House Votes to Hike Taxes

House Votes to Hike Taxes

Katie Pavlich
Townhall.com
Dec. 2, 2010

The House has voted to pass an amendment extending the Bush tax cuts permanently to those making less than $250,000 per year, hiking taxes on those making over $250,000 (job creators, small businesses and families).

Here is how the votes break down:

230 Democrats voted to pass

3 Republicans voted to pass

20 Democrats voted no

167 Republicans voted no

Overall, there was more bi-partisan opposition to this amendment than in favor.

This bill will now go to the Senate where all 42 Republican Senators have made clear they are ready to filibuster every bill presented in the lame duck session until tax cuts are extended to everyone, not just for those making less than $250,000 per year.

If the bill dies in the Senate (extending current tax rates to no one), or if it is passed with tax cuts extended only to those making less than $250,000, it will be the largest tax increase in American history during one of the worst economies in history.

A few scenarios:

-amendment from the House passes in the Senate, leaving only those making more than $250,000 per year with a tax hike

-amendment from the House dies in the Senate, resulting in a tax hike for everyone

-amendment is amended in the Senate to extend tax cuts to everyone, leaving nobody with a tax hike

If the tax cuts expire, most income brackets will see at least a 3 % increase in taxes.

There are 16 business days left before Christmas, giving the Senate about 11 days to complete everything on the lame duck agenda.

The battle is far from over....but time is running out.

I've never seen such arrogance. These people have yet to get a clue. They lost BIG last month and are sticking a finger in the eye of each person in this country that is out of work as a big thank you.

TexasBlue wrote:I've never seen such arrogance. These people have yet to get a clue. They lost BIG last month and are sticking a finger in the eye of each person in this country that is out of work as a big thank you.

This is nothing more than a blatant and shameless political ploy to give the Democrats some campaign material for 2012. They will use this vote to say "See! The Republican's voted against the middle class by denying to make their tax cuts permanent. They only want to give the "millionaires and billionaires" their cuts!"

As you said Tex, they are sticking their finger into the eyes of every unemployed person in the country, and all for their own selfish reasons.

They can compromise and extend them for, say, two years. That's for everyone. Then there's the argument on how much these tax cuts for the rich are going to "cost" the gov't. Answer? Not even a trillion dollars. But ya know what? It's going to cost 3 trillion if they're extended for the middle class. The media isn't telling anyone that little tidbit. Then there's the subject of "cost" which is a bullshit term. It doesn't cost the gov't anything.

TexasBlue wrote:They can compromise and extend them for, say, two years. That's for everyone. Then there's the argument on how much these tax cuts for the rich are going to "cost" the gov't. Answer? Not even a trillion dollars. But ya know what? It's going to cost 3 trillion if they're extended for the middle class. The media isn't telling anyone that little tidbit. Then there's the subject of "cost" which is a bullshit term. It doesn't cost the gov't anything.

Tax cuts on the upper brackets would result in a net gain for the treasury, but because the government has been prohibited from doing dynamic modeling, they can only take the static view of revenue lost from lower rates.

It's a bullshit game and Obama knows it everytime he says that extending those rates would "cost" the government $700 billion. It is a blatant lie, but that doesn't stop him or the Democrats from saying it repeatedly.

dblboggie wrote:because the government has been prohibited from doing dynamic modeling,

Gee.... another regulation.

TexasBlue wrote:

dblboggie wrote:because the government has been prohibited from doing dynamic modeling,

Gee.... another regulation.

To be fair, they were prohibited from doing dynamic modeling because they were using it to make certain programs and laws look better than they actually were, resulting in huge overruns.

So that prohibition was a result of their abuse of it.

Still, there's gotta be some way we can inject some truth into issues such as "tax cuts for the rich."

There's always IRS and Dept. of Treasury data.... which I love to use because it's from the alter of the almighty gov't itself... with the congress critters lying about the data at the same time. It's no wonder the media is in the shitter.

TexasBlue wrote:There's always IRS and Dept. of Treasury data.... which I love to use because it's from the alter of the almighty gov't itself... with the congress critters lying about the data at the same time. It's no wonder the media is in the shitter.

Yes, there can be no doubt that the mainstream media have long ago betrayed the American people by taking political sides and thus cutting the flow of vital information needed by Americans to make reasoned decisions on important issues.

Thankfully, the rise of the alternate media is having an increasingly wider impact by making information previously boycotted by the mainstream media available to an ever expanding audience.

dblboggie wrote:Thankfully, the rise of the alternate media is having an increasingly wider impact by making information previously boycotted by the mainstream media available to an ever expanding audience.

And what's funny is that the info isn't hard to find at all. That's what amuses me when someone starts parroting the talking points of the evil rich not paying their fair share and that the gov't "loses" money from tax cuts. In fact, I've actually saved many of these pages for these arguments because I have to use them so often. I'm too lazy to go look for them again.... even though they show up on the first page of a Google search.

TexasBlue wrote:

dblboggie wrote:Thankfully, the rise of the alternate media is having an increasingly wider impact by making information previously boycotted by the mainstream media available to an ever expanding audience.

And what's funny is that the info isn't hard to find at all. That's what amuses me when someone starts parroting the talking points of the evil rich not paying their fair share and that the gov't "loses" money from tax cuts. In fact, I've actually saved many of these pages for these arguments because I have to use them so often. I'm too lazy to go look for them again.... even though they show up on the first page of a Google search.

I actually type all of my responses into a Word document and then paste them here. I've been doing that for years. In fact, I have nearly 1000 pages saved in 4 documents, in 10pt type no less. A lot of research went into many of those posts and I can do key-word searches whenever I want to pull up something I've written on before.

I do something similar to that. It keeps having re-research things to a minimum. Plus, I keep pages bookmarked or use a Firefox extension called Read It Later.

TexasBlue wrote:I do something similar to that. It keeps having re-research things to a minimum. Plus, I keep pages bookmarked or use a Firefox extension called Read It Later.

I'll have to check out "read it later," might be something worth getting.