The Cliff Minuet Moves Towards Crescendo

A blame game for the GOP and another bungled opportunity for Obama, the Grand Bargain-- despite Boehner's inability to control his own caucus-- is heading into the melodramatic end-stage. People overseas take this far more seriously than Americans do and for media consumers abroad, it looks like we're actually approaching armageddon. Many low-info Americans actually do too, though others are already rolling their eyes and at all the obviously staged game-playing. I'm guessing there'll be some noisy stock market mini-crash if the whole thing doesn't get wrapped up by tomorrow morning.

But are Republicans willing to start facing reality? Maybe. Leaving a GOP conference meeting a few hours ago McCain told reporters that the Republicans are finally dropping chained CPI from their fiscal cliff proposal, ironically one of the worst reactionary anti-social ideas that they had already gotten Braveheart Barack Obama to accept. "CPI has to be off the table because it's not a winning argument to say benefits for seniors versus tax breaks for rich people," said McCain "We need to take CPI off the table-- that's not part of the negotiations-- because we can't win an argument that has Social Security for seniors versus taxes for the rich." I'm sure they'll come up with something just as bad to try but this is a step in the right direction-- and maybe McCain can even get his hissy/spitty little gay friend from South Carolina to act like an adult. Schumer told ABC-TV viewers this morning that he thinks the chances are better than even that the Senate will come up with a deal by tomorrow. And Republican lame duck obstructionist Jon Kyl said he doesn't disagree. Oh, the drama!

"I've been a legislator for 37 years, and I've watched how these things work. On these big, big agreements, they almost always happen at the last minute," Schumer said. "Neither side likes to give up its position. They eyeball each other until the very end. But then, each side, realizing that the alternative is worse, comes to an agreement. So while an agreement is hardly a certainty, I certainly wouldn't rule it out at this last minute.

Oh, and look what right-wing propaganda writer Byron York, who says he's hearing Senate Republicans are ready to give up obstructionism on the "Grand Bargain" by today or tomorrow. Poor thing seems despondent. Again, to Republicans , this is all a game about what they can deliver to their wealthy patrons... and to hell with working families.

Under the most likely scenario, Republicans will get nothing-- nothing-- in return for giving in on tax rates for the highest-income Americans.  No spending cuts, at least no serious spending cuts beyond what are already included in sequestration, would be part of the deal done on Sunday or Monday, if that is indeed what happens.

Instead, Republicans will tout their accomplishment in making nearly all of the Bush tax cuts permanent.  Those cuts were always temporary, first in a ten-year form that expired in 2011, and then with a two-year extension.  Now, in a fiscal cliff deal, they would be permanent for those who make less than $500,000 a year.  Or at least as permanent as any tax rate can be; rates can always be changed by Congress, at any time.

As for spending cuts, particularly in entitlements, some Senate Republicans say they will press for those in January or February, during the coming battle over raising the nation’s debt ceiling.  They believe that fight will give them leverage to extract real concessions from the White House and Democrats on spending.  It’s not entirely clear why they believe that so strongly; Republicans will certainly take a beating in the press if they appear ready to push the nation toward default to win unpopular cuts.  Nevertheless, some in the GOP are readying themselves for that fight.

As for the immediate fiscal cliff agreement, the wild card is what will happen in the House of Representatives.  Facing opposition from some conservative members, Speaker John Boehner has already had to back off pushing for a vote on a measure (“Plan B”) to extend current tax rates on all Americans who make less than $1 million.  Given that, how could he pass a bill that would do the same thing, only for those who make less than $500,000?

There are two things to remember. The first is that Boehner had a big majority of Republican support for Plan B.  An estimated 80 percent to 85 percent of the House GOP caucus was ready to vote for that bill.  The second thing is that a Senate deal, presumably blessed by the White House, would have the support of Democrats as well as a significant number of Republicans, meaning House Democrats would undoubtedly vote for it.  Put those Democrats together with even some of the Republicans who were prepared to vote for Plan B, and a bill would pass the House.

So a deal will most likely be done.  But the bottom line is that the fiscal cliff fight will not end happily for Republicans.  They will have given in on what was an article of faith-- that taxes should not be raised on anybody, poor or rich-- in return for essentially nothing.  All they will have is a plan to fight again, soon.

This debate should be about Democrats demanding a return to the Eisenhower era rates on plutocrats and Republicans pleasing for something in the 70% range. Democrats have to nominate a better president in the future. Elizabeth Warren would be awesome.

Fiscal Cliff Minuet Turning Into A Frenzy Over Estate Taxes?

If you hear Miss McConnell in coming days lisping that this proposal or that proposal in the Fiscal "Cliff" Minuet is "unfair to the American people," he means it's unfair to rich white people, the only people Republicans care about or consider worth their attention. As we warned a few weeks ago, the Grand Bargain has come down to Republicans and their ConservaDem allies trying to get away with whatever they can on eliminating, or at least lowering, estate taxes for the super-rich (people with estates worth tens of millions, hundreds of millions and billions). McConnell can play the big shot on this issue because he knows the worst of the reactionary Democrats in the Senate-- Mary Landrieu, Mark Pryor, Max Baucus, Claire McCaskill, Ben Nelson, etc-- will back him up.

Conservative icon Winston Churchill may have noted that an estate tax provided "a certain corrective against the development of a race of idle rich," and robber baron Andrew Carnegie-- whose opposed ever other kind of tax-- may have argued for a steep and confiscatory tax on inheritance, claiming that "our legislators fail in their duty, if they do not exact a tremendous share," but today's shameless whores to the same aristocracy of wealth that America's founding fathers devised a system to keep at bay have no compunctions about soaking the middle class and working families on behalf of the criminal class that underwrites their own political careers. Normally you think that would be the domain of Republicans but both Clinton and Obama have been less than scrupulous about sticking up for the middle class and there are always a dozen Democratic senators who will betray normal working families as a matter of course.

A post-election poll for Americans for Tax Fairness found that by a margin of 58 to 32%, people support “increase[ing] the the estate tax, also called the inheritance tax, on estates of more than seven million dollars for a couple.” Obama is, as usual, aiming very low and asking for way too little. Even as much of a corporate shill as former Treasury secretary Robert Rubin, currently co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, thinks Obama should step up his proposal. “A substantial estate tax," explained this week, "can provide revenues at a time when our federal government badly needs additional revenues." The Obama proposal on the table that Miss McConnell is crying about would tax 3 estates out of 1,000, instead of 2 estates out of 1,000 under the current grotesquely unfair system. Alexander Bolton of The Hill reported how this is playing out in the cute little dance Obama, Boehner, Reid and Miss McConnell have choreographed.

