I awoke this morning to find the fiscal crisis had been averted. The House of Representatives, in a late night session, voted to approve the McConnell-Biden plan to raise taxes on the so-called “one percent”. Barack Obama is on his way back to Hawaii and Nancy Pelosi says it’s “a great way to start the year. The stock market is showing its approval by a sizable rally. All is great in the world, well, at least the country.
Well, not really. The deal that Congress approved for the nation is by no means a balanced plan. After the Senate voted for the plan, the CBO scored it as containing $41 revenue (read tax increase) to every $1 spending cut. Suspiciously, during the time the House is studying the plan, the CBO rescored it as a 10:1 ratio, but also notes that the plan would add almost $4,000,000,000 (4 Trillion dollars) to the national debt due to a decrease in revenues over a ten-year period. In other words, Congress passed a debt reduction bill that ADDS to the debt, evidently, with full knowledge the plan will prevent economic growth to the tune of $4 trillion over ten years.
Before anyone starts saying that Congress needed to do this to avoid a tax increase for everybody, let me point out that, with or without this plan, everyone’s taxes were going up anyway. While the plan dictates that those people making more than $400,000 (couples making $450,000) are evil people not paying their fair share, those making less than that faced a tax hike as well. The plan discontinues the payroll tax cut which will result in a 2% tax hike for all, no matter to what financial class they belong. By the way, Obamacare starts costing more money, in many cases almost doubling insurance premiums. simply, this means less money in everyone’s pockets.
Come to think of it, not everybody gets less money, because the administration, through Executive Order, gave Biden, Congress, and federal workers a raise. So, even as the taxpayers paycheck gets smaller, the people who supposedly work for us, get more. Currently, the House has voted not to give the raises, but unless the Senate takes it up today, it will die, as so many other bills will, on Thursday when the new Congress is sworn in. Of course, the bill also gives financial favors to NASCAR and to those poor Hollywood people. Doesn’t it make you feel warm and fuzzy that your tax hikes are doing such good?
My senator wrote earlier,”I supported this proposal because it protects 99% of Americans from increased taxes, it provides permanent certainty on the estate tax and Alternative Minimum Tax, it provides one year of protection for the reimbursement of doctors, it extends unemployment insurance for one year, and the net result of the deal provides over $600 billion that should be used to pay down our national debt.” Some of this may be true, however, none of this will ever be used to pay down the national debt. Even if it were, it would be but a drop in the bucket when the national debt is $16.4 trillion. When Obama cut short his vacation to make some photo opportunities and then turned the work over to Biden, he commented several times about how he had cut $1 trillion, I had to ask myself then why is his yearly deficit over $1.25 trillion dollars. Where were those cuts anyway? This bill is nothing more than a SPENDING and TAXING bill! The Lame Stream Media can spin it anyway they like it (nobody pays much attention to them anyway), but the only intent of this bill is to spend more.
This whole debacle should never have happened. Congress had almost a year and a half to come to some solution, but they waited until the last-minute to do anything. Really, the passing of this legislation does nothing but cause more turmoil in a few months. The sequestration cuts were delayed two months, which is about the same time until the debt ceiling issue comes up. When the new Congress starts work, they need to start working on these issues then, not in a couple of months. No good legislation ever comes about at the last-minute! The new Congress needs to get busy, actually do their jobs and cut spending before it’s too late!
marjarhead1 