Reusing this but....
Guys, let's get real here.
What did we get?
Unemployment extension for a year.
A permanent tax cut for the middle class.
A permanent tax raise on individuals making over 400k.
Extension of the child tax credit.
Extension of the college tuition credit.
Capital gains rate raised to 20% (23.8% in effect with Obamacare).
What did Boehner get?
People making between 250k-400k won't have their taxes raised.
And that's it. Are you really willing to play chicken with two million people's livelihoods just to get an extra 100 or 200 billion in revenue over 10 years by keeping the bracket at 250k? Really guys? You're going to stall unemployment checks to families just for some chump change? That's some Republican rigidity right there.
Take a second to realize that if this deal goes through, we'll have gotten Republicans to vote for raising taxes. Also realize that there was no way in a million years that Congress would have ever given the President control of the debt ceiling--that was always a pipe dream that no amount of leverage could have gotten. That is one of the few tools the Congress has to counteract the executive branch. If you want it, you're going to have to pry it from their cold, dead hands. This debt ceiling battle coming up is inevitable.
And we still have the Republicans by the balls by not addressing the spending cuts in the defense budget in a few months. Their sacred cow is still on the chopping block while we've gotten 90% of what we wanted off it.
Originally Posted by LA Times said:
As the price for lifting those defense cuts, White House officials have said, the president will demand another round of revenue increases through closing tax loopholes and other measures. That would bring the overall revenue total close to what Obama had originally wanted if he can prevail.
Obama made that point himself, in an afternoon statement that sought to reassure restive Democrats that he would not allow Republicans to push through a deal with only spending cuts.
"If Republicans think that I will finish the job of deficit reduction through spending cuts alone," he said, "that's not how it's going to work."
"Revenues have to be part of the equation in turning off the sequester, in eliminating these automatic spending cuts," he said.
But we don't even know for sure that the House will even go for all of this. "We could have gotten more" is going to look rather silly if House Republicans shoot this deal down.
@ anyone thinking the GOP has ultimate leverage in the debt ceiling negotiations.
