President Obama, in Weekly Address: Extend the Payroll Tax Cut

FUNNY | FEBRUARY 11, 2012, 6:41 AM, SAID:

“Why didn’t you have them to extend it for a year like the republicans wanted to the last time?”
========================================
LOL! ……. Because ONLY the House Republicans would decide to load a middle- class tax cut with a bunch of pork for corporate America. Weeper of the House, Republican John Boehner tied approval of their 1-year extension to approval of the Keystone oil pipeline AND to the ease on restrictions on industrial emissions.

Of course, when the Republicans weren’t able to get their way with the two things that they REALLY wanted in their proposal (the pipeline and the lifting of emission restrictions)…. they quickly and easily caved on the 1-year tax extension idea. ….. It just goes to show that they didn’t care about that portion of their proposal one bit.

Republicans = “Hidden Agendas”, Always!

I can see now that Obama is depending more and more on the blind just accepting him and his numerous flaws…..as long as he keeps that silver tongue working. Don’t fail me now!

DOUGLAS | FEBRUARY 11, 2012, 7:35 AM, SAID:

“Shallow – please stop being so shallow and making things up.”
========================================
LOL! ……. ONLY a Republi-c-r-e-t-_-n would think that in this day and age of search engines, anyone would be “making things up”… LOL!

FROM THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13TH, 2011:
ARTICLE TITLE: “House Passes Bill Linking Tax Cut, Keystone Pipeline”

QUOTE: “House Republicans folded in the unrelated pipeline proposal and another provision to strike new Environmental Protection Agency pollution standards for industrial boilers.”

LOL! ….. I can only guess that “Douglas” has no idea how to use a search engine.

IONAGOAL | FEBRUARY 11, 2012, 9:44 AM:

“Shallow, I don’t know what “pork for corporate America” you speak of but yes, the Republicans did link the Keystone XL to the Payroll Tax Holiday.”
=========================================
Thank you for supporting my fundamental point, in my 7:08 AM post. That’s the question… “Why?”…

1. Why did Republicans have to tie the Keystone Pipeline issue with the Payroll Tax issue?

2. Why do the Republicans always have to “get something” for corporate America, before they will agree to doing something that benefits middle-class America?

3. Why couldn’t Republicans just propose a clean payroll tax-cut bill, SEPARATE from all these completely different extra issues (e.g., Keystone Pipeline and lifting emission standards for industrial boilers)? ….. LOL! The Answer: Because they know that the two other issues would not pass on their own, especially after the BP Gulf of Mexico mess two years ago).

4. Why did Republicans give up on their initial proposal to extend the payroll tax-cut for one year, as soon as they lost in their effort to get the President to agree to the Keystone pipeline issue? …… The Answer: Because their real effort was NOT to fight for reduced taxes for America’s middle class (they really didn’t care about that)…. their real fight was to fight for TransCanada Corporation, not to fight for Middle Class Americans.

The 2 month extension on the payroll tax wound up costing new home buyers $15 more a month on a $200,000 dollar loan.. that equals $9600 total.. Obama is nothing more than a snakeoil salesman as he rallies his radical left winger extremist in his assault on the constitution and the 1St and 2nd admendment

OBAMA__________VS______________AMERICA

And you idiots thought he was a socialist.

Concerning the Keystone pipeline, I think the Repubs wanted Obama to poop or get off the potty. Spending two years in the political bathroom contemplating your belly button should be plenty of time for even the most self-absorbed individual.

Why is Obama continuing to underfund the SS system. He is messing with your retirement. Remember he will be long gone when you retire.

The republicans are so gullible. They believe anything the oil company lobbyists tell them. Trans Canada, reputable economists and the commerce department have said maybe 5,000 jobs at the most and they also say it won’t affect the price of gasoline in the USA.

President Obama is not against it, he just wants to make sure it does what it says and won’t spill thousands of gallons of the most polluted oil in history all over the Dakotas and Nebraska.

If this bill is so important, submit it as a separate bill and not attach it to the tax reduction bill.

Don’t need to tax the rich, just RETURN the taxes to where they were pre-Bush Tax CUTS (that EXPLODED the deficit in the first place).

