Comments on: re Supercommittee: No Deal Is…

By: Jill SH

Jill SH — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:55:34 +0000

I’m looking for that bumper sticker:
“So how’s that trickle-down working out for ya’?
Bush tax cuts – 10 years and counting!”

Could we just consider sitting on our hands and letting the Bush tax cuts — yes, all of them — expire at the end of 2012, and let a new congress deal with creating a new tax cut structure?

Politically how would it play out if a) we had a Dem-controlled Congress; b) a Repub congress; c) a split congress? (Assume Obama re-election. I can’t cope with imagining anything else.)

Or the lame duck Congress in Dec ’12 facing any of those situations?

I know that the lose of those tax cuts mean a lot to the middle class too, but wouldn’t that mean that much more pressure to create a new tax cut proposal, hopefully more progressive?

By: Jim Gonyea

Jim Gonyea — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 01:33:04 +0000

I don’t remember where I read it, but I read what I believe is strategy that fits the Republicans MO. The concept goes that the Super Farce fails and then the Republicans remove the defense cuts from the sequestration. The Republicans control the House, so it passes the House. There’s enough Democratic Senators in the Senate who would vote with the Republicans there to pass it. So the social program cuts go through, but the military cuts don’t. The Republicans have already proven themselves to be negotiators in bad faith. No reason to expect they won’t continue the pattern now. This may be the game they’ve played from the beginning. No agreement with the Republicans is worth the paper it’s written on. Quite simply you can’t negotiate with someone who is a dishonest agent.

By: perplexed

perplexed — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 19:26:01 +0000

You make no mention of the thousands of “small businesses” (independent building material dealers and hardware stores) that were displaced by the “big box” home depot stores or the hundreds of thousands of employees who lost their jobs due to this displacement and now work for Home Depot for considerably less than they were making before. I suppose its possible, but I doubt total employment (and seriously doubt total real payroll) are higher now than before the “big box” takeovers of the independents. Are you really suggesting that we should dispose of regulations to further support this race to the bottom? Maybe it is only more collapsing roofs and more houses burning down that can break through these memes.

In the meantime, I have a couple of Nigerian bank accounts we should talk about.

By: Th

Th — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:10:52 +0000

I heard Bernie say that on a couple of occasions while he was raising money for George Bush. He never said what regulations passed since the 70′s would make it harder for him to start a Home Depot today.

Home Depot was started in retro-fitted big box retail stores funded by venture capital. Today he would get tax incentives and employee training paid by the local or state government and who knows what other freebies.

Just because Bernie says it doesn’t make it so.

By: Jan Rooth

Jan Rooth — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 23:27:19 +0000

What’s wrong with them is that all but a tiny handful of them are wholly owned by the financial sector, who see nothing wrong with our becoming a neo-feudal society.

By: Jesse_EngAmer

Jesse_EngAmer — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 23:19:00 +0000

It will in fact take some political will to enact policy solutions, as you say. There is too much regulatory burden on small companies that drive business, competition and job creation as well as large companies too. Bernie Marcus who co-founded Home Depot in the 70′s, which employs 321,000 could not have built his company today due to regulations promulgated by the federal agencies, future taxation levels uncertainty and rising health care costs.

Even president Obama admitted that over regulation was a danger to job creation. http://eng.am/rhBbSW

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 22:48:33 +0000

Two possibilities: one is the Democrats are playing chicken, offering the GOP 90% of what they want and getting ready to nail them if they turn it down. two is that they are a nasty lot of cynical bastards who will screw their base for some imaginary thread of an electoral benefit. Both possibilities make me want to vomit, but the first leaves me with the slight hope that the republicans are more wacko than the democrats are stupid and cynical.

By: foosion

foosion — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 22:13:36 +0000

>>So fear not no deal. That would be a lot better than what I’m hearing about.>>

I really wonder what’s wrong with Democratic politicians. They seem poised to agree to a deal that’s terrible policy and terrible politics.

No deal would be vastly superior to what’s being reported as being under discussion.