On the Edge

Mitch McConnell and Joe Biden continue to negotiate, with Biden having taken Harry Reid’s place for the Dems.

They have agreed on raising federal income taxes for individuals who make more than $400,000 and families who make more than $450,000.  They have agreed on a permanent fix to the alternative minimum tax, which has been getting annual fixes to keep it from hitting middle class families.

It looks as if the estate tax will rise to 40% from 35% for estates worth $5 million or more.

Unemployment benefits will be extended for a year for about two million Americans who otherwise would lose them starting tomorrow.  The Medicare “doc fix” will be extended for a year, so that doctors accepting Medicare patients don’t see their payments reduced.

They are still negotiating about turning off the sequester to avoid the automatic spending cuts that will begin tomorrow.

Cliff Update

The GOP has dropped its demand that moving to chained CPI for calculation of Social Security benefits be part of the fiscal cliff deal.

They play to return to it as part of the debt ceiling negotiations instead.  Those are going to be fun!

Both parties in the Senate have apparently agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts for families making up to $400,000 or $500,000.

Right now they’re fighting over the Dem position that the spending cuts called for in the sequestration be delayed for two years.  The GOP is balking at this and doesn’t want to use increased tax revenue for more spending.

Negotiations continue, and the Senate is going to reconvene tomorrow.

They Are All Tea Partiers Now

From “Triumph of the Tea Party Mindset,” Steve Kornacki, Salon:

“Defined as a literal movement, with an active membership pressing a specific set of demands, the Tea Party absolutely is in decline. Tea Party events have become less crowded, less visible, and less relevant to the national political conversation.

“But if you think of the Tea Party less as a movement and more as a mindset, it’s as strong and relevant as ever. As I wrote back in ’10, the Tea Party essentially gave a name to a phenomenon we’ve seen before in American politics – fierce, over-the-top resentment of and resistance to Democratic presidents by the right. It happened when Bill Clinton was president, it happened when Lyndon Johnson was president, it happened when John F. Kennedy was president. When a Democrat claims the White House, conservatives invariably convince themselves that he is a dangerous radical intent on destroying the country they know and love and mobilize to thwart him.   [Especially if he happens to be black.]

“The twist in the Obama-era is that some of the conservative backlash has been directed inward. This is because the right needed a way to explain how a far-left anti-American ideologue like Obama could have won 53 percent of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes in 2008. What they settled on was an indictment of George W. Bush’s big government conservatism; the idea, basically, was that Bush had given their movement a bad name with his big spending and massive deficits, angering the masses and rendering them vulnerable to Obama’s deceptive charms. And the problem hadn’t just been Bush – it had been every Republican in office who’d abided his expansion of government, his deals with Democrats, his Wall Street bailout and all the rest.

“Thus did the Tea Party movement represent a two-front war – one a conventional one against the Democratic president, and the other a new one against any ‘impure’ Republicans. Besides a far-right ideology, the trait shared by most of the Tea Party candidates who have won high-profile primaries these past few years has been distance from what is perceived as the GOP establishment. Whether they identify with the Tea Party or not, conservative leaders, activists and voters have placed a real premium on ideological rigidity and outsider status; there’s no bigger sin than going to Washington and giving ground, even just an inch, to the Democrats.

“It’s hard to look around right now and not conclude that the Republican Party is still largely in the grip of this mindset. Yes, since the election, there have been GOP voices – some of them genuinely surprising – speaking out in favor of giving President Obama the income tax rate hike that he’s looking for. But the January 1 deadline is now just days after and, crucially, there’s been no action.

“This is the case even though Obama apparently indicated that he’d settle for only raising rates on income over $400,000, that he’d dial back his new revenue request by $400 billion, that he’d be OK with not extending the payroll tax holiday, and that he’d sign on a form of chained-CPI for Social Security benefits.

“This is exactly what the Tea Party mindset produces. For one thing, the House GOP conference (and to a lesser extent, the Senate GOP) contains no shortage of Tea Party true-believers – men and women who embody the spirit of the movement and have no qualms about going to war with party leadership if they believe their principles are at risk. And they are backed by a conservative information complex – media outlets and personalities, commentators, activists and interest group leaders – ready to cast them as heroes in any fight with “the establishment.”

