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House Speaker John Boehner (file)
Buckle up. During his weekly press conference, House Speaker John Boehner today suggested we may be closer to heading off the fiscal cliff, Thelma and Louise-style.
"I'm not confident at all," said Boehner, expressing doubt a deal could be reached on the budget by the end of the year deadline. "The Senate at some point has to act," the speaker said. "And on both of these, where's the president, where's the leadership?"
"The House has done its job on both the sequester and the looming tax hikes that will cost our economy some 700,000 jobs," he added.
If Congress can't find a solution with President Obama on $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction, that would automatically trigger a series of across the board spending cuts and tax hikes in the same amount of $1.2 trillion.
As Lawrence O’Donnell has argued, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing in terms of sorting out the expiring Bush tax cuts — going off the cliff isn’t the same thing as staying off the cliff. That is, unless you're Grover Norquist, then this would be your biggest nightmare.
Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid appeared to be more optimistic. He said he's hopeful "some kind of agreement" would be reached after November 6. "I believe that once the elections are over, the tea party's strength will be significantly weakened."
As the fiscal crisis looms, Moody's warned today if the new Congress in the 2013 legislative session doesn’t put the country on a sounder fiscal setting, they plan to downgrade America's Aaa credit rating.
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Without a change in the White House and the control of the Senate that retires Harry Reid to the rank of minority leader, there will be no compromise forthcoming, just as we saw last year. Bob Woodward's new book detailing the events of the Deal of the Decade and how the naive Barrack Obama, amateur President unchecked by his handlers in the White House scuttled the deal at the last moment by coming forward with a demand for a 50% increase to the already agreed upon $800 billion in new tax revenue from tax reform. BTW, that is pretty much the plan being championed by the Romney/Ryan team, but Obama is still trying to get his tax rate increases on the over $200K income per year individuals and small businesses, and over $250K income per year married individuals and small businesses. This in the face of the still moribund economy and the disastrous employment situation reported as continuing thru August by the Bureau of Labor just Friday morning, with revisions downward in the employmennt numbers for June and July, which Little Larry hasn't found room for in his rapid fire deflecting post topics posted on this blog.
You still haven't answered my question whether you've read Woodward's book...
Well John, you have the position you've badly wanted. You're Speaker of the House. So the Speaker isn't a leader in the House or of his own party? Where's your leadership? You've already abdicated. Who are you thinking of? The country or big business and your people, the wealthy. You're talking about going off the fiscal cliff as if it means nothing. Moodys is already warning of a downgrade in our credit rating. You will have to accept some responsibility for that. Don't you want to do something worth while for the country before your party loses it's majority in the coming elections? But, you haven't shown any leadership since becoming Speaker so why expect anything now.
The House had done its work, it has passed budgets, it has made the overtures. It is Harry Reid and his Senate colleagues that are the do nothing legislators, and Barrack Obama the do nothing President, too involved since last labor day with fund raising, campaining for reelction, and improving his golf game to deal with the pressing business of this nation, Joe.
Off the cliff! I am sickened that my country is getting T.P.'d and held hostage. Where the extreme right wants to take the country equates to totalitarian fascism. That's what I said. Look it up. Boehner says he and his crowd have done their job. Their job? There is so much at stake in this election. I am hoping the nation doesn't look back on this time in history and remember it as the day democracy died in America.
Of course I EXPECT lawmakers to make a deal and avert a downgrade. We have every reason to EXPECT our lawmakers to do their jobs. I EXPECT them to listen to the American people and get it done. However I SUSPECT that once again the Congressional GOP will demonstrate how utterly CORRUPT they are and will not do what's RIGHT for the American people but will do the bidding of their IMAM NORQUIST and the Tea Party. American people WAKE UP and get them all out of the Congress.
Let's clean house this year. . . literally.
The only way to clean housae is to make sure that therre are more moderates than extreme in both. Then they can compromise on their most important issues. But without compromise and cooperation we can forget it.
Yes, After we fall off the cliff, AND Obama wins taxes for the middle class and working poor will DECREASE. We need to give President Obama a good congress that loves this country and is willing to negotiate a new tax code. If Romney wins, he will send social programs to the states and state taxes will rise in those states that adopt the programs. The wealthy who don't want to pay higher state taxes will move to states that do not adopt those programs. And the middle class and working poor who cannot move will be overwhelmed with taxes. Government needs to exist to regulate. They are not there just to collect taxes and make policy that protect wealth.
Privatization of government is fascism. We cannot allow our taxes to go to CEO who will require millions of dollars in salaries. Those will have to come from us. Our taxes will have to go up. We prefer to pay a civil servant's salary instead of private companies CEOs salaries.