Miss McConnell, he reported, called a Republican Senate conference to plot strategy and "the consensus that emerged during the meeting is that Senate Republicans could accept a deal that extends the Bush-era income tax rates for a vast majority of the populace and also extends the 35 percent tax rate on inheritances over $5 million per spouse." Not much of a "compromise" for Obama and the ConservaDems, who fully embrace the idea but want to use the GOP to give them cover and make it look like they were positively "forced" into it. Going over the "cliff" would achieve everything the Democrats are getting and more-- and without giving in to plutocratic blackmail and the consistent chipping away at Obama's pathetic bargaining positions. If he started by saying he wanted to return to the much more healthy Eisenhower rates on extreme wealth, the GOP would be bargaining for their lives without enslaving working families as the end result. Obama never learns... or this is precisely what Obama wants.

Another Republican senator confirmed that such a proposal could attract a significant number of Republican votes, especially if it shifted the threshold for extending income tax rates to cover family income up to $400,000 or $500,000.

But there are obstacles. Liberal Senate Democrats may balk at the prospect of extending the estate tax in its current form. Many liberals were furious after Obama struck a deal with McConnell two years ago extending all of the Bush-era income tax rates and setting the estate tax at its current level.

Senate Republicans would be further enticed to support a package that kept dividend tax rates from rising to their pre-2003 levels. Obama’s budget proposed letting the 2003 dividend tax cut expire, which would boost the rate for married couples earning over $250,000 from 15 percent to 39.6 percent.

Liberal Democrats such as Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) declined to say whether keeping the estate tax at its current level would jeopardize their support for a deal.

“Let’s see what tomorrow brings,” he said.

But extending the inheritance tax rate at 35 percent with large exemptions could prove popular among Democratic centrists facing tough re-elections in rural states, such as Sens. Mark Pryor (AR), Max Baucus (MT), Mary Landrieu (LA) and Kay Hagan (NC).

Pryor, Baucus and Landrieu have said they do not support the Democratic leadership’s plan to raise the rate to 45 percent and lower the exemption to $3.5 million.

Some Republicans and centrist Democrats say the biggest problem, however, remains the House. They question whether Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) can pass any bill that allows rates on some tax brackets to revert to Clinton-era levels. 

Liberal Democrats would be more inclined to support a compromise if it included unemployment insurance for 2 million people, which Obama called for in a statement last week.

“If the president puts something out and the Senate passes it, then the speaker is the key,” said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE).

This is why Boehner and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) must remain looped into the talks even though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and McConnell are now expected to take the lead in negotiating a compromise with Obama. All four leaders will be at the White House on Friday.

Boehner told Republican colleagues during a conference call Thursday the House had acted on two bills to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff and that it is now up to the Senate to act.

One of the House-passed bills would extend all of the Bush-era tax rates; the other would replace automatic spending cuts known as the sequester with other reductions. Neither has a chance of passing the Senate without substantial revision.

House Republican leaders informed lawmakers the lower chamber would come back into session on Sunday evening to consider any compromise that might come out of the Senate.

Boehner and McConnell, who was whining how the Republicans can't be expected to write the Democrats "a blank check...just because we find ourselves at the edge of the cliff."-- know just how to work Obama-- like a ping pong ball.

Last night, just after 5pm, President Obama released a statement that sounds predictably optimistic about how the wonderful U.S. political elites are saving us from the crisis they created by screwing the middle class again:

We’re now at the point where, in just four days, every American’s tax rates are scheduled to go up by law. Every American’s paycheck will get considerably smaller. And that would be the wrong thing to do for our economy, it would be bad for middle-class families, and it would be bad for businesses that depend on family spending. Fortunately, Congress can prevent it from happening if they act right now.

I just had a good and constructive discussion here at the White House with Senate and House leadership about how to prevent this tax hike on the middle class, and I’m optimistic we may still be able to reach an agreement that can pass both houses in time. Senators Reid and McConnell are working on such an agreement as we speak.

But if an agreement isn’t reached in time between Senator Reid and Senator McConnell, then I will urge Senator Reid to bring to the floor a basic package for an up-or-down vote–- one that protects the middle class from an income tax hike, extends the vital lifeline of unemployment insurance to two million Americans looking for a job, and lays the groundwork for future cooperation on more economic growth and deficit reduction.

I believe such a proposal could pass both houses with bipartisan majorities as long as those leaders allow it to actually come to a vote. If members of the House or the Senate want to vote no, they can–- but we should let everybody vote. That’s the way this is supposed to work. If you can get a majority in the House and you can get a majority in the Senate, then we should be able to pass a bill.

So the American people are watching what we do here. Obviously, their patience is already thin. This is déjà vu all over again. America wonders why it is that in this town, for some reason, you can't get stuff done in an organized timetable; why everything always has to wait until the last minute. Well, we're now at the last minute, and the American people are not going to have any patience for a politically self-inflicted wound to our economy. Not right now.

The economy is growing, but sustaining that trend is going to require elected officials to do their jobs. The housing market is recovering, but that could be impacted if folks are seeing smaller paychecks. The unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been since 2008, but already you're seeing businesses and consumers starting to hold back because of the dysfunction that they see in Washington.

Economists, business leaders all think that we’re poised to grow in 2013–- as long as politics in Washington don’t get in the way of America’s progress.

So we've got to get this done. I just want to repeat-- we had a constructive meeting today. Senators Reid and McConnell are discussing a potential agreement where we can get a bipartisan bill out of the Senate, over to the House and done in a timely fashion so that we've met the December 31st deadline. But given how things have been working in this town, we always have to wait and see until it actually happens. The one thing that the American people should not have to wait and see is some sort of action.

So if we don’t see an agreement between the two leaders in the Senate, I expect a bill to go on the floor-- and I've asked Senator Reid to do this-- put a bill on the floor that makes sure that taxes on middle-class families don’t go up, that unemployment insurance is still available for two million people, and that lays the groundwork, then, for additional deficit reduction and economic growth steps that we can take in the New Year.

But let's not miss this deadline. That’s the bare minimum that we should be able to get done, and it shouldn’t be that hard since Democrats and Republicans both say they don’t want to see taxes go up on middle-class families.

I just have to repeat-- outside of Washington, nobody understands how it is that this seems to be a repeat pattern over and over again. Ordinary folks, they do their jobs. They meet deadlines. They sit down and they discuss things, and then things happen. If there are disagreements, they sort through the disagreements. The notion that our elected leadership can't do the same thing is mind-boggling to them. It needs to stop.

So I'm modestly optimistic that an agreement can be achieved. Nobody is going to get 100 percent of what they want, but let's make sure that middle-class families and the American economy -- and, in fact, the world economy-- aren't adversely impacted because people can't do their jobs.

Republicans, meanwhile, have no interest beyond causing maximum pain to the maximum number of people and blaming it on Obama. Charles Krauthammer, for example, was on Fox last night strategizing about how the GOP can play the game:

"I think the Republicans will surely have a much stronger hand-- assuming we go over the cliff-- assuming Obama stays very hard-line and offers only humiliating conditions and the Republicans resist or do nothing and we go over the cliff.

