Worthless fucking Democrats:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has reached a compromise with House Republicans on a package of tax breaks that would permanently extend relief for big multinational corporations without providing breaks for middle or lower-income families, individuals with knowledge of the deal tell ThinkProgress.
Under the terms of the $444 billion agreement, lawmakers would phase out all tax breaks for clean energy and wind energy but would maintain fossil fuel subsidies. Expanded eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit would also end in 2017, even though the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that allowing the provisions to expire would push “16 million people in low-income working families, including 8 million children into — or deeper into — poverty.” The proposal would help students pay for college by making permanent the American Permanent Opportunity Tax Credit, a Democratic priority.
Meanwhile, two-thirds of the package would make permanent tax provisions that are intended to help businesses, including a research and development credit, small business expensing, and a reduction in the S-Corp recognition period for built-in gains tax.
The costs of the package will not be offset.
A giveway to the rich while screwing the poor and middle class, moving in the wrong direction regarding energy policy, all while not being offset, so later on Republicans will have a pretext to pretend to be fiscal conservatives while they demand more cuts to food stamps and Medicare. Harry Reid, you worthless piece of shit.
Fortunately, there is this:
With negotiators nearing an accord on permanent tax breaks for businesses worth $440 billion over 10 years, President Obama rallied Democratic opposition on Tuesday and promised a veto.
“The president would veto the proposed deal because it would provide permanent tax breaks to help well-connected corporations while neglecting working families,” said Jennifer Friedman, a White House spokeswoman.
The deal, negotiated by House Republicans and aides to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the outgoing majority leader, showed how much power has shifted since the Republican election victories this month. The negotiations fractured Democrats, and separated the Obama administration from Mr. Reid.
But Mr. Obama’s threat showed that he could still wield his authority as well. White House officials said the package, intended to avoid letting a host of politically popular tax breaks expire at the end of the year, is too heavily tilted toward corporations and will have deep repercussions for budget and tax negotiations far into the future.
Serisouly, it’s Obama against the world out there. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that my coal-humping Senators love Reid’s compromise.
Ahasuerus
Cole, the bottom of that post you linked to has an update which has Reid’s office denying that it signed off on anything. You may be jumping the gun on this.
And to all Juicers – Happy Thanksgiving! May your turkey be moist and your relatives be tolerable.
JPL
Cole, Tax cuts pay for themselves . Gov. Brownback just won reelection because his state’s economy is booming.
Bystander
I’d settle for tolerable turkey and moist relatives after all the bad news this week.
Happy Thanksgiving and may the FSM bless us all!
Frank McCormick
@Ahasuerus: I’m not so sure Cole is jumping the gun. This trial balloon should have been a complete non-starter. We are long past the point where the Democrats need to stand up to the insanity of the current Republican party. (Also the non-denial contains much weasoldom.)
Valdivia
Thank you for posting this John. I am so fucking angry about it. I am more and more convinced that post Obama the Dem party is just going to embrace their worst instincts and lose the 2016 election.
Valdivia
oh yes, and happy thanksgiving you all! :)
Schlemazel
And people wonder why some folks do not see a difference between the Democrats and the Republicans? People question why Dems could not be bothered to vote earlier this month? You can say things are worse when the Republicans are in control and history will prove you correct but how does that excite the disinterested voters? How does saying herpes & chlamydia is better than HIV make people excited about the prospect of the former with a better than average chance of also being gifted with the latter?
I put in a couple hundred hours of free time trying to prevent exactly this sort of shit only to find out some chunk of my party is all on board with it.
p.a.
Happy T-day all! GOS and acolytes get lots of deserved criticism, but they really did start the move to mo’ better Democrats. It’s just sloooow work. We have two political parties. The party of the super rich and the party of the ultra rich.
mai naem mobile
Time for a nice big fat order of special veto pens and invite Manchin,Mark Warner Chuckee Cheese Schumer and the regular GOP villians to the veto signing ceremony. Gawd,I wish Obama would do this. And I wish Obama. would.nominate Joe Lierbeman for Sec Def and then micromanage and defang.him in the actual job just to fuck with him and ole man McCain.
Schlemazel
@mai naem mobile:
JAY-ZEUS NO! The thought of having that useless piece of shit making the rounds of the Sunday shit shows, undermining Obama and the Dems every week is more than I could bear. It has been wonderful that he has disappeared from the conversation. Better to give the job to Dick Cheney.
