Jobs, Jobs, Jobs…
It is dress like Steven Jobs Day today. Everybody in your jeans and black mock turtle neck? Good. You look fantastic.
In other jobs news: The President gave a speech. I guess he called out the Republicans directly because some professional lefties like Paul Krugman seemed to like it:
First things first: I was favorably surprised by the new Obama jobs plan, which is significantly bolder and better than I expected. It’s not nearly as bold as the plan I’d want in an ideal world. But if it actually became law, it would probably make a significant dent in unemployment.
Of course, it isn’t likely to become law, thanks to G.O.P. opposition. Nor is anything else likely to happen that will do much to help the 14 million Americans out of work. And that is both a tragedy and an outrage.
That’s sort of a win right? Getting Republicans viewed as the guys who are trying to fuck the economy for political gain doesn’t help unemployed people, but at least the universe makes a little more sense.
My take? I’m not jumping up and down.
1) Tax cuts suck as a jobs program. You know it. I know it. Everyone except congressional Republicans and White House Democrats know it.
2) At this point, I don’t trust Team Obama to pound Republicans flat on this anvil of justice with the hammer of reason.
Obama gets an “A” for delivery and an “F” for credibility. Here is a rule of thumb: if Obama says something conservatives would generally agree with, he is likely telling the truth. If he is saying something that liberals would generally agree with, he is likely to be obfuscating or lying.
That averages out to a “C” I guess A1 is turning into a softy in his dotage.
As for me, I really can’t express how much it disgusts me when team Obama keeps reinforcing GOP frames about tax cuts.
I really have to tune-out to keep from puking.
I was planning to ignore this jobs plan because it would be useless at creating jobs. But it is worse than useless. It is the strongest attack yet on the safety net.
Every dime of spending or tax cuts in this plan will be put before the Super Congress to balance with spending cuts, most likely to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
And the plan directly guts the funding source for Social Security itself. The greedheads have gotten to the last healthy working-class funding stream left in America.
Will it create jobs? The economists seem to think it will tick the unemployment rate down a point or so. But it is like paying the power bill with the mortgage money. Sure you will stay warm in your home for now, but only for a little while longer.
The question is, will that extra 1% employment generate enough revenue to replace the money stolen from Social Security? Probably not. Who are we kidding, that Social Security tax cut is permanent, and it will become the excuse that is used to finally kill Social Security once and for all.
When do we start calling out the voodoo economics?
Obama:
Coons:
Are we Democrats seriously supposed to be getting behind these elected officials and supporting this bullshit?
I’m not going to vote for a Republican, but I sure as hell am rooting for them to kill some of the worst provisions in this plan. Although I’d rather Democrats rebelled against the President and we killed the provisions ourselves.
i still think it is ridiculous to continue to say that we can keep SS exactly the way it is anyd not worry about anything. The amount of people paying is gets smaller and smaller as boomers retire, people get laid off and young people continue to not be able to find work.
Also remember that 65 in 2011 is not what it was even in the 70s. People are living longer and healthier despite our shitty health care system. Extending the age at which you can collect does require some consideration. would 67 be SO BAD? Ill take my SS at 67. That gives me 40 years to plan for that extra 2.
Look around, there are a lot of fucking decrepit 65 year olds now. Especially those who were poor all their lives. For their own sake I do NOT want these people greeting me at Walmart or wrapping my cheeseburgers. Some dignity, please.
The healthy 65-70 year olds are mostly beneficiaries of a lifetime living prosperously in the expanded middle class and with health benefits provided by Democratic policies. But that game is over now.
@puck “Are we Democrats seriously supposed to be getting behind these elected officials and supporting this bullshit?”
These are both quite doable. Removing the upper limit on the payroll tax (so everyone pays, not just the working class), and eliminating just a handful of tax loopholes… and it’s done.
The problem is that most of those tax loopholes were created by aggressive lobbying. For example, oil companies aren’t going to give up free taxpayer cash without a fight.
and,
Every dime of spending or tax cuts in this plan will be put before the Super Congress to balance with spending cuts, most likely to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
See how Obama’s past failures haunt his present? That is why it was so important not to lose the past battles. But we did.
