Robert Reich: The Coming Shutdowns and Showdowns...(GOP demanded extension of tax cuts for the rich)

[ProSense]

Robert Reich

The Coming Shutdowns and Showdowns: What’s Really at Stake

Wisconsin is in a showdown. Washington is headed for a government shutdown.

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In DC, House Republicans won’t budge on the $61 billion cut they pushed through last week, saying they’ll okay a temporary resolution to keep things running in Washington beyond March 4 only if it includes many of their steep cuts — among which are several that the middle class and poor depend on.

Republicans say “we’ve” been spending too much, and they’re determined to end the spending with a scorched-earth policies in the states (Republican governors in Ohio, Indiana, and New Jersey are reading similar plans to decimate public unions) and shutdowns in Washington.

<...>

Before Wisconsin’s budget went bust, Governor Walker signed $117 million in corporate tax breaks. Wisconsin’s immediate budge shortfall is $137 million. That’s his pretext for socking it to Wisconsin’s public unions.

Nationally, you remember, Republicans demanded and received an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich. They’ve made it clear they’re intent on extending them for the next ten years, at a cost of $900 billion. They’ve also led the way on cutting the estate tax, and on protecting Wall Street private equity and hedge-fund managers whose earnings are taxed at the capital gains rate of 15 percent. And the last thing they’d tolerate is an increase in the top marginal tax rate on the super-rich.

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[LiberalAndProud]

1. drowning government in a bathtub

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist


The roots of the reality we experience.

[Bandit]

2. There will be no showdown I am afraid

Republicans will threaten and Obama will bow to their wishes..("For the good of the country") don't ya know....

[msongs]

3. but Obama said he would not extend tax cuts to his wealthy best friend republicans. he said so! nt

[jp11]

5. But he had to do that, there was no other way.

NO OTHER WAY.:nuke:

[ProSense]

6. And wouldn't it have been a great idea

to leave unemployment benefits (now extended for a full year) and other stimulus to the new Congress?

That would have been a formula for a royal screwup.

[Ganja Ninja]

4. " Nationally, you remember, Republicans demanded and received an extension of the Bush tax cuts "

Something they couldn't have done without help from the conservative Democrats. We wouldn't be where we are today if they had sided with their own party instead of the Republicans. They handed the GOP their deficit argument.