Then, I think, you're right, the Republicans have a pretty strong hand, because Obama then has to worry about the debt ceiling.

With bravado, he says 'Oh, that's a game I won't play.' He has to play, he's the president."

Dr. Ruth Analyzes The Congressional Republicans

Did you know that Dr. Ruth-- Karola Ruth Siegel Westheimer-- was a Jewish freedom fighter in the Israeli War for Independence, a sniper for the Haganah in Jerusalem? No? Did you know she tweets? And this morning she was tweeting about the so-called "fiscal cliff," or at least about the obstructionist Republicans who created it and are forcing the country over it.

You do know how obstinate and selfish Republican Members of Congress have become. And you probably don't need Dr. Ruth to tell you Republicans make lousy lovers. Unless you're a masochist.

The Far Right Demands The GOP Push The Economy Over The Cliff

Polls universally show that most Americans will blame the congressional Republicans-- particularly Boehner for his incompetence and the teabaggers for their extremism-- if December 31 comes and goes and the U.S. slips down the fiscal slope. [An aside here, corporate news consumers across the globe have bought into the concept that going over the "Fiscal Cliff" is tantamount to a worldwide recession, which could actually become a self-fulfilling prophecy as people take actions based on the absurd assumptions from China to Europe.]

The Republican strategy is two-fold: you have the far right string pullers demanding that the GOP push the economy over the cliff (and threatening to primary anyone who tries to stop it) and then you have Republican elected officials trying desperately to say it's Obama's fault for not just giving in to all their demands-- which, as we've seen for the last decade, is the way the GOP defines "compromise."

Various Tea Party groups funded by emboldened and arrogant plutocrats like the Koch brothers plus the Club For Growth and the Heritage Foundation, looking for any way to discredit democracy by causing it to fail, are huffing, puffing and cheering on the impending "doom". After killing Boehner's Plan B compromise, "they say Republicans should be empowered to make big demands and stop caving to Obama out of fear. They argue it is Obama who has something to fear if the economy slides into a recession because of tax increases and spending cuts, and the GOP that has leverage." Their perspective is-- as always-- to cause ordinary American families as much pain as possible, hoping that in a blind rage they'll turn against democracy and towards the ideal right wing solution to governance: fascism.

“I think Obama is very mindful of his legacy and is horrified of going over the cliff,” said Andy Roth of the Club for Growth. “Going over the cliff might be a signal that needs to be sent to the president, that he needs to play ball.”

He argued that President Clinton was forced to become a less liberal president after Speaker Newt Gingrich shut down the government in 1995.

“Clinton would not play ball with Newt until Newt shut the government down,” Roth said.

...Conservatives also argue Republicans will see their brand diminished by agreeing to anything that could be labeled a tax hike.

Boehner’s bill would have extended Bush-era tax rates on all annual income under $1 million, but conservatives said it raised taxes since rates on income more than $1 million would have gone up.

“I think it is certainly better to go over the fiscal cliff than to have the Republican party deny the American people to have one party that stands for lower taxes and another party that doesn’t,” Michael Needham of Heritage Action said last week.

Freedomworks initially backed Plan B as a negotiating tactic but reversed course last week and, like the Club for Growth, announced it would score votes on the legislation.

“The worst thing that Republicans can do is raise taxes,” Matt Kibbe of Freedomworks said Friday. “If Obama wants to raise taxes he can do that but Republicans shouldn’t give him cover.

“If Obama wants to go over the cliff, let him own that,” Kibbe said.

Roth argued Republicans should be willing to stretch the fight into 2013. Economists argue the ill effects of allowing tax hikes and spending cuts to go into effect will grow over time as more money is taken out of people’s pockets.

“They could take this into the New Year and extract a lot of very pro-growth entitlement reforms but I don’t think they are willing to go that far,” added Roth.

“The best thing we can do is extend the current rates for six to 10 months while we get pro-growth tax reform. The president is the only one who can propose that,” said Kibbe.

Dan Holler of Heritage Action said that Republicans now need to sell Medicare premium support and other bold ideas to get them into a fiscal cliff solution.

“When is the last time you heard Republicans make the case for Medicare premium support? When is the last time you heard Republicans talking about ending cronyism in the tax code? This is what Republicans need to focus on and commit to in the coming weeks and months. Until they do, no deal will be worth cutting,” he said Friday.

ForAmerica Chairman Brent Bozell on Friday released a plan for the GOP that involves it increasing its demands of Obama in fiscal cliff talks.

“Speaker Boehner, working in conjunction with Senate Minority Leader McConnell, should craft legislation that gets us on the road to fiscal sanity. This agenda must include four key items: cutting the corporate tax rate, abolishing the immoral "death tax," real spending cuts, and serious entitlement reforms,” he said in a statement.

“Bring a united GOP front and challenge the president to support this legislation. Offer him the 'millionaire tax' if he will. If he doesn't accept this, it proves he's not serious. At that point the GOP should walk away, declaring it's the president who now owns the impending disaster,” he said.

And while the neo-fascist thugs work that angle, you have purportedly more "mainstream" rightists, like Wyoming wingnut John Barrasso running to Fox claiming that it's Obama who wants to steer the country over the cliff. There's no real reason to pick on poor Barrasso, although he was on Fox News Sunday doing precisely that, because every Republican Member of Congress has been asked to echo the message whenever they get near a live mic. For low-info voters-- the GOP base and Fox viewers-- Barrasso makes sense babbling nonsense like this: "I believe the president is eager to go over the cliff for political purposes. He senses a political victory at the bottom of the cliff."

Another radical right kook, Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), was on CNN's State of the Union Sunday making much the same point, also trying to claim the Democrats have "no interest at all about not going over the cliff... You cannot negotiate with someone who does not want to negotiate." There's a lot of negative crap you can throw at Obama but not being eager to negotiate and even give in too much to the right is NOT something that will stick. And the American people, for better or for worse, know it. Of course, now we're all waiting to hear what drunken, hypocritical Mormon Mike Crapo (R-ID) has to say about all this. How can anyone be expected to decide anything until we hear what 3-term Senator Crapo says?

The Republican Extremist Most Likely To Lose In 2014: Gary Miller

I started visiting Morocco in 1969 and I've been there over a dozen times since. At some point it can't just be about laying around Marrakesh, Essaouira, Tangier and Fes. So some years ago I set out across the Atlas Mountains south of Marrakesh and discovered Taroudant, which is kind of what Marrakesh was like in the 1960s... before it became so cosmopolitan. I loved it and kept going back. From there we'd set out for Tiznit and even Sidi Ifni further south and east and then, eventually, for Ouarzazate, Zagora south and west and even Mhamid right at the edge of the Sahara, the last stop before the 2 month camel ride to Timbuktu.