Poor socialistic ben has internalized Fox News bullshit.
Removing the upper limit on the payroll tax (so everyone pays, not just the working class)
True, but I didn’t see that in Obama’s plan. Who exactly do you expect to introduce that bill? Republicans won’t go for it, nor will a lot of Democrats. I mentioned it to John Carney once and I saw the fear in his eyes.
and eliminating just a handful of tax loopholes… and it’s done.
Ah yes, now we are back to the voodoo economics: Coons:
Senator Coons, please do not insult our intelligence. The nation has suffered enough from this kind of thinking. We are full to the brim with supply side and trickle down.
But Democrats aren’t going to just “eliminate a handful of loopholes.” This will be done as part of a “tax reform” that will cut taxes for the wealthy and for corporations, while nullifying the 2012 expiration of the Bush tax cuts. See the Bowles-Simpson plan which states “The top rate must not exceed 29%” and could be as low as 23%. This is Chris Coons’ “ideal” tax reform in his own words, and is from Obama’s own cat food commission.
@puck “But Democrats aren’t going to just “eliminate a handful of loopholes.””
Well, that’s the only way to make the statement true. We aren’t going to be able to get our fiscal house in order by only squeezing the working class while still allowing the wealthy to raid the coffers (e.g. corporate pork and contractor abuse).
LE, you aren’t paying attention. The upcoming Democratic “tax reform” plan will feature more tax cuts for the rich, not less. Read the Bowles-Simpson recommendations, especially the section on tax reform.
Read Chris Coons’s jobs plan on his website, which also has a section on tax reform and promises tax cuts with more revenue, and names Simpson Bowles as his “ideal” tax reform.
I now see Coons as a reliable barometer pointing to the next rightward lurch of the President.
Candidate Coons flipped his position on tax cut expiration even before Obama did (which I take to mean that somebody from the Administration whispered to Coons that Obama was going to flip and Coons needed to get on the team).
Remember, “tax reform” was not a topic in the 2008 campaign at all, or in the 2010 campaign for that matter. It sprang from Obama’s brow in December 2010, to replace his previous promise to let the Bush tax cuts expire.
@puck “Read the Bowles-Simpson recommendations, especially the section on tax reform.”
Did. You’re seriously misrepresenting the impact of the Bowles-Simpson recommendations on the wealthy. Investment income is a big deal. So is losing mortgage interest on second homes and the $500k cap. Most of the 150 additional tax expenditures to be eliminated are used mainly by the well to do.
I’m not saying that I like all of it, but let’s be fair in its evaluation.
“Investment income is a big deal.”
And Bowles-Simpson cuts rates on investment income, compared with the Clinton rates.
Investment income under Simpson-Bowles: Capital gains 20%, dividends treated as regular income and taxed at whatever the top marginal rate is (up to 29% under Bowles Simpson).
But if we do NOTHING we get the Clinton tax rates in 2012: Top marginal rate 39%, capital gains 20%, dividends treated as regular income at 39%.
I like the Clinton rates. Once they are back in place, tax reform can then consist of cleaning up stuff like middle class tax cuts, marriage penalties, corporate tax loopholes, Social Security wage cap.
If everything expires in 2012 I’d even be happy to let the rich have back their current Bush top marginal rate of 36%.
The Democratic “tax reform” is a smokescreen to do away with the tax increases on the rich that would happen with a full expiration.
“socialistic ben: …it is ridiculous to continue to say that we can keep SS exactly the way it is anyd not worry about anything. The amount of people paying is gets smaller and smaller… Extending the age at which you can collect does require some consideration. would 67 be SO BAD?”
This gentlman speaks rationally…
“Jason330: Poor socialistic ben has internalized Fox News bullshit.”
…and he gets skewered by a demagogue.
Ben, keep thinking independently. Don’t let your reason succumb to groupthink.
