Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
Not much going on regarding the cliff, far as I know. I came across what is below.
Basically a punt and fight again another day, from the Republican side.
As usual the country's well-being is set aside by the left and the right,
like when two mudskippers fight over their precious X square inches of muddy shoreline.
It was long so I've blue-lighted some stuff that seemed more important.
Saturday December 15, 2012
Week five of the fiscal-cliff negotiations came and went without any resolution, as Republicans increasingly looked for a backup plan to help them avert the fiscal cliff, save face on taxes, and give as little ground as possible politically.
As the country quickly approaches the New Year, when more than $500 billion in tax hikes and automatic spending cuts are scheduled to occur, two potential paths have emerged for the Republicans: Either the Senate will end up crafting the backbone of the compromise, or House Republicans will agree to a slight income-tax-rate increase and eagerly await the debt ceiling as the best opportunity for them enact the spending cuts they desire.
Neither option translates into a big budget agreement that tames the deficit over the long term or offers the financial markets stability. “As time goes on, the hope for a package gets smaller just because there is no time to write it, and more importantly, there is no time to talk to members to get them to vote for it,” says former Democratic House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt. “It becomes less large and simpler.”
Under option No. 1, Senate Republicans would allow the income tax cuts for the top 2 percent of earners to expire and hypothetically tick off one or two other necessary items on the lengthy fiscal-cliff To Do list such as the alternative minimum tax, according to Republican aides and tax lobbyists.
Such a bare-bones deal would allow the party to move past the impasse on taxes that it currently faces with the White House and would let President Obama claim a short-term victory on his campaign promise of taxing the rich. Politically, it also gives the Republicans an escape hatch from a situation that many Republican privately concede seems inevitable: The party agrees to some type of rate increase. Eighty-eight percent of Republicans surveyed in a recent National Journal Congressional Insiders Poll predicted that taxes on the wealthiest Americans would rise in 2013.
This plan, however, would leave several tax and spending questions unanswered, including the fate of the estate tax; the unraveling of across-the-board cuts in spending known as the sequester; the payroll-tax holiday; and the extension of the unemployment insurance benefits.
A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell dismissed talk of the senator privately plotting any side proposals. “Sen. McConnell does not advocate raising taxes on anybody or anything,” Don Stewart wrote in an e-mail. “Republicans will continue to look for ways to protect American families and jobs while strengthening entitlement programs and continuing to advocate for the types of intelligent reforms in Washington spending that the president has yet to propose.”
A McConnell-backed solution is hardly a new idea to budget and tax woes. The Senate Republican leader stepped in following the disastrous debt-ceiling negotiations in summer 2011 and helped to craft the Budget Control Act. McConnell and Vice President Joe Biden cut the lame-duck deal in 2010 to extend all of the Bush-era tax cuts. If McConnell took a leading role again at the last minute, the move would be the ultimate déjà vu of budget and tax history—though at this point, House Republicans have not signed onto or endorsed any of the Senate's ideas.
Option No. 2 for the Republicans is to cave a bit on the tax rates and then look ahead to the debt ceiling as the time of true trench warfare. The Republicans would not necessarily have to agree to the restoration of the top Clinton-era tax rate of 39.6 percent. The Obama administration seems open to raising the rate to somewhere around 37 percent or 38 percent, provided it can boast about some type of tax hike on the wealthy and hit a revenue target somewhere between $1.2 trillion and $1.4 trillion.
“I can see them [the administration] giving a little on that, but I cannot see them giving a lot,” said one source who has worked in an advisory role during the negotiations. “They have just looked too many people in the eye privately and publicly and said, ‘We’re not giving.’ ”
The advantage to Plan B is that Republicans widely think they will hold most of the leverage in February or March, once the president needs Congress to raise the debt ceiling again. At that point, the Republicans plan to fight for a commitment to deep spending cuts that, so far, has eluded them during this negotiation. That could mean cuts to Medicare in the form of raising the eligibility age or charging wealthier Medicare recipients higher premiums—ideas that McConnell has publicly endorsed.
The debt ceiling would also give House Speaker John Boehner the chance to reset the negotiations on better turf for his caucus. Or, as he told reporters this week, "The debt limit ought to be used to bring fiscal sanity to Washington."
Obama appears determined to resist a debt-ceiling showdown, telling the Business Roundtable earlier this month that he was “not going to play that game.”
But the debt ceiling seems like the light at the end of the tunnel for the Republicans now—a route in the tax fight and moment of optimism for them.