I just saw the Cadillac ad (above) with the driver going through the Atlas Mountains at the Dadès Gorges. We did hire a camel driver and his son to take us out into the Sahara Desert... but not as far as Timbuktu, which we did eventually get to-- in a jeep. As for the curving passes of the High Atlas... oh yes; we did that, several times in fact. But once was a time I'll never forget. We weren't going nearly as fast as the Cadillac in the ad-- nor did we have nearly as good a vehicle-- but we were descending pretty briskly when... no more pavement. The asphalt suddenly gave way-- with no warning-- to gravel.

You know what happens when the asphalt suddenly gives way to gravel? It had never crossed my mind 'til then either. But we spun right out of control and headed for one of those drops you can see in the Cadillac ad. In fact, the bottom of that gorge is filled with cars and trucks that did go over during the years. I'd like to say it was my reflexes and skillful driving that saved us-- and it may have been; who remembers anything but the sheer terror? But I think it was just luck. The car came to a stop an inch for the deadly drop. Within second a dozen old Berber men were swarming all over us, as though they came out of the sides of the rocky crevices. Each one wanted to touch my heart. For luck I guess.

I was delighted to see the DCCC begin blasting away at Republicans who refuse to support low tax rates for all income under $250,000 unless the low rates are also extended for income over $250,000 as well, something the country just can't afford. The ad below is one they did for the single most vulnerable Republican in the whole country, corrupt right-wing extremist Gary Miller, who plays Confederate officers in Civil War reenactments. This cycle he managed to win reelection in a new district, CA-31, only because too many Democrats ran in the crazy new open primary resulting in two Republicans facing off in the general. Obama beat Romney in the district 57.2-40.6%. Miller is the DCCC's #1 target for 2014. Sharper than you thought, huh? But this ad campaign is also targeting 20 other Republicans they see as vulnerable next cycle, including Buck McKeon (R-CA) and Tom Reed (R-NY), two major Blue America targets as well. Nothing to do with Morocco or Cadillacs... just twisted roads and going over cliffs:

Grand Bargain Passage Strategy

I know Obamabots aren't going to want to hear this, but I suspect that Obama and Boehner see pretty much eye to eye on the contours of their "Grand Bargain" and are more concerned with the strategy of getting it through Congress than they are about working out the fine points. According to Peter King (R-NY) and Doc Hastings (R-WA), two of Boehner's closest congressional cronies, the House Leadership is telling Members not to make any plans for the holidays. A convincing dramatization of the terrorism the elites are foisting on us under the guise of a "fiscal cliff" requires all kinds of late December histrionics to look reasonably authentic.

Meanwhile, Boehner, who wants to wait until he's safely reelected Speaker before giving his caucus the bad news, has been accusing the president of "slow walking" the process, a blatant projection of exactly what he's doing himself, as Paul Ryan-crony Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) pointed out this week. Did Ryan tell that to Van Hollen? There's been high level chattering that Cantor, McCarthy and Ryan are undermining Boehner. And yesterday's NY Times was wondering aloud if Boehner can muster enough Republicans behind him to pass it without having to make even more compromises-- i.e.- less pain for working families and seniors-- with Nancy Pelosi, who will "rent" him votes for a price.

On Monday, the president presented a new offer and on Tuesday, Mr. Boehner answered back as he and the president conferred by telephone. That talk came two days after a one-on-one meeting in the Oval Office without staff members present-- their first solo meeting since those failed talks toward a “grand bargain” in July 2011. While neither provided details, one person familiar with the White House proposal said Mr. Obama had reduced his call for $1.6 trillion in additional revenues from the wealthy over the first 10 years to $1.4 trillion, still $600 billion higher than the Republicans’ position. And another said the president also proposed that the two sides commit to working on overhauling the corporate tax code next year.

Earlier Tuesday, Mr. Boehner made a rare statement from the floor of the House admonishing the president to offer more, and more specific, spending cuts.

In an interview with ABC News, Mr. Obama said that if Republicans relent on their resistance to tax rates going up on the wealthy, “then we are prepared to do some tough things on the spending side.”

“Taxes are going to go up one way or another,” he said, “and I think the key is that taxes go up on high-end individuals.”

The direct discussions followed a week in which preliminary negotiations among top-level staff advisers had not gone well, according to people in both parties, with time running out before a year-end deadline for action.

The president has no choice but to rely on Mr. Boehner, who leads Republicans’ only center of power. “It’s not like there’s another path; he’s the speaker of the House,” said a senior administration official, who would not comment further about the relations between Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner, which were strained by last year’s failure.

But Democrats in the White House and Congress also say that they believe Mr. Boehner does hold greater sway among Republican colleagues than he did in the summer of 2011, his first year as speaker, given the chastening experience for junior Republicans of both last year’s budget fights and the 2012 election results.

Contributing to that sense of Mr. Boehner’s greater empowerment was the letter he sent to Mr. Obama last week, in which he acknowledged Republicans’ willingness to raise new revenues as part of a deal: It was also signed by the House Republican leadership team, including Mr. Boehner’s occasional intraparty rival, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the majority leader, and Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the House Budget Committee chairman and former vice-presidential nominee who has a following among antitax conservatives.

...This week the president and speaker took direct control after staff-level talks bogged down late last week, largely over what one person close to the White House called “the big 2”: Republicans’ demands that Mr. Obama agree both to a slow increase in the eligibility age for Medicare, to 67 from 65, and to a new formula that would reduce cost-of living increases for Social Security.

Mr. Obama has balked; he opposes both ideas and faces heavy pressure from unions and other progressive groups to reject them. But his stance is undercut by the fact that he had tentatively agreed to both proposals in last year’s secret talks, in return for Mr. Boehner’s support for raising taxes on high-income earners.

The president and his aides have told Mr. Boehner and his team that both proposals would be a hard sell to other Democrats, people close to the talks say.

Oh, the drama! Both sides are sill playing to their partisan bases, keeping the excitement revved up before they reveal the actual deal, raising taxes on the rich a pittance-- my guess, knowing that Obama is the worst negotiator in the history of the presidency, even less than what it would be if they just did nothing and let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire December 31-- in return for gutting Medicaid and starting the process of unravelling Medicare by raising the eligibility age. Believe it or not, Republicans are starting to drool over the idea of replacing Medicare with a horrible idea hatched by the Heritage Foundation called, yes, ObamaCare. Digby turned me on to right-wing healthcare "expert" and Romney advisor Avik Roy who was a guest on the Up With Chris Hayes show last week:

"I have to respond to this interesting hyperbole about Medicare death sentence. If you raise the retirement age for Medicare, we have the Affordable Care Act as the backstop. Everybody under 400% poverty level is still covered with the affordable care act in place. So what we are really talking about is means testing Medicare by raising the retirement age. People who are upper income, above 400% of the poverty level won't be subsidized if they're younger retirees. It's where entitlement reform should go, to expand it into the retiree population."