Jason, you forgot to include the link to Dr Krugman’s original.
Puck wrote:
Nobody: all tax measures must originate in the House, and there’s no chance in Hell that the House would pass that.
Remember when President Bush proposed allowing wage earners to divert 4% of their 6.2% FICA to individual retirement accounts, to a maximum of $1,000, and my friends on the left screamed, “No, you can’t do that!” Well, now that FICA receipts are going to be halved (the employer’s share is halved to 3.1%, and the employee’s share drops from the current 4.2% to 3.1%, why shouldn’t the federal government allow those people who would volunteer to return to the 6.2% rate to stick that additional 3.1% into some form of individual account?
The natural response is, “Well, the 3.1%/3.1% rates are only meant to be temporary,” but if they are only temporary, that means individuals and businesses are looking at 3.1% tax increases at some point; just when do you think that will be palatable, and if the reductions are supposed to spur economic growth, and hiring, doesn’t than mean the eventual increases will dampen growth and hiring?
I think it is dumb to say that we should privatize social security. You cant have people paying in to a system that also must turn a profit. they wont get a decent return on their investment. Besides, the company they chose to invest with might go out of business, then they are screwed. Our system however is on a bad trajectory. The boomers are all retiring at a time when there are no jobs to be offered to teh younger generations. The money flowing in is declining as the money flowing out is increasing. It isnt some sort of evil conservative agenda talking point to suggest that that is unsustainable. like your muslim president said “it’s simple math”
Perhaps something like a 2 year increase in the pay out age would relieve some of the stress on the system. Dont implement it right away, that would be insane. do it over…. say 15 years. that gives 50 year olds 15 years to figure out those next 2. we still need SOME semblance of personal responsibility.
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Let me ask you, SB: Would even more elderly people living in poverty be SO BAD?
My answer is yes. What is yours?
yup. I think old people should be put on an ice sheet and sent off. I MUST think that, because any deviation from the closed minded Dogma that Ed Shultz tells you to think is TREASON. Im a witch and must be burred.
You arent a liberal A1. you are a totalitarian closed-minded bagger who will not accept any change to your religion.
its not about making them live in poverty. Why is SS the only way to help out. Also please try and not ignore, through your rage-colored glasses, the part were i said that the people who would deal with this increase are not-yet OLD. they are middle age or younger.
Im 27 and already have a few thousand socked away in a retirement account. Im not even optimistic that there will be social security for me, but im damn well open to finding a way to make it so. I’ll even pay more. But until the giant generation is no longer collecting, WE HAVE TO FUCKING DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Not just sit on our oh-so-holier than thou hands and demonize people with rational ideas.
How is adding 2 years to the age at which you can collect AND DOING THAT 15 YEARS FROM NOW, anywhere close to privatizing the whole system?
how’s this. we’ll up the age at which you can collect SS one year after you turn 65. take the years until A1 is 65, add 1 year, and then it will start. See? you are fine and taken care of. GOOD FOR YOU!!!!
If you start SS 2 years later, there will be more elderly people living in poverty. You’re okay with that; I am not. There are other solutions, but you’re too busy getting your rage on and thinking of ostensibly-clever names to call me that you can’t consider that there are alternatives.
why not start it at 55? there will be less elderly people living in poverty.
I also mentioned a bunch of other ways IN ADDITION to upping the age by 2 measly years. Better health care cost control and access. What exactly is SS for? I think we should make sure all our citizens have access to health care, healthy food, clean water, and shelter. But beyond that, you’re on your own bud. I had to save up for the things i WANTED and was always given the things i need. If it means that everyone has a better shake because old people have to retire to south jersey instead of south florida, im for it. You know damn well that there are plenty of people collecting SS who could live just fine with out it, but many more for whom it isnt even close to enough to suport a basic standard of living. Dont give me this dogmatic bullshit that simply paying more in is going to fix the problem.
The problem is elderly need to be able to lve out their golden years in health and relative comfort. But when the choice of education for the future or being able to live in a development with a pool for the (soon to be) past, im siding with the future.