Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security.
MORNING MESSAGE: Saying “Fiscal Cliff” Is Taking Sides
OurFuture.org's Dave Johnson: "The term 'fiscal cliff' is a one-sided propaganda phrase that misinforms and triggers public fear and anxiety. The fiscal cliff is not a 'cliff' and the country isn’t going to fall off anything at the end of the year. Journalists: don’t help the misinformers — don’t say or write 'fiscal cliff.' Congress: when people are scared and misinformed our Congress should pause, step back and help inform us instead of rushing to take advantage of the fear."
More Republicans Agree To Raise Taxes
More and more Republicans publicly rebuke Norquist. TPM: "Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss ditched Norquist’s pledge last Thursday. 'I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge,' he told Georgia TV station 13WMAZ … 'I think Grover is wrong when it comes to, "We can’t cap deductions and buy down debt,' [Sen. Lindsey Graham] said Sunday on ABC’s 'This Week.' … 'A pledge you signed 20 years ago, 18 years ago, is for that Congress,' [Rep. Peter King] said on NBC’s 'Meet The Press.' 'For instance, if I were in Congress in 1941, I would have supported a declaration of war against Japan. I’m not going to attack Japan today.'"
New CNN poll shows Republicans and Democrats support higher taxes: "Two thirds of those questioned in the poll say that any agreement should include a mix of spending cuts and tax increases, with just under one in three saying a deal should only include spending cuts. Democrats questioned in the survey overwhelmingly support an agreement that has both, and six out of ten independents feel the same way. By a 52%-44% margin, Republicans also favor a mixture of spending cuts and tax increases…"
Tax debate over how, not if, to raise taxes. W. Post: "For the first time in decades, a bipartisan consensus has emerged in Washington to raise taxes. But negotiators … remain far apart on crucial details … Democrats are seeking $1.6 trillion in new taxes over the next decade collected from about 3 million families … earning more than $250,000 a year … [Republicans] want to raise cash by rewriting the tax code to eliminate individual loopholes and deductions … Capping all itemized deductions at $17,000, an idea offered by Romney, would affect the wealthy but raise tax bills for nearly 15 percent of families making between $40,000 and $50,000 a year. A proposal by Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) to cap deductions at $50,000 would come closer to focusing the impact on households earning more than $250,000, but it would also raise less money."
Effective tax rates on wealthy fell in 2010. ThinkProgress: "The reason for the continual drop is clear: the 2003 high-income Bush tax cuts lowered the rate on investment income, and wealthy Americans are deriving more income from investments than they ever have…"
Warren Buffet calls for a minimum tax on the wealthy, in NYT oped: "…we need Congress, right now, to enact a minimum tax on high incomes. I would suggest 30 percent of taxable income between $1 million and $10 million, and 35 percent on amounts above that. A plain and simple rule like that will block the efforts of lobbyists, lawyers and contribution-hungry legislators to keep the ultrarich paying rates well below those incurred by people with income just a tiny fraction of ours."
Don't Fear The Deadline
Deficit hysterics keep getting it wrong, says NYT's Paul Krugman: "…the crisis they predicted keeps not happening. Far from fleeing U.S. debt, investors have continued to pile in … every example supposedly illustrating the dangers of debt involves either a country that, like Greece today, lacked its own currency, or a country that, like Asian economies in the 1990s, had large debts in foreign currencies …"
Social Security and Medicare don't belong in the fiscal debate, argues HuffPost's Robert Kuttner: "…if we get can get back to full employment, there is no Social Security crisis, because Social Security is financed by taxes on payrolls … Medicare spending is a long-term problem that requires major structural reforms. Reducing benefits or raising the eligibility age in the heat of an artificially contrived fiscal crisis is the wrong way to proceed. Obama's Affordable Care Act will keep Medicare at roughly its present level of spending relative to GDP -- too high, but not an imminent catastrophe."
Some Dems prepared to let deadline pass to bolster leverage. Politico: "…underlying the tough talk is also a sense of liberal angst — the left feels like it was burned by the last extension of the Bush tax rates and didn’t get much of what it wanted in the 2011 debt-limit deal."