Damn; I pity the poor teabaggers who will soon be suffering from severe whiplash. But let me leave this discussion with a tiny glimmer of hope-- believe it or not, the Senate. They can kill this and 15 liberals have already said that if Obama agrees to help Boehner shred the social safety net they'll vote against the Deal. On top of these 15, there are also a number of teabaggers like Ron Johnson (R-WI) who have said they will vote against anything that raises taxes on the rich. Here are the champions we're counting on:

• Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
• Jeff Merkley (D-OR)
• Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
• Al Franken (D-MN)
• Jack Reed (D-RI)
• Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
• Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
• Daniel Akaka (D-HI)
• Ben Cardin (D-MD)
• Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
• Tom Harkin (D-IA)
• Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
• Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
• Carl Levin (D-MI)
• Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)

These are the ones already on board. I'm guessing Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Tom Udall (D-NM), and Dan Inouye (D-HI) will want to do the right thing and stick up for working families as well. Greg Sargent covered the Senate possibilities in his column yesterday.

At a recent private caucus meeting among Senate Democrats, someone brought up the persistent media rumors that President Obama might accept raising the Medicare eligibility age as part of a fiscal cliff deal. There was an outpouring of outrage from the Senate’s liberal members, who bluntly told the room that this should be a nonstarter among Dems.

So recounts Senator Jeff Merkley in an interview with me-- underscoring again just how deep the opposition will run among Democrats if a hike in the Medicare age is incorporated into a deal.

“The overwhelming sense was that this would be absolutely unacceptable,” Merkley told me. Of the President, Merkley added: “I can’t imagine he is seriously considering it.”

...“I do a lot of town halls,” Merkley said. “I can’t tell you how many times someone will come up to me and say, ‘Here’s the thing. I’m 61, and I have these major health problems. I don’t have insurance. I’m praying I make it to 65.’ The idea that we’re going to take all these folks with diseases setting in as they get older, and move them two years later? Absolutely unacceptable.”

“We should be lowering the age, not raising it,” Merkley said. Speaking of the president, Merkley added: “I hope he hears long and loud from us who are connected to the real lives of working people.”

Blue America helped elect Jeff Merkley in 2008 and he's never disappointed us in anything. He's running again in 2014 and he and Al Franken are Blue America's only two Senate endorsements so far. Want to encourage them?

What Do The Gays Want?

Not all the members of the House LGBT Equality Caucus are gay, of course. Nor are all the gay members of Congress part of the Caucus. Closeted gays like Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Aaron Shock (R-IL) and David Dreier (R-CA) won't have anything to do with it. But yesterday Caucus members Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Barney Frank (D-MA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Jared Polis (D-CO), David Cicilline (D-RI), and John Conyers (D-MI) applauded the Supreme Court’s grant of review in United States of America v. Edith Schlain Windsor, a landmark case challenging the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which denies federal responsibility and rights-- including Social Security benefits, equal tax treatment, and federal health care coverage-- to same-sex couples who are lawfully married under the laws of their states. The Supreme Court must have decided to get all the gay stuff out of the way in one fell swoop, because they also took on Hollingsworth v. Perry, the case challenging the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that overturned marriage equality in that state and was subsequently ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Court of Appeals. This is the statement released by the 6 congressmembers:

We welcome the Supreme Court’s decision to review DOMA and ensure that Congress affords all families equal treatment under the law. Congress failed this fundamental obligation when it hastily passed DOMA in 1996 and foreclosed federal recognition for married same-sex couples before gay men or lesbians could marry anywhere in the world. We have long argued that no legitimate federal interest is served by depriving loving, committed same-sex couples the same security that we provide others. We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will affirm the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that DOMA is unconstitutional and must be struck down.

Legal observers expect the Court will hear Arguments in March and hand down the two rulings in June. But, guess what-- the fate of gay marriage isn't the only issue animating gay activists. In fact, as Jonathan Capehart posted Thursday in the Washington Post, some of the country's most prominent-- and wealthiest-- LGBT activists have jumped into the fight over the Grand Bargain Obama and Boehner have been cooking up. 25 very high profile gays and lesbians sent a letter to Boehner, Pelosi, Reid and Miss McConnell emphasizing the negative economic impact going over the fiscal cliff would have on LGBT households and urging them to “work with President Obama to avoid the fiscal cliff with a balanced approach, and to preserve the middle class tax cuts while allowing tax cuts for millionaires like us expire.” Here's the letter the job creators sent the congressional leaders:

We are successful LGBT Americans who now or in the past have earned an annual income of $1,000,000 or more.

America has been good to us: it has provided the foundation and opportunity to succeed. We want that same opportunity and possibility for all Americans, but we are concerned about the future of our community and our country.

At the end of this year, a series of deadlines will require our leaders to make important decisions that will have a huge impact on the economy-- and on the LGBT community. If Congress fails to act, across-the-board cuts to vital programs will be triggered even as taxes go up on the middle class.

For LGBT Americans, this “fiscal cliff” isn’t just an abstract concept. A report released by the Center for American Progress, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, and a coalition of 23 national LGBT organizations outlines the real and lasting impact it would have.

Across-the-board cuts would compromise LGBT health by reducing programmatic funding used to address the health care needs of gay and transgender Americans, impair the federal government’s ability to investigate claims of workplace discrimination, and remove critical resources from government agencies working to prevent bullying and school violence.

At the same time, higher tax rates would further endanger middle class and working class members of our community. LGBT Americans have lower levels of income than other Americans, according to a recent Gallup report, and face additional economic obstacles caused by the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and the lack of federal workplace protections.

In the recent election, many of us contributed significantly to re-elect the President, and we support the President’s vision of a country in which everyone has a fair shot and does his or her fair share.

We urge Congress to work with President Obama to avoid the fiscal cliff with a balanced approach, and to preserve the middle class tax cuts while allowing tax cuts for the best off to expire. It’s the right thing to do.

Signed,

The Honorable Bruce W. Bastian
Terry Bean
Paul Boskind
David Bohnett
Roberta Conroy
Bill Derrough
Karen K. Dixon & Nan Schaffer
Joe Falk
Dale Frederiksen & Bob Page
Nanette Gartrell, MD & Dee (Diane) Mosbacher MD, PhD
Tim Gill
Mel Heifetz
Glenn Johnson & Michael Melancon
Kathy Levinson
Terrence Meck
Charles Myers
Suze Orman & Kathy Travis
Laura Ricketts
Sarah Schmidt
Andrew Tobias

One of the signers, David Bohnett, is familiar to anyone who listens to KCRW in L.A. I don't know if he's ever been on any of the shows but his foundation underwrites so many of them that the "David Bohnett Foundation" is part of everyone's subconscious. The founder of GeoCities, long before there was either a MySpace or Facebook, is one of the wealthiest public gay figures in Los Angeles and has contributed over $375,000 to Democratic candidates and Democratic organizations over the last couple of election cycles. His foundation's mission statement says that he and the foundation "are committed to improving society through social activism. We pursue our mission by providing funding, state-of-the-art technology and technical support to innovative organizations and institutions that, in addition to meeting our funding guidelines, share our vision." Yesterday he told me why he got involved with this letter to the congressional leaders:

"Our country's infrastructure is falling apart, funding for education is in shambles, we have abandoned public support for the cultural arts, I and many others like me are prepared to pay higher taxes in order to benefit society as a whole. The Republican party will continue to 'self-deport' in relevance with its intransigent stance on holding down taxes. It's time to take a stand and rise up for the good of our beloved America."