The only problem is that prolonging the fiscal battles into 2013 will consume most of the political oxygen in Washington after an already exhausting fiscal-cliff showdown, and it will leave little time for the country’s other business, from immigration reform to energy and climate policy.
Obama moves on taxes in latest "cliff" counter-proposal
President Obama gave up Monday on his demand for higher taxes on households earning $250,000 and upped it to $400,000 while embracing smaller cost-of-living Social Security raises in a counter-proposal to House Speaker John Boehner meant to narrow differences and forge a pre-Christmas "fiscal cliff" deal.
Mr. Obama and Boehner met for nearly an hour in the Oval Office on Monday and sources familiar with the talks released specific details of the White House proposal.
Boehner aides said it brought the two sides closer but said a deal was not at hand.
"Any movement away from the unrealistic offers the President has made previously is a step in the right direction, but a proposal that includes $1.3 trillion in revenue for only $930 billion in spending cuts cannot be considered balanced," said Brendan Buck, a Boehner spokesman.
President Obama gave up Monday on his demand for higher taxes on households earning $250,000 and upped it to $400,000 while embracing smaller cost-of-living Social Security raises in a counter-proposal to House Speaker John Boehner meant to narrow differences and forge a pre-Christmas "fiscal cliff" deal.
Mr. Obama and Boehner met for nearly an hour in the Oval Office on Monday and sources familiar with the talks released specific details of the White House proposal.
Boehner aides said it brought the two sides closer but said a deal was not at hand.
"Any movement away from the unrealistic offers the President has made previously is a step in the right direction, but a proposal that includes $1.3 trillion in revenue for only $930 billion in spending cuts cannot be considered balanced," said Brendan Buck, a Boehner spokesman.
Other senior Republican aides told reporters on Capitol Hill they are not rejecting the latest White House offer, but they also said that there is not parity or balance in the White House plan and substantive issues remain unresolved. One senior aide said the issues that they are talking about are not technically difficult to resolve, but they were wary the differences might be fundamental issues that are difficult to resolve.
But the depth, specificity and fine-grain nature of discussions over policy, tax revenue and spending cuts belied the tough rhetoric from the two sides in the negotiation. Signs point to a deal before the New Year's fiscal cliff deadline -- and possibly an announcement as early as Wednesday.
Talks picked up genuine momentum on Friday when Boehner agreed to higher income tax rates on households earning $1 million and above. Previously, Boehner opposed all income tax increases. He also gave in on raising the debt ceiling, a vote some Republicans wanted to use as leverage against Obama in 2013. Both gestures, top White House aides said, broke the logjam.
Mr. Obama responded with big concessions of his own on Monday. He offered a $400,000 income threshold for a Clinton-era top tax bracket of 39.6 percent. Boehner had proposed that tax rate for millionaires and a total 10-year tax revenue figure of $1 trillion. Obama wants $1.2 trillion in new revenue. Both sides look for hundreds of billions in new revenue in 2013 through a tax reform process that eliminates some tax deduction and closes loopholes.
The president also wants a two-year ceasefire on raising the debt ceiling. Boehner offered one year.
In addition to disagreement on income levels for tax rates or some other way to get more revenue, the two sides have not set in stone an actual tax reform process. It sounds like they are talking about creating a new sequester-like mechanism in 2014 as incentive for both tax reform and entitlement reforms.
Speaking of entitlements, Boehner also asked the White House to increase the eligibility age for Medicare but Mr. Obama again refused. This difference could loom large as Republicans want structural cost-saving changes in Medicare in exchange for raising income tax rates.
Mr. Obama has given ground on cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security and other federal benefits, but is trying to shield Medicare. Democrats have warned Obama they might bolt if he folds on raising Medicare's eligibility age. They have been less emphatic about cost-of-living adjustments.
Other components of the president's counter-proposal include:
========================================================================
$1.2 trillion in new income tax revenue with a 39.6 percent (up from 35 percent) on income of $400,000 or more.
$1.2 trillion in spending cuts divided this way: $800 billion in cuts; $290 billion in interest savings due to lower deficits; $130 billion in cost-of-living adjustments - - with specific protections to preserve increases for economically disadvantaged beneficiaries. Because changing cost-of-living adjustments would also affect where people fell in various tax brackets, this move would raise $90 billion
The $800 billion in cuts would come from $400 billion in savings to health care entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid; $200 billion in better tax revenue collection, increased financial transaction fees and reduced federal employee benefits.
$200 billion in domestic discretionary -- annual spending on basic government functions - divided equally between defense and non-defense programs.
At least $50 billion devoted next year to infrastructure spending and more in latter years - figures still subject to negotiation.