VidaLoca
How many times have we seen this before? Democrats lose control of a house of Congress and start to make compromises with the Republicans using the Republicans’ gain of control as political cover. Never works the other way: Democrats gain control of a house Congress and the Republicans go on strike, shut down as much business as they can and put things into a state of gridlock.
ETA — also, what Schlemazel said.
Steeplejack
I’ve been in a bad mood since Election Day, and things keep getting worse and worse. This in particular chapped me:
Glad we’ve got a forward-thinking energy policy in the face of a global crisis!
El Caganer
@mai naem mobile: Go big or go home. John McCain for Secretary of Defense. And Reid’s cozying to Republicans? I blame Ralph Nader. Thanksralph!
Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill
Yeah, I can’t get too excited on this; I also recall the many “Obama agreed to cut Social Security!” posts that all came to naught.
This kind of crap always comes down the pike at these times. It’s not that we shouldn’t push back — I’m sure the “trial balloon” concept is key — but we also should expect people to wind us up just to see what our side’ll do. And that’s not a game I think we should be playing.
RSR
>>help students pay for college
Also, screw this. It sounds nice at first, but college costs are a huge skimming operation over the last 20 years. Not to mention the bogus for-profit institutions that take money, fail to educate and leave their clients with decades of debt burden.
Fund public education at the elementary and high school levels and let the colleges sink or swim without loans and grants.
Freakin’ UPenn has the audacity to run radio advertising soliciting planned-giving (read: leave money to them upon your death) although they have at $9.6 BILLION endowment, which grew 17.5% over the last fiscal year (http://www.thedp.com/article/2014/09/penn-endowment-returns-17-percent-9-billion) . Also, Penn is largely exempt from property taxes and does not participate in a PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) program. “Penn and Columbia are the only two Ivies that do not pay PILOT contributions to their local governments.” (http://www.thedp.com/article/2014/06/community-calls-for-penn-to-pay-its-fair-share)
JenJen
@Valdivia: That’s exactly what’s going to happen in 2016. Depressing as all hell.
El Caganer
@RSR: Not too surprising. Up until a couple of years ago, when Walmart took over the #1 spot, UPenn was the largest private employer in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. They’ve got some serious clout in Philadelphia.
burnspbesq
This extenders package resembles every other extenders package in the history of extenders packages. It contains some things that absolutely are good tax policy and don’t cost very much, and some things that are inexcusable giveaways that don’t make a lick of sense.
It’s basically an organic free-range chicken and shit sandwich. If you can figure out a way to get just the organic free-range chicken part, please don’t hesitate to speak up.
Morzer
@JPL:
Well, it could be said that there was a boom involved in the Brownback economy. Then there was a redistribution of fecal matter over the landscape and small fragments of the budget floated gently down to earth.
Frankensteinbeck
Oh, look. Another unsourced rumor that the Democrats are secretly Republicans.
Oh, look, it’s already been debunked.
This is such a long-running pattern that I think you need to consider that you’re being deliberately played, Cole.
Morzer
@Frankensteinbeck:
Hey, at least Cole didn’t compare Obama to Cosby this time around. Baby steps, baby steps.
Frankensteinbeck
@Morzer:
I’m not really bashing Cole here. I think he and a lot of Democrats need to realize that there are jackasses in the media who have figured out exactly what will make them run in circles weeping and pulling out their hair. The folks coming up with this shit are not our friends, and they’re as honest as the twits spreading rumors that ISIS is going to send people infected with ebola to America. I haven’t figured out if this is deliberate ratfucking to depress Democratic enthusiasm or greedy link-bait. Could be both. Either way, believe it when you see the bill passed, not before.
Morzer
@Frankensteinbeck:
Given that Harry Reid has hung tough plenty of times before, I think it’s just some lobbyist selling smoke and seeing how the Democrats react.
mai naem mobile
@El Caganer: oooh, I didn’t think about McCain That is an awesome idea and excellent news for John McCain. And AZ voters who can finally get rid of him.
mai naem mobile
@burnspbesq: You take the shit and fling it at the GOPs faces and make them eat their shit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Im sure the Very Serious Deficit Hawks of Morning Joe and Politico are scandalized!
I hope those of you saying Cole jumped the gun wrt Reid et al are right. The bit about canceling clean energy tax credits and extending fossil fuel subsidies is almost funny, it’s such a perfect summary of our corrupt political culture.
John Cole +0
@Morzer:
Blow me. I’ve explained at least a half dozen times what I was thinking when I wrote that, yet you still continue on harping about it. Find another blog if your delicate sensibilities are so grievously offended.