Right-Wing Extremist Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) Insists Obama Has No Mandate-- Lies About Election Results

Jeb Hensarling, who Boehner just appointed chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, forgot to stick to Fox News yesterday and wandered over to CNN for an interview. Soledad O'Brien is nothing like one of the empty-headed Fox bimbos and she asked him actual journalist questions... which he either couldn't or wouldn't answer. When she wanted to know why the GOP won't follow Oklahoma Republican Tom Cole's suggestion and just vote to allow tax breaks for the first $250,000 of everyone's income, the closest Hensarling came to an answer was to lie about President Obama's vote total in the election! Hen:

The President won 51-49. He has an electoral college victory. It’s good enough to get him re-elected but not enough to give him a mandate.

That's a typical Fox News distortion. Yes Obama won an electoral college victory-- 332-206-- a very big one. He won every battleground state but North Carolina, and won Paul Ryan's home state 53-46%. In terms of the popular vote, Obama is closing in on a 5 million vote margin, which is pretty massive. And where Hensarling was most blatant in his lie was when he claimed Romney won 49% of the vote. Right now, as more official returns come in, Romney is firmly in 47% territory (47.31% to be exact) although he could possibly slip into the 46% area. Does that mean Hensarling and his obstructionist cohorts will sign the discharge petition to allow a simple up or down vote on preserving the middle class tax cuts? Not if Miss McConnell's filibustering his own proposal this morning is any indication of how low the Republicans have sunk since the election.

And since Hensarling brought it up, let me also mention that the states where Obama got over 60% of the vote includes states with big, populations, while the states where Romney got over 60% are primarily states with small populations, which means Romney's already measly 206 electoral votes would be considered way too high in a democracy that didn't bend over backwards to negate majority rule.

Obama's states with 60% or more:

• California (population: 37,341,989) 60.0%
• Hawaii (population: 1,366,862) 70.5%
• Massachusetts (population: 6,559,644) 60.7%
• Maryland (population: 5,789,929) 62.0%
• New York (population: 19,421,055) 62.6%
• Rhode Island (population: 1,055,247) 62.7%
• Vermont (population: 630,337) 66.6%

Romney's states with 60% or more:

• Alabama (population: 4,802,982) 60.7%
• Arkansas (population: 2,926,229) 60.6%
• Idaho (population: 1,573,499) 64.5%
• Nebraska (population: 1,831,825) 60.4%
• Oklahoma (population: 3,764,882) 66.8%
• Utah (population: 2,770,765) 72.8%
• West Virginia (population: 1,859,815) 62.3%
• Wyoming (population: 568,300) 68.6%

So Wyoming's 568,300 people are given 2 extra electors, just like California's 37,341,989 people and New York's 19,421,055 people. I'm sure you've also noticed that the pro-Obama states are socially advanced and educated while the Romney states are backward states, filled with ignorant superstitious people... like the dishonest Rep. Hensarling.

Hensarling’s invocation of Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) proposal is not only not an answer to O’Brien’s question-- as it doesn’t explain what’s wrong with the simple solution O’Brien poses-- but it’s also not anything close to balanced. While Boehner’s plan contains an array of draconian spending cuts, it doesn’t propose any actual increased revenue, relying instead on the same voodoo as the Romney tax plan.

As if to answer Hensarling, one of the beneficiaries of the misguided GOP tax policy of forcing burdens onto the middle class while redistributing wealth upwards, FedEx chairman and CEO Fred Smith, a Republican, laughed at Hensarling's and Boehner's desperate assertions that tax hikes on the wealthy kind jobs. He called it the way more and more Americans are seeing it: mythology. Smith told CNN this week that "there's a lot of mythology in Washington, such as it's small business that creates all of the jobs in the United States and if you raise the rates on the top 2 percent, you'll kill jobs. The reality is the vast majority of jobs in the United States are produced by capital investment in equipment and software that's not done by small business. It's done by big business and the so-called 'gazelles,' the emerging companies like the new fracking oil and gas operations. It is capital investment and equipment and software that's the solution to our economic problems, not the marginal tax rates of individuals." Yesterday he was at a meeting of the Business Roundtable with President Obama.

The Business Roundtable, a group of CEOs of major U.S. corporations with more than 16 million employees, has embarked on a campaign-- "It's Time to Act"-- to persuade Congress to resolve the year-end fiscal deadlines and avert automatic tax increases and huge spending cuts. Obama spoke at its quarterly meeting.

The White House said before the meeting that the president would "make the case that our nation's businesses need the certainty that middle class families won't see their taxes go up at the end of the year.

"The President will highlight why it would hurt our economy and our nation's businesses if we do not find a solution to avoid another debt ceiling crisis, and will ask the business leaders for their help in supporting an approach that resolves the debt limit without drama or delay," the statement said.

The event was closed to the press but it would appear the president received a receptive audience. A pool report from a McClatchy Newspapers correspondent indicated the president's remarks were "plagued at times by audio difficulties," but that he told the executives that he was "struck" by the number of CEOs who have told him privately they were willing to pay slightly higher taxes.

Smith was an advisor to McCain's presidential bid in 2008 and over the last few years has personally donated over $150,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, while his FedEx PAC spent $3,249,204 this year alone, most of it on Republicans. Ryan Grimm reports that Smith is by no means the only Republican high roller urging the GOP to just raise the taxes on the rich and get it over with.

[O]n Monday, a gathering of the nation's top defense executives took a surprising turn when they endorsed tax rate increases on the wealthy and cuts of up to $150 billion to the Pentagon's budget. Top executives from Northrop Grumman, Pratt & Whitney, TASC and RTI International Metals appeared at the National Press Club at an event organized by the Aerospace Industries Association, the top defense contractor lobbyist.

David Langstaff, CEO of TASC, said that the executives were speaking out because so far leaders of the defense industry were "talking a good game, but are still unwilling to park short-term self-interest." After the event, he told a defense reporter for Politico that tax rates need to go up.

“In the near term, [income tax rates] need to go up some,” Langstaff said. "This is a fairness issue-- there needs to be recognition that we’re not collecting enough revenue. In the last decade we’ve fought two wars without raising taxes. So I think it does need to go up.”

David Hess, head of Pratt & Whitney, said his parent company, United Technologies Corp, believed personal income tax rates should be on the table; Dawne Hickton, CEO of RTI, said he would back a rate hike if it led to a deal.

