohio Republican, "and that's to continue the current tax code [Bush's tax cuts] for six months. Or maybe it's a year. I think [President Obama] might consider it, if at this point, when you make that agreement not to create the great uncertainty and the huge tax increases that could push us into recession."


Of course Obama will go along.  Because that's what he does - Obama serves the rich.
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