Funny how erasing the tax CUTS that benefited the wealthy automatically equals an onerous tax increase. They were living with this and much much more earlier but still did VERY well.

The republicans are rejecting a 0.01% tax on anything over a million dollars. If this doesn’t show where their priorities are, nothing does. They put the burden on the middle class, no sweat, but won’t have the rich pay one penny.

TM…. So $20 a month will get you out of poverty, if you even get that much, but you have no problem when ALL taxes increase by January 1, 2013 by a lot more, wonder why Pres.Obama put all those increases and so-called healthcare law in effect AFTER January first?

LIZZIE

We can spin all we choose to but the facts remain. The republicans are rejecting a 0.01% tax on anything over a million dollars to hold up a tax reduction for average working folks. Do you think this is fair to the middle class? Even most republican business men think this is unfair.

It is also a fact that 1% of Americans control 99% of the wealth is this country. That’s unsustainable, no society can weather that.

The republicans remind me of the Tories in 1776, they feel the nobility and large trading companies should run a colony of England. Thankfully the founders disagreed.

lexingtonladyl | February 11, 2012, 12:59 pm — You have no concept of macro-economics… what we need is REDUCED SPENDING!! —- ANY attempt to reduce spending is fuitle with this President!!! — Discretionary spending has gone up 24% in three years…. we have had THREE record deficits in the last three years… his proposed 2013 budget will make it FOUR years in a row of record deficits… Obma refused to take the steps necessary to stop the US credit downgrade… WORST POTUS EVER!!!

Extend the Payroll Tax Cut…BECAUSE THE DEBT ISN’T BIG ENOUGH and CHINA DOESN’T OWN ENOUGH OF US!

THELOYALOPPOSITION

It’s not always been that way. In 1970 the numbers were 18% wealth to 82% middle class. The 18% kept getting smaller until it’s now 1%. The capitalist system did not create the middle class. The middle class was created by the labor movement and GIs returning from WWII.

No one is trying to change the capitalist system but to just ensure that runaway greed does not create a serf society.

That’s true. Spending has not been lowered at all in the last 4 years. The annual deficit has nearly tripled since the dems took control in 2007. In the last year it has approximately remained the same. But that’s propably becuase nothing seems to get past Harry Reid. And of the $700B TARP started by Bush, approximately only $500B has been handed out. I think around 70% has been paid back depending on the accounting and who you chose to believe.

“The annual deficit has nearly tripled since the dems took control in 2007 “——How did they “control” anything without the veto pen ? Q: Did the Democrats in Congress threaten to shut down the govt. if they didn’t get their petulant “way ” as the GOP / conservatives regularly do ? A: No , they didn’t . The level of blatant disingenuous sophistry coming from the right is pathetic and clearly telling vis-a-vis their integrity and ethics ( or lack of same ) as well .

I love how the GOP yelps about Greece and then turns around and claps for those running that say they want no taxes on capital gains.

Posted by: lexingtonladyl | February 11, 2012, 12:59 pm 12:59 pm

No kidding!

The annual deficit has nearly tripled since the dems took control in 2007.

Posted by: newcountryman | February 11, 2012, 1:50 pm 1:50 pm

A budget has two sides – spending and revenues. Revenues were devastated by the economic collapse under the Bush administration = deficits. That’s what happens when you have the largest economic collapse since the Great Depression.

Posted by: John | February 11, 2012, 3:16 pm.

The Bush tax cuts alone have cost the treasury well over a trillion dollars. The Iraq war of choice nearly the same amount. The unfunded Pill Bill about half a trillion. When Republicans spend money recklessly and destroy our federal revenue stream, it’s all good to them. They have no concept, no clue, no ability to see beyond the immediate short term. Add to all that the steady stream of US jobs going overseas, increasing unemployment (which means two things: less employees paying taxes, and more unemployed people drawing unemployment checks), and we have the Republican created world of 2012. Yet they are pathologically incapable of seeing this. Instead, they focus all their energy and time on limiting women’s rights and denying rights to gays. And blaming everything bad in the world on one man – Obama. THAT is their agenda in the modern world. Craven and pathetic doesn’t even scratch the surface of their malfeasance, and culpability for the state of the union today. They have become a sad, pale joke of a shadow of what they use to be. Republicans USED to have at least some semblance of an ethical or moral code. That is long gone. Now they thump their bibles and their chests and loudly whine about women having access to birth control. It blows my mind that in the 21st century in America we are having a discussion about women being able to have access to and use birth control. Republicans are idiots.