A one-year extension of unemployment insurance benefits.
===========================================================
Both sides have already agreed to create long-term solutions for the annual ritual of adjusting the Alternative Minimum Tax, the reimbursement formulas for Medicare physicians and a grab-bag of pro-business tax breaks.
Obama also did not ask for an extension of the temporary 2 percent payroll tax - a priority for some Democrats.
Funding for Superstorm Sandy will be handled separately from the emerging fiscal cliff package. The Senate is considering the administration's $60.4 billion request and the White House expects swift, bipartisan approval.
I'm really surprised there hasn't been more interest in this thread, even though it's off-topic.
So many of the futures.io (formerly BMT) traders live in America. So great is the likelihood of a recession if the matter
is unresolved.
That's ok though. This is probably my last post on the subject unless there
is a response OR a deal is reached.
Talks have broken down. President Obama and Speaker Boehner both badly wanted a deal.
It seems that about 20 House Republicans will not vote for a tax increase even if a gun were
placed to their heads. There has to be some form of tax increase, or there just will be no
deal whatsoever. If with all this pressure of only a few days left in the year, and nothing has
come close to happening, it looks bad indeed.
What has been called the Fiscal Cliff is not exactly where we are now. If you sit tight you can't
fall over a cliff. This is more like a waterfall. Waterfall - A cascade of water falling from a height,
formed when a river flows over a precipice. If you sit tight in your canoe you a being taken
closer to the precipice, and disaster, each second.
Sorry I haven't frequented this thread. Just kind of slipped my mind. CNBC has been covering the fiscal cliff almost every day. (and that witchy punishing teacher stare by Maria Bartalomo; just replace her with Mandy candy already!) Just imo, maybe the country has to go through sequestration and austerity cuts. Either that or a revolution where the money is taken back from the banksters. It seems the country has to go through a period of pain either way with how the debt is eventually handled. Yes, we all know by now, both parties are positioning in order to convince the public to lay the blame either way or mutually diffuse it. Maybe there should be a referendum to put into law: replace all of the legislative and the executive branch with the highest 3rd party votes from the last election for 6 months. by majority votes of each state or something like that lol.
The Democratic Senate and the Republican House are like an old married couple living in
a culture that absolutely forbids divorce. They can't stand each other, but there is no escaping
each other either.
Recently some unnamed politician said something like:
"There is no point taking hostages unless you're willing to shoot them."
It sort of reminds me of the Iranian hostage crisis where the news every night was about America
being held hostage. This time our own leaders/representatives have taken us all hostage. If I understand
it, there is some talk about some legislation that will just keep tax rates the same. We will know on that
today or tomorrow.
Another theory is that if taxes go up on Jan. 1, then there will be a deal, that is, in January.
"... House Republicans might reject a deal until after Jan. 1, to avoid a vote to raise taxes before they had technically gone up and then vote to cut taxes after they had risen." (1)
Then the debt ceiling is yet another matter that is coming up within about 12 weeks, give or take.
This is all,sadly, like the Voyager episode "Waking Moments". The crew is under attack while they are
asleep. While they are dreaming. Every effort to fight the aliens is useless, because they are asleep,
in a nightmare. The nations work just isn't getting done with all this fighting. (2)
I heard this coming home from work a couple days ago. It is interesting I think.
Basically, it's Negotiation 101 and 102. I idea of the broadcast, is that the Fiscal Cliff negotiations
are just that, negotiations.
First part, is about saving on an airfare.
Second part, is a FBI negotiator buying a SUV. Not kidding. At least you'll know how to get a
good deal and your next new vehicle.
The tentative agreement between the White House and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell would raise taxes by about $600 billion over 10 years. Still unresolved is how to avert across-the-board spending cuts set to begin slashing the budgets of the Pentagon and numerous domestic agencies.
"Decisions about whether the House will seek to accept or promptly amend the measure will not be made until House members -- and the American people -- have been able to review the legislation," said House Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, and Republican Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers in a statement.
The failure of a deal to pass Congress by Jan. 1 technically triggers an income tax hike on all Americans and automatic spending cuts, though lawmakers could still prevent a tax hike by making retroactive any legislation that passes in the weeks ahead, experts said.
The deal at hand will not entirely solve the problem of the "fiscal cliff," however. In fact, it could set up a new showdown over the same spending cuts in just two months that would be amplified by a brewing fight over how to raise the debt ceiling beyond $16.4 trillion. That new fiscal battle has the potential to eclipse the "fiscal cliff" in short order.