John Cole +0
@Frankensteinbeck:
Debunked or a trial balloon that was shot down…
Mnemosyne
@Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill:
Already debunked in the actual story. But it served its purpose — it got Democrats all pissed off at each other and created yet another circular firing squad.
It would be kind of nice to belong to a political party where the members actually support each other and back up what each other says, but I guess the only way to get that would be to become a Republican, and I’m not willing to do that.
LAC
@John Cole +0: you didn’t explain dick. You need to grow up. Think before you write. That was a deeply offensive post and mozer doesn’t have to get over it.
El Caganer
@mai naem mobile: Did you know that John McCain was a POW? It’s true!
TriassicSands
@Frankensteinbeck:
(Most) Democrats aren’t Republicans, secret or otherwise, but it’s no secret that Harry Reid is often a very lousy Democrat.
Sometimes it’s hard not to wish Sharron Angle had beaten Reid. The Democrats would have been rid of a shitty Majority Leader, and the entertainment value of the thoroughly certifiable Angle would have been priceless.
In 2016, Reid’s seat will probably be very vulnerable. He really needs to spend more time with his family. I’m not familiar with Nevada Democrats, but maybe they can find a competitive candidate who won’t be just another “lesser evil.”
Mnemosyne
@John Cole +0:
There have been so many purported “trial balloons” that you’d think the White House would be floating like the house in Up if they were the ones floating them.
Is the media never to blame? Do they never make shit up? It’s funny how we can recognize media bullshit in its many other forms, but as soon as a rumor is floated about an otherwise staunch Democrat suddenly doing what Republicans want, it’s Trial balloon! The mask is finally coming off! I never trusted that guy!
Frankensteinbeck
Shot down by who? Shot down how? He already knows how his fellow senators, Obama, and the Democratic voters will react. Does anybody ever actually do this ‘trial balloon’ thing? Despite how it felt during the Bush years, there’s not a big history of Democratic leadership giving everything and getting nothing. There’s a big, fat history of insider rumors like this which turn out to be journalistic flatulence. Don’t let the ratfuckers roll you. They WANT to get you thinking the Democrats are going to stick a knife in your back any second know.
Lurking Canadian
I expect that the Republicans, Democrats and Villagers are going to get a two year lesson in just how tough the “weak” “non-leader” Obama really is. I fully expect he’s going to develop a repetitive strain injury in his elbow from all the vetoes he’s going to sign before 2016.
Eric S.
I’m going to go back and read the whole article in a minute but what exactly did Reid get for giving away the farm?
I see in comments Reid has denied his complicity. Fine. Still this does not bode well for the Senate Dems holding the line.
Morzer
@John Cole +0:
That was a miserably inadequate explanation, John Griffin Cole. You said something crassly stupid, got your ass kicked for it, deleted it and pretended that it didn’t happen. You then had the hypocrisy to yap about “Obama against the world” today as if you hadn’t been part of the mob denouncing him yesterday for failing to give the entertaining speech you so obviously felt entitled to yesterday. Try harder.
John Cole +0
@Morzer: Because clearly one can not observe that Obama didn’t give a very good speech one night while still being the President you are proud of voting for and would vote for again if you could.
This shit reminds me of the insufficient fealty I was showing to Bush and the castigation I received as I was moving away from the GOP. When I’m pure enough for you, do let me know.
mai naem mobile
@El Caganer: i lived in his congressional district when he first ran,so yeah i know about John McCain the war hero/POW. Theres a long piece in the Phoenix New Times from years ago about how he treated his first wife after he came back from Vietnam. I have never understood what Cindy McCain saw in McCain. He’s way older than her, she’s extremely wealthy, she seems intelligent and she’s decent looking. She could have had her pick of war hero types who would have been good in politics if thats what she needed for her.beer business. Cindy was the one who pushed for the adoption of their Bangladeshi born daughter Bridget, not John McCain.
John Cole +0
@Morzer: Why did you use my middle name, btw? That was weird.
El Caganer
@mai naem mobile: The 2008 piece on him in Rolling Stone pretty much destroyed the whole McCain mythology. My favorite part was where the author helpfully pointed that comparing McCain to George W. Bush as a pilot was unfair to Bush.
lol
@TriassicSands:
I’m sure you would’ve found Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to be a substantial improvement. lol
karen
@mai naem mobile:
Now we know the reason HE left the wife who had waited for him to come home because she’d been disfigured in a terrible car crash…
karen
@Schlemazel: People question why Dems could not be bothered to vote earlier this month?