Nothing shows the complete chaotic disarray that Congressional Democrats have come to, more than the headlines and news articles coming out over the weekend and today, with media outlets across the board and Barack Obama giving a speech and answering questions publicly, announcing to the American public that the White House and the GOP (who will control the House of Representatives in January) have come to a compromise and made a deal on taxes which include the continuation of all Bush-era tax cuts, a deal on estate taxes aka death taxes, an extension of unemployment insurance, payroll-tax cuts, incentives for businesses and tax credits.Below are just samples of the major news outlet headlines found using Google search:
ABC News "Bipartisan deal reached to extend tax cuts."
Washington Post "Obama, GOP reach deal to extend tax breaks."
Washington Times "Deal reached on tax cuts, jobless."
The news spread wide and far and television news reported on it, polls conducted, all major newspapers reported it and over the weekend strong reactions have come like a firestorm across the blogosphere.
So, the public has been informed there is a bipartisan deal. Loudly. Clearly.
A reminder of what the deal entails from Ezra Klein which I quoted in an earlier post:
The GOP got around $95 billion in tax cuts for wealthy Americans and $30 billion in estate tax cuts. Democrats got $120 billion in payroll-tax cuts, $40 billion in refundable tax credits (Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit and education tax credits), $56 billion in unemployment insurance, and, depending on how you count it, about $180 billion (two-year cost) or $30 billion (10-year cost) in new tax incentives for businesses to invest.
Today's headlines show that liberal Democratic politicians would rather see no deal, which would allow jobless benefits aka Unemployment Insurance to expire and allow taxes for everyone to rise rather than pass the deal Obama's White House brokered with Republicans.
The Hill reports "Liberal leader suggests GOP House should handle tax cuts, unemployment benefits."
A leader of an 80-plus member bloc of House liberals suggested Wednesday that Democrats should let the GOP-led House handle the expiring Bush-era tax cuts and unemployment benefits next year.
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), a co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said such a move would force Republicans into deciding whether or not they want to take two potentially unpopular stances during their first month in power.
"Let them tell the unemployed they won't get benefits. Let them tell [the middle class their taxes are going up]," he said on MSNBC.
Keep in mind, if Congress does not act, does not pass the compromise deal, then as of the end of this year, everyone's taxes rise with the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts from a decade ago.
Grijalva's mistake here is that the Democrats still control both house's of Congress until January, so it won't be Republicans having to "explain" anything, it would be Democrats having to explain to all of America that the White House, which is Democratically controlled, and the GOP had a deal agreed upon, but liberals refused to pass it therefore letting everything expire for Americans.
NEXT headline "Liberals Try to Prevent Pelosi From Bringing Tax Bill to the Floor."
Fox has learned that Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Jim McDermott (D-WA) and Jay Inslee (D-WA) are crafting a letter to share with the House Democratic Caucus that would try to prevent the Speaker from bringing the tax bill to the floor.
They hope to get 60 signatures on their letter (which is still being drafted) and then force a vote in the caucus. DeFazio says he thinks that if a majority of House Democrats are against this compromise, they shouldn't bring it to the floor.
I repeat, if the bill does not come to the floor, it cannot pass and again, all tax cuts expire raising taxes for every American and UI benefits do not get extended.
To show even more disarray throughout the whole Democratic caucus, Nancy Pelosi calls the deal Obama and the GOP reached on estate taxes aka Death Tax, a "bridge too far."
In the meantime, there is this little tidbit:
The Obama-GOP agreement sets the inheritance tax at 35 percent for individuals bequeathing more than $5 million to their heirs. The Democratic-controlled House passed a bill in 2009 that would set the estate tax at 45 percent and start the exemption at $3.5 million. There is no estate tax in 2010.
Right now there is no estate tax, the House passed a bill but the Senate cannot get the House's bill passed, so is Pelosi prepared to nix the whole tax deal and let estate taxes rise to 55 percent which is what will happen if nothing is done? Gallup shows the American public does not want that, not increasing estate tax came up first on the lest in their polling.
Should this be passed on until next year when Republicans are in control of the House of Representatives, there is no guarantee that Republicans will keep that portion in the deal if Democrats do not honor the deal while they still have control.
Adding the final nail into the progressive liberal coffin, we now see the White House admitting that the reason it has come down to the last minute, forcing the White House and GOP to compromise and create a deal in the first place, is not the solely Republican's fault, but also the Democrat's fault because they could not unite their own party before the November election when the White House wanted this issue dealt with.
But senior administration officials said their own party is at least party to blame for the deal. White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said President Obama wanted Congress to extend the tax cuts, but there was no consensus on how to do so in the Democratic caucus.
"He and the White House, frankly, urged the House and Senate to hold votes on this before the election," Pfeiffer said on the liberal Bill Press radio show. "But they didn't do that, in part because there's not unanimity in the Democratic Caucus on this."
Conclusion:
Americans have been informed there is a deal which will prevent their taxes from rising and preventing unemployment benefits from expiring.
The liberal Democratic politicians, especially the leadership, do not want to pass that deal, which means it is liberals that want to let all tax cuts expire and raise taxes on everyone and liberals that want to let UI benefits expire.
How does Pelosi think that is going to go over with everyone except the 20 percent of Americans that self identify as "liberal"?
Does the expression cutting off one's nose to spite their face have any meaning to these people?
(Correction has been made to this post)
.