I was away for a couple of weeks and missed the fiscal cliff drama. According to the media and all my liberal friends, Obama routed the republicans and basically turned them into his bitches.
I see. I must have misunderstood soemthing. Someone show ne where I went wrong.
The democrats have bellyached about the Bush tax cuts for a decade. They caused all our deficits, were unfair, were paid for by screwing the middle class, yadda yadda yadda.
So after all this posturing from obama, we get an agreement to make the vast bulk of them permanent. Yeah, couples making $450,000 will see an increase back to the Clinton levels.
The only other group getting an increase will be those who pay FICA, as those rates return to their pre-crisis levels. That change only affects those who weren't already maxing outtheir FICA withholding, ie middle and lower incomes.
I would guess the over $450k crowd are largely urban professionals, ie Obama voters. The FICA increase probably hit both sides more or less equally. More republicans work and pay FICA but the ones who were actually hit by the increase may be more democrats.
To put a cherry on top, republicans now have drawn a line in the sand that taxes are now off the table in any future budget discussions. This extricates them from a sticky political corner they had foolishly painted themselves into, courtesy of Romney and Ryan. Romney's tax reform plan was to slash popular deductions in exchange for rate reductions. obviously, his numbers were bogus and the democrats were never going to agree to rate cuts anyway, but the prospect of losing popular deductions was very real. Now it is off the table.
So if this was a big win foir Obama, I can barely wait to see what a defeat looks like.
I see. I must have misunderstood soemthing. Someone show ne where I went wrong.
The democrats have bellyached about the Bush tax cuts for a decade. They caused all our deficits, were unfair, were paid for by screwing the middle class, yadda yadda yadda.
So after all this posturing from obama, we get an agreement to make the vast bulk of them permanent. Yeah, couples making $450,000 will see an increase back to the Clinton levels.
The only other group getting an increase will be those who pay FICA, as those rates return to their pre-crisis levels. That change only affects those who weren't already maxing outtheir FICA withholding, ie middle and lower incomes.
I would guess the over $450k crowd are largely urban professionals, ie Obama voters. The FICA increase probably hit both sides more or less equally. More republicans work and pay FICA but the ones who were actually hit by the increase may be more democrats.
To put a cherry on top, republicans now have drawn a line in the sand that taxes are now off the table in any future budget discussions. This extricates them from a sticky political corner they had foolishly painted themselves into, courtesy of Romney and Ryan. Romney's tax reform plan was to slash popular deductions in exchange for rate reductions. obviously, his numbers were bogus and the democrats were never going to agree to rate cuts anyway, but the prospect of losing popular deductions was very real. Now it is off the table.
So if this was a big win foir Obama, I can barely wait to see what a defeat looks like.