“All of this is more than enough to instill real fear in Republicans on Capitol Hill who aren’t true believers – but who do like their jobs and want to keep them. McConnell falls in this category. Boehner evidently does too. And so do many, many other Republicans who don’t want to look back and regret the day they cast a vote that ended their careers.”

Emphasis added.

The Lament of a Major GOP Player

From “All I Want for Christmas Is a New GOP,” Mark McKinnon, The Daily Beast:

“What I want for Christmas is a new Republican Party.

“All sanity seems to have left the ranks of those in charge of the GOP—or, more accurately, those who want to be in charge. Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) demonstrated in a jaw-dropping performance Thursday on Morning Joe the depth of the problem and why we are bound to go over the fiscal cliff.  He made it clear he won’t vote for a tax increase on anyone, no matter how much they make. So, by his logic, we will end up going over the cliff, and raise taxes on everybody, because he and too many others like him in the party are unwilling to raise taxes on anyone. This intransigence will also make a core Republican tenet of broader tax reform more difficult to pursue because the new Congress will then be fixated on smaller bore issues like fixing the rates.

“And so voters look at the ‘negotiations’ and see on one side the president—the guy who just won the election by a substantial margin—willing to compromise by lowering his revenue target from $1.6 trillion to $1.2 trillion and moving the goalpost for tax-rate increases from $250,000 a year to $400,000 a year. And on the other side, they see Republicans like Huelskamp responding with a one-finger salute to everything.”

The GOP really has already gone over the cliff — the crazy cliff — and now they’re trying to take all of us with them.

GOP Show and Tell

After the election, the GOP promptly turned on Mitt Romney, blaming his 47% percent speech as a dooming and damning moment in Mitt’s out-of-touch campaign.

But since the election, the GOP has amply shown that they agree with exactly what Mitt told us.

How else do you explain their refusal to raise taxes even on those making $1 million or more, while insisting on cutting Medicaid and food stamps?  They support the rich and spit on the sick and struggling.

Mitt admirably represented his party, a party that in no way currently represents the overwhelming majority of the country.

The Clueless Contest

It’s hard to say who is more clueless, the NRA wanting to solve our gun problem by bringing guns into our schools or the Tea Party congresspeople refusing to raise taxes even on those making $1 million or more a year.

Don’t they have any idea how  bizarre and alien they look to most of the country, how out-of-step they are?

Prez to Speak Soon

The President has been meeting with Harry Reid about a scaled-down approach to the fiscal cliff, and is expected to speak at 5 EST.

They are discussing a Senate bill that would extend tax cuts for families under $250,000, delay the sequester (yes, kick that rusty can even further down the road), and extend unemployment benefits.

If this passed the Senate, and every Dem in the House voted for it, they would need 26 GOP votes.

The Rich Say Tax Us More

A new American Express/Harrison poll finds that 67% of the One Percent (those who make more than $450,000 a year) think they should pay more in federal income taxes.

No Confidence

I wrote earlier that the House failed to vote on Boehner’s plan to raise taxes only on those making more than $1 million a year because the GOP couldn’t find the votes to pass it.

But by cancelling that vote, in a way they did vote — they voted “no confidence” in Boehner himself.

The Spell Is Broken

Bullying can work for a time, as we’ve seen with both the NRA and Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform.  But eventually the very rigidity and absolutism that give you so much power become a liability, and those who were cowed into submission by your irrational demands turn on you.  At first, just a few, and then the numbers swell, and your days of stealing lunch money are over.

The ballots of November 6  and the bullets of December 14 finally, finally ended these two interconnected (Grover sits on the NRA’s Board) reigns of terror.

Fairer tax laws and firmer gun laws are coming.  Neither the NRA nor Grover will ever have so much power again.  The spell has been broken.  The lost children of Newtown understood that once a spell is broken, you are free, and you see the world as it really is.