The CEOs join other high-profile executives who are willing to chip in more. Following a meeting with President Barack Obama last week at the White House, executives emerged to endorse higher rates. "There needs to be some revenue element to this, and [Obama] started with rates," said Joe Echeverria, CEO of Deloitte LLP. "And he started with rates on what we would define [as] the upper two percent … that we have to pay our fair share. And I think everybody was in agreement with that notion."

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, who was also at the meeting, said in a statement that a deal "will require a compromise involving an increase in both tax rates and revenue."

Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein, meanwhile, told CNN after the meeting that "if we had to lift up the marginal rate, I would do that."

Meanwhile, I'm delighted to report that the DCCC is doing something useful for a change. They have a new anti-Hostagetakers website targeting 40 vulnerable Republicans and demanding they sign the discharge petition and back a vote for middle class tax cuts. And aside from the usual targets where they have Blue Dogs and New Dems running, they've included-- first time ever-- senior GOP policy-makers Buck McKeon (CA-25), Peter King (NY-02), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-27), each of whom has been fiercely protected in the past by the corrupt DCCC hierarchy. Also nice to see Tom Reed (NY-23) on the list. I had to chuckle seeing that they're on schedule to go after David McKinley (WV-01) now that Steve Israel is busily recruiting a Blue Dog for the seat they ignored this cycle (when progressive Sue Thorn was running).

Boehner Now Appears To Be Trying To Drive The Economy Off The GOP-Manufactured Fiscal Curb

I sure hope congressional Democrats are paying attention to Robert Reich's little video above. Yesterday Boehner and his crew of sociopaths-- with Republican Senator Bob Corker's ringing endorsement on Meet the Press for "severe pain" for working families fresh in their minds-- presented President Obama with their counterproposal to avoid their ginned-up, Republican manufactured so-called "Fiscal Cliff." Short version: the thoroughly rejected Ryan Budget meets the thoroughly rejected Romney tax plan.

The Republicans are eager to increase the eligibility age for Medicare and to lower the cost-of-living hikes for Social Security recipients, exactly what the voters-- and remember, despite gerrymandering over a million more congressional race pulled the lever for a Democrat than for a Republican-- said they do not want.

The GOP plan also proposes to raise $800 billion in higher tax revenue over the decade but it would keep the Bush-era tax cuts-- including those for wealthier earners targeted by Obama-- in place for now.

...GOP aides said the plan was based on a plan floated by Erskine Bowles in testimony to the special deficit "supercommittee" last year-- in effect a milder version of the highly controversial 2010 Bowles proposal that caused both GOP and Democratic leaders in Congress to recoil.

By GOP math, the plan would produce $2.2 trillion in saving over the coming decade: $800 billion in higher taxes; $600 billion in savings from costly health care programs like Medicare; $300 billion from other proposals like forcing federal workers to contribute more toward their pensions; and $300 billion in additional savings from the Pentagon budget and domestic programs funded by Congress each year.

Under the administration's math, GOP aides said, the plan represents $4.6 trillion in 10-year savings. That estimate accounts for earlier cuts enacted during last year's showdown over lifting the government's borrowing cap and also factors in war savings and lower interest payments on the $16.4 trillion national debt.

Last week, the White House delivered to Capitol Hill its opening proposal: $1.6 trillion in higher taxes over a decade, a possible extension of the temporary Social Security payroll tax cut and heightened presidential power to raise the national debt limit.

In exchange, the president would back $600 billion in spending cuts, including $350 billion from Medicare and other health programs. But he also wants $200 billion in new spending for jobless benefits, public works projects and aid for struggling homeowners. His proposal for raising the ceiling on government borrowing would make it virtually impossible for Congress to block him going forward.

Republicans said they responded in closed-door meetings with laughter and disbelief.

Today it was conservative Democrat Erskine Bowles who was in a state of disbelief. He immediately issued a statement disavowing the letter Boehner and the GOP leadership sent to Obama:

While I'm flattered the Speaker would call something "the Bowles plan," the approach outlined in the letter Speaker Boehner sent to the President does not represent the Simpson-Bowles plan, nor is it the Bowles plan. In my testimony before the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, I simply took the mid-point of the public offers put forward during the negotiations to demonstrate where I thought a deal could be reached at that time.

The Joint Select Committee failed to reach a deal, and circumstances have changed since then. It is up to negotiators to figure out where the middle ground is today. Every offer put forward brings us closer to a deal, but to reach an agreement, it will be necessary for both sides to move beyond their opening positions and reach agreement on a comprehensive plan which avoids the fiscal cliff and puts the debt on a clear downward path relative to the economy.

The official White House response, from Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, was less circumspect. “The Republican letter released today," he said, "does not meet the test of balance. In fact, it actually promises to lower rates for the wealthy and sticks the middle class with the bill. Their plan includes nothing new and provides no details on which deductions they would eliminate, which loopholes they will close or which Medicare savings they would achieve. Independent analysts who have looked at plans like this one have concluded that middle class taxes will have to go up to pay for lower rates for millionaires and billionaires. While the President is willing to compromise to get a significant, balanced deal and believes that compromise is readily available to Congress, he is not willing to compromise on the principles of fairness and balance that include asking the wealthiest to pay higher rates. President Obama believes-– and the American people agree-– that the economy works best when it is grown from the middle out, not from the top down. Until the Republicans in Congress are willing to get serious about asking the wealthiest to pay slightly higher tax rates, we won’t be able to achieve a significant, balanced approach to reduce our deficit our nation needs.”

Nancy Pelosi, who is busy trying to get a straight-up vote on save breaks for the first $250,000 of everyone's income, suggested the Republicans "instead of wasting the public’s time... allow a vote on the Senate-passed middle income tax cuts to strengthen middle class families, spur growth in our economy, provide certainty to small businesses, and create jobs. Democrats are filing a discharge petition, to force a vote on extending the middle income tax cut, on Tuesday at noon. There’s no time to waste.”

ABC News reported yesterday that Republicans are seriously considering a Doomsday Plan if fiscal cliff talks collapse entirely. It’s quite simple: House Republicans would allow a vote on extending the Bush middle class tax cuts (the bill passed in August by the Senate) and offer the President nothing more: no extension of the debt ceiling, nothing on unemployment, nothing on closing loopholes. Congress would recess for the holidays and the president would face a big battle early in the year over the debt ceiling.

Gang War On Capitol Hill

Usually when we hear about congressional "gangs" that are going to solve some intractable problem, it signals a bunch of corporate whores from both sides of the aisle getting together to cut out the give and take of politics and negate the expressed will of the voters-- senators from conservative states. But now the Congressional Progressive Caucus has its own gang, the Gang of Six doing the exact opposite-- working to make sure the expressed will of the voters is exactly what doesn't get ignored in the lame duck debate when it comes to the Obama-Boehner Grand Bargain, a Grand Bargain needed to fix a series of problems entirely created by the GOP.