Disgusted —- You said “The Bush tax cuts alone have cost the treasury well over a trillion dollars” —– If you would care to check the revenue records of the US Treasury…. you would find that you can’t add up a tax cut on your calculator and NOT look at the RESULTS of the tax cut….. The Bush tax cut did NOT cause the deficits… when these tax cuts were implemented, revenue INCREASED for FIVE STRAIGHT YEARS after the cuts!!! — The answer is to attack the 24% INCREASE in discretionary spending since DEMOCRATS took over congress in 2007!!!!

Disgusted — High tax rates on the rich DO NOT guarantee substantial increases in government revenue. Under Eisenhower, the top tax rate reached 91%, but the government collected just 19%–almost identical to the 18% it collected after Reagan dropped that top rate all the way down to 28% in 2006!!! ——- And let’s look at those deficits… notice the downward trend under Bush??
2004- $568B;
2005- $494B;
2006- $434B;
2007- $342B
Then the DEMOCRATS took over congress in 2007… then we had the following budget deficits:
2008- $420B;
2009-$1,850B;
2010-$1,300B;
2011-$1,330B!!
Obama has had THREE straight years of RECORD deficits…. EACH THREE TIMES more than Bush’s largest!!! —- ALSO…. the last three years have seen a 24% increase in discretionary spending…Discretionary outlays in 2010 and 2011 were the highest % of GDP in about 20 years…. is that Bush’s fault?? — The stimulus that was passed EXCLUSIVELY by Democrats… was that Bush’s fault?? — Obamacare and Dodd-Frank and all the costs with them… was that Bush’s fault?? — The total debt as a percentage of GDP in Sept ’11 was 67%… NEARLY DOUBLE what it was in 2006 (37%)!!!

the deficit halving didn’t exactly work out as Obama’s campaign rhetoric promised….did it.

Posted by: newcountryman | February 11, 2012, 4:15 pm 4:15 pm

Actually, yes it did. The deficit halving was promised by the end of his first term. That means the budget proposed for 2013 (October 2012 – October 2013). The deficit projected for that year is $900 billion – whereas the deficit projected for the year he took office (and made the statement) was $1.5 trillion – half of which would be $750 billion.

He missed, but not by much, and not nearly as much as the last Republican president missed. Bush promised to eliminate the deficit and start paying down the debt. Under Bush the deficits first grew and then remained huge and the national debt DOUBLED.

Then he watched the economy collapse on his shift.

The current president has done far, far better.

I may never vote for another liberal Democrat! They have no problem governing against the will of the American people.

Posted by: ProudCarolinaGirl | February 11, 2012, 4:37 pm 4:37 pm

You’re wrong about ‘governing against the will of the American people’. Only one of six major national polls has more people disapproving than approving.

Approval of the job Obama is doing:
Rasmussen 51%
ABC News/Wash Post 50%
Fox news 48%
Gallup 48%
Reuters/Ipsos 48%
NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl 48%

pork-laden Democratic “Stimulus Bills”…

Posted by: Logicsgood5 | February 11, 2012, 4:45 pm 4:45 pm

It was not a “pork-laden” stimulus bill. If it was the Republicans would be all over it and we would have a long, long, proven list of pork projects circulating – we don’t.

DAN
Yes, Pork o’plenty. See “A 40-Year Wish List” Jan 28, 2009 wsj

BTW, NO Republicans voted for the Stimulus in the House, 3 voted for it in the Senate.

“Obama’s proposed 2013 budget is for a $901 billion deficit”.
.
Errr….ummmm…..uhhhh….. well, uh, you see, I was gonna propose a budget with a $2 TRILLION deficit… so umm, errrr, see I kept my promise to…. uhhh, cut it in half.