Congress back to "fiscal cliff" sparring despite Obama appeals

This should read “John Boehner realizes that compromise will be necessary after the political landscape in Washington DC changes very little after the election.”

wow…amazing that NOW the Repubs want to “work together”. Couldnt have done that for the last few years?

boehner has already reiterated the gop position to do nothing if tax hikes are involved. therefore, the dems should just let the tax breaks run out, then submit a bill the next day to return all the tax breaks except for those making over $250k. then the real gop will surface – the party of the rich that is not willing to give 99% of americans a tax break.

I wonder if anyone can heal this person. Please pray for him.

Funny, this whole election we heard about how Obama increased the deficit. The deficit is huge. We are destroying the country for our kids. Must stop the deficit. But Obama signed this budget compromise that will do more to reduce the deficit than either side really wants. That compromise was a stroke of genius, and when nobody can agree on where to make cuts or increase revenue, which has a dang good chance of happening, the deficit will be reduced. Good.

If Bohner and McConnell STILL refuse to work with Obama and the Democrats, after Obama handily beat Romney by more than 100 electoral votes, and gains for the Democats in both the House and the Senate, then the only answer left to America is to rid our government of the GOP.

One bit of very, very, very good news that everyone should be reminded of is that now Obama will possibly get to make another Supreme Court choice. Lets hope he is able to rebalance the SC so that it favors the people once again. Then, and only then, we can pass real campaign finance reform.

Once upon a time, there was a Republican Party that could compromise on issues in order to move forward. Now we have the Boehner’s and McConnell’s of the world who refuse to compromise on anything.

We have heard a lot from the Republicans that Obama will not compromise, but it does take two sides to compromise. So far, the Republicans continue to say “Not just no, Mr. President, but Hell No.” Don’t believe me, check out the quotes from Mr. Boehner and Mr. McConnell.

It is time for the “Right” to finally move to the middle so that the Democrats could also move that way. In order to accomplish anything good, we need Compromise.

Boehner is an idiot. Tax cuts have to expire. This is not raising taxes, they were supposed to be temporary from the get go. They were meant to stimulate the economy, which they did. But like all artificial government spending to kick start the economy, when the artificial spending ends, the economy takes a hit. We have to take the hit because we can’t afford the cut. This is why I am against government spending to stimulate the economy, it is most certainly kicking the can down the road for someone else to deal with. Republicans say one thing and do the opposite.

@jcfl

Ending the tax cuts and cutting spending is going to throw our economy into a mild recession. Capital Gains taxes are going up no matter what. All of this is needed. The Republicans shouldn’t have made all of these promises that can not be kept. They should have leveled with their constituents and told them that the debt and the deficit must be addressed, and it is going to hurt everyone, in every walk of life. The cost of not doing so could be catastrophic, and it is a catastrophe that Americans would be leaving for their children.

If they want to bargain, the way to bargain is this. We will go forward with your plan Obama, but do not try to grant amnesty, and do not try to pass any carbon credit tax, both of which would hurt our job creation and employment numbers. You can not use addressing the debt and deficit as a bargaining chip. They are on a road of returning the Congress back over to the Democrats.

Taxing our way out of this wont solve anything. It’s funny how the left screams at the right for not wanting to raise taxes yet 100% refuse to cut anything out of the budget until taxes are raised.

Pot calling the Kettle black much?

Who started calling this thing a ‘cliff’?

Why not call it a fiscal cleanse? I’m all for it. Spending cuts across the board, letting the Bush tax breaks for the wealthiest 5% expire. It addresses both the spending side and the revenue side. And it was bi-partisan. That’s the best thing they ever thought of, and they’re treating it like doomsday now. Let it happen!

This thing is basically just the Simpson-Bowles plan… with a countdown. It was agreed upon by both parties and it will take effect January 1, if they just leave it alone. So let it happen.

In overall, Obama is in much better position politically if cliff side really will be reached. Republicans knows this, that’s why we have conflicted signals. However, Obama really don’t want another recession, because it would hurt legacy of his *centrist* (everyone who calls Obama leftist again will be smacked, seriously, learn some political history) economical policies, so I guess he will look really deep for some compromise.

For Democrats my suggestion is this – provide sensible plan for some waste cutting in budget, there’s lot of stuff you can sensibly and slowly optimize, trust me, actually getting budget working again is in very small details and very boring (not game of all of nothing). Start here. Beat Republicans in their own game. Along with expiring tax cuts in several categories, provide is as a platform on what you can work on.

If Republicans *then* reject any proposals, drive stoke trough heart of that party. If they really so obsessed, let them be so.

I really hope that moderate Republicans slowly migrate away from it as Independents. Because I don’t really see how current core of that party will come to their senses.

However they need to do it, Federal fiscal responsibility only becomes more difficult the longer they put it off. We bumped up against the debt ceiling a little over 1 year ago. The debt ceiling was raised and is now $16.394 trillion. Our current debt as of last week was $16.261 trillion. The debt ceiling will need to be raised, again, in something like three months?!?! The sixth increase in four years!! The extreme, deficit spending has to stop!! How msny of us read about the Greeks’ contortions over their austerity measures and, yet, have no clue over how dire our own situation is? Two things were done, last year, as a consequence of our Federal machinations over raising the debt ceiling. 1) Obama formed a six person, bi-partisan committee to analyse the situation and make recommendations; 2) what we’re now calling the “fiscal cliff” legislation was agreed to by the House, Senate, and Oval Office. That committee returned something like nine recommendations to Obama. He rejected every single one of the recommendations. Now, barely a year later, the Federal government is seriously considering every way possible to suspend/delay/reverse their own legislation enacted by (mostly) these same elected officials. It couldn’t be more dysfunctional or disingenuous. Our worst case scenario is for our Federal government to continue to stalemate and reverse or suspend the “fiscal cliff”. If they can’t agree, then; they need to let the “fiscal cliff” do what it was intentionally designed to do. The “fiscal cliff” was intentionally designed to force these budget changes if no budget agreement could be reached. The determination to do everything necessary to get our Federal spending in order has to be priority one. I’m not saying we need a balanced budget. But, we definitely need tax reform and we can’t keep spending $1.2 – $1.5 trillion dollars more than we have every year.

More treason by the Republican traitors.
The MAJORITY of Americans have endorsed President Obama.
Once AGAIN the Republicans are trying to destroy the US so they can claim it is Obama and the Democrats’ fault. This newest plan to destroy the country is targeted at the 2014 elections. If the Republicans can once again block everything, and keep the debt high and growth down, they can use that for the election in 2014, blame it on President Obama and the Democrats, and try and take control of Congress.
I have never seen a more disgusting bunch of traitors than the Republican party. ANY group that would deliberately destroy our country so they can take control, are traitors.
If the Republicans are going with treason,President Obama must stand up and fight to defend our country.
Republicans lost the Presidential election, but they will not accept democracy, because they are Stalinist style communists.

“In order to garner Republican support for new revenues, the president must be willing to reduce spending and shore up the entitlement programs that are the primary drivers of our debt,” Boehner said

American citizens having deductions taken from their paychecks over a period of multiple decades, anticipating Social Security and Medicare benefits upon reaching their retirement years, are absolutely benefits to which they ARE ‘entitled’… and it angers me to no end that there are those in ‘our’ government who attempt to paint such expectations as indicating worthlessness in those who, RIGHTFULLY so, expect them.

‘Our’ government needs to stop bending over backwards to give tax breaks and loopholes to the almighty corporation, and instead focus more of their efforts upon the average American citizen.