[I]t was the Republicans who forced a series of budget moves over the last decade that now are bringing the government to a breaking point that threatens sweeping tax increases and indiscriminate spending cuts that could plunge the country back into recession.

Part of it was a political gimmick, working the rules of the Senate to push through sweeping tax cuts in a way Republicans later would lambaste when President Barack Obama’s Democrats used the same tactic to enact the new health care law. The legislative gimmick got the tax cuts through Congress, but it made them the first such tax cuts with an expiration date. Those temporary tax cuts are expiring.

And part of the Republican approach was by design, risking the first-ever default on U.S. debt to force a change in Washington and rein in runaway deficits. That 2011 showdown led to the automatic spending cuts that will start going into effect Jan. 2 – and which none really wants in their current form.

The Members of this gang are 6 of the most pro-family Members of Congress: Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), and Barbara Lee (D-CA), Keith Ellison (D-MN), John Conyers (D-MI), Michael Honda (D-CA), and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL). Late last week, they released a document, the Progressive Principles for Tax Reform, a progressive framework for the coming tax reform discussion that emphasizes raising significant revenue, protecting working families and the vulnerable, and requiring corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share.

The “Gang of Six” plan calls for positive revenue from corporate tax reform and opposes a territorial system that would encourage Big Businesses to move profits and jobs overseas. The plan also asks for the wealthiest Americans to pay more in income tax, while working to strengthen tax credits that help middle class families.

“The extremism in the Republican Caucus has pushed millions of Americans deeper into poverty and leaves middle class families teetering on the edge, but progressives in Congress will continue to respond to radical Republican proposals with genuine discussions based on the realities about our country’s future.” The introduction of the Progressive Principles for Tax Reform lays out a simple explanation for what progressive Members of Congress would like to accomplish with tax reform and why:

The primary goals of comprehensive tax reform should be to progressively raise sufficient revenue to (1) make investments that will grow the economy, and (2) set us on a path for long-term deficit reduction. Low-and moderate-income Americans are already contributing to deficit reduction through the Budget Control Act spending caps and are likely to be asked to sacrifice more. Progressive tax reform is the only way that wealthy Americans can share significantly in that sacrifice.

Rather than use the 1986 tax reform as a model, we should be taking cues from our last five balanced budgets (1969 and 1998-2001), which all required above average revenue. During these years of balance, federal revenue averaged 19.5% of GDP, substantially higher than the previous 40 year average (18% of GDP) and the pre-recession level (18.5% of GDP). However, with demographic shifts, the desperate need for job-creating investments, and the size of our current deficits, our revenue will need to be higher than even these historical levels to achieve balance.

The writing is on the wall: a revenue-neutral approach to tax reform-– on either the corporate or individual side of the tax code-– is not an option. Further, so-called “dynamic scoring,” that imagines revenue out of thin air and is widely refuted by respected economists of all political affiliations, cannot be used to shirk the requirement for revenue in deficit reduction proposals.

They insist the plan be revenue positive by emphasizing making the corporate tax code more efficient by eliminating wasteful and counterproductive loopholes, broadening the base, and reducing the bias towards overseas investments; and that it promote responsible corporate behavior by incentivizing corporations to hire disadvantaged workers, investing in distressed communities, bringing jobs home from overseas, by helping small businesses by promoting clean energy and energy efficiency and by eliminating tax loopholes that encourage reckless and undesirable behavior such as the overuse of debt financing and tax sheltering, and explore commonsense revenue streams like putting a price on carbon pollution or enacting a small financial transactions tax to reduce market volatility and by repealing the more than $95 billion in special tax breaks for Big Oil and Gas.

They conclude by calling for the reexamination of expenditures that benefit the wealthy and insist that economic policies readjust towards a more equitable goal for working families, the poor and seniors. "Tax policy," they point out, "is economic policy and tax expenditures are a form of spending. We must prioritize our spending through the tax code to remove expenditures that disproportionately benefit the wealthy, while protecting those that create ladders of opportunity, reward work, and protect the poor.

Subsidies that disproportionately benefit the wealthy should be made fairer and more efficient by targeting them better, such as by transitioning to tax credits. At the very least, we should cap the benefit of itemized deductions for families with incomes over $250,000 at 28%, as outlined in the President’s budget. Only one-third of taxpayers itemize their deductions because the majority of Americans claim the standard deduction. Further, the value of a deduction corresponds to an individual’s marginal tax rate, making itemization highly regressive.

We support tax expenditures that increase access to health care, homeownership, and a secure retirement. Tax credits that benefit seniors, the poor, or working families-– such as the child tax credit-– should also be protected with their refundability maintained. We support maintaining the improvements made under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to tax credits targeting working families, including the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child and Dependent Care Credit, and the American Opportunity Tax Credit. In addition, as our economy continues to recover, we support tax credits to create consumer demand and assist low- and middle-income families such as the successful Making Work Pay tax credit.

We also must not fall for the trap of agreeing to a tax reform framework that sets a goal of locking in regressive and costly rate reductions while leaving for later which tax expenditures would be targeted. This would either result in lower overall revenue or would put at risk tax expenditures that benefit the poor and the middle class, and neither is acceptable.

But that isn't how the Republican gang sees it-- and it isn't what the wealthy predators who pay for their careers-- and the careers of plenty of corrupt Democrats as well-- see it either. Over the weekend, the L.A. Times reported on the Republican outline for a deal to avert the so-called "Fiscal Cliff," a term invented as a weapon of terrorism to stampede Americans into giving up their rights and their children's futures to the Austerity-mad plutocrats. Miss McConnell finally blurted out what the GOP wants-- "specific cuts to popular safety-net entitlement programs-- Medicare and Social Security... McConnell said his party would like to increase the Medicare eligibility age and ask wealthier Americans to pay higher Medicare premiums. He also suggested paring back the cost-of-living increases given to Social Security beneficiaries, a nonstarter for many Democrats." On Sunday, Paul Krugman put Miss McConnell's toxic agenda under a microscope.

[I]f we take all of McConnell’s ideas together, we get a bit more than $300 billion. Getting this would, by the way, impose substantial hardship-- seniors would be forced into inferior private insurance, and there are good reasons to believe that the true inflation rate facing seniors is actually higher, not lower, than the CPI. Still, what we’re looking at overall is a saving equal to only about one-fifth of what Obama is proposing to raise by higher taxes.

And that’s it; has anyone heard even a peep from the GOP about what else they’d like to cut?

This is pathetic-- and these people are definitely not serious.

There's a game of chicken here inasmuch as both the corporate Democrats and the entire GOP want to eliminate the home interest deduction but what the other party to suggest it. But are petrified of alienating middle class homeowners. Instead we have anti-family reactionaries like Bob Corker parading themselves on the idiotic Sunday talking heads shows and demanding "very painful cuts" to programs Republicans have always hated and opposed, like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.