Sounds great. But something here is fishy. Why didn’t Obama propose this until Republicans controlled both houses of congress, giving it zero chance of passing? I am am convinced that Obama hasn’t been progressive simply because he doesn’t want to be progressive. He is a Democrat in name only. Hillary Clinton will do the same. She will campaign as a populist and a progressive. She will govern from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. I feel like I’ve been had.
And don’t tell me Obama has his hands tied. He won’t even meet with the progressive caucus. Republicans have achieved more with Obama in office than they would have with a Republican as president. Obama wins over Democrats by pretending he is one of them.
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Did someone say Ernst?
~OGD~
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Remember when President Obama’s stimulus plan included a payroll tax cut? The Republicans mocked it, and Rep. Paul Ryan called it a “sugar high” with no possible benefit to the economy.
However, it you do the math you’ll see that giving tens of millions of working class and middle class people an extra $20 to $30 a week in their paychecks has a significant effect – especially when you consider that they can be counted on to immediately put that money back into the economy.
Just like the recent collapse in gasoline prices have freed up billions of dollars a week that people can now spend on other things.
Money is like blood; it needs to circulate to do its job. When it concentrates in one place it causes economic stagnation and inequality. To continue the blood metaphor, excess concentration results in an aneurism.
We need policies that encourage economic development. job creation, and greater local prosperity, and boosting the spending power of the vast majority of Americans puts us in striking distance of that goal.
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I understand what you are saying, but I’m a single parent to which the $500 tax credit won’t apply and even if I was married, I don’t believe a $500 deduction will place me in a lower tax bracket that would allow to retain more of my money. My children are older than 5 years old but I still need to have child care after school so that I can keep working, however I can’t use the proposed $3,000 per child tax relief. Again, like me there are millions of other parents in the same situation, this proposed bill doesn’t help us at all.
Yes, the taxes on the rich are too low. They have too much money, and it is spent to make more money for the rich.
Democracy means serving the interests of all citizens, not just those with ludicrously large checkbooks.
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Maybe not directly by putting more money in your pocket, but a measure that increases consumer demand has the side benefit of increasing the rate of flow of money through the economy. Maybe if more people were working and spending money, the macroeconomic effect could come your way.
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Or coagulates, breaks off and causes an embolism. Or “2008” as we call it now.
Excellent metaphor.
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Aren’t the R’s always calling for “revenue neutral” cuts? Isn’t this an example of one?
Or is their definition of “revenue neutral” a cut for the top paid for by the middle and bottom.
Silly me.
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I am so fucking sick of our government thinking every goddamn citizen is married with children and saving for retirement. A great many of us never got married, are too damned old to think about having children and had to spend their retirement money when the rich got too greedy and the economy crashed.
BUT FUCK THEM, RIGHT???
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It does suck that the deduction wouldn’t apply to single parents, but bear in mind that there’s zero chance anything like this will become law until 2017 at the earliest. The sole point of the exercise is to create a cohesive central narrative for the the Democratic Party for the next two years, change the baseline of the MSM asshat CW narrative away from the urgent need for policies that incentivize people to get wealthy by punishing them for being poor or middle class, and, above all, make the coming two years of open promotion of upward wealth redistribution contrast harshly with the Democratic message going in to 2016.
But, as a factual matter, even a deduction that doesn’t move you down a bracket puts a percentage of the amount of the deduction equal to your top marginal rate directly in your pocket. (So if your top rate is 25%, a $500.00 deduction results in a refund that’s $125.00 higher). A tax credit, of course, puts the entire amount of the credit into your pocket.
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You’re probably right Blue. Although to me pork rinds would be a disgusting thing to eat.
IKR? “Hey, I have an idea! let’s incur an additional $300,000 in costs over the next 18 years so we can get a few thousand dollars in additional tax breaks!” Or, alternately “wait, no more tax breaks for having kids? You mean I’ll have to pay 320,000 over the next 18 years instead of 304,000? That’s it! I’m getting a vasectomy and you’re getting your tubes tied!”
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Poor Pubbies! How do you claim you want to help the middle class if you come out against tax cuts for the middle class while at the same time you come out against raising taxes on the rich who already have far more money than they need to live on? Sorry, Pubbies, but I don’t know how tough it is to get by on multiple times the average income of an American.
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Good. Make the Republicans go on national TV and tell everybody how much the hate the middle class.
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How is it possible that this socialist marxist Muslim Kenyan born tax and spend liberal Obama can cut the deficit by two thirds and cut taxes?
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I hope I didn’t give the impression I’d eat them. Never, give me popcorn,. but I suspect the junior senator has.
“He has to give the dumb dems something to run on since they seem to be incapable of doing it themselves.”
This is something that has bugged me for some time – even before the 2014 midterms, when Democrats were running scattered and avoiding being seen with Obama.
This happened before the 2010 midterms, when timid Dems wouldn’t run on their support of healthcare reform or banking reform, and refused to put raising upper-income tax rates up for a vote.
Somehow, the Democrats have allowed the Republicans to portray them as a party of the aggrieved and entitled, as caring more for minorities, gays and single women than for “real Americans.”
They’ve allowed the Republicans to frame themselves as better on national security, despite the blowback from the military misadventures of the previous administration, and as better stewards of the economy, despite the smoldering wreck Obama was left with and the recovery that appears to be gaining steam.
This, despite the fact that the Democratic/liberal positions on many issues are more popular than the Republican/conservative positions on those same issues.
I wish the Democratic Party would realize that the strength it enjoyed in the past came from the broad base of support its policies enjoyed – particularly from the normally politically disengaged “Joe Lunchbucket” types that became Reagan Democrats in the 1980s. This is the inertia Obama is attempting to overcome within his own party as he attempts to reframe liberal positions to appeal to the moderate center.
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Thank you.
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You nailed it RandyAbraham. This President is going to let the GOP spin themselves crazy reacting to each and every utterance he makes. Lovin it.
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None of this will happen, but it’s smart politics for the 2016 Elections. Let it be known who it is that does not want this to happen.
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