Negotiating requires good-faith partners, and compromise means both sides giving a little to get a solution that helps everyone.
But apparently when it comes to the tax-cut debate, some people in D.C. have a different definition of "compromise" and "negotiation."
I'm proud the House did the right thing yesterday and passed tax cuts for every American but not the tax-cut bonus for the wealthiest 2%.
But, as the debate moves to the Senate, Republicans are still refusing to give an inch. They are still holding tax cuts for millions of Americans hostage so that they can deliver a tax-cut bonus to the wealthiest 2% of Americans. Meanwhile, many Democrats seem ready to give up everything -- and get nothing in return.
This is not a winning strategy for us -- and bad policy on an issue too big to lose.
We need to send a message to President Obama and our fellow Democrats: Don't cave. Give the American people the tax cut they deserve.
We started this campaign with a letter demanding John Boehner stop holding middle-class tax cuts hostage in the House. Now we're holding Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to the same standard -- and asking President Obama and the Senate Democrats to accept nothing less.
The American people are on our side. They want to let the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy expire. They know we need to cut the deficit, and a $700 billion bill for tax cuts for the wealthy makes that nearly impossible.
Right now the Senate has the power to join the House in passing a solution that helps everyone: Extend the tax cuts for everyone on income up to $200,000; and let the bonus tax cuts for the wealthy expire.
And President Obama and Senate Democrats have the power to get a real compromise, and get the American people the middle-class tax cut our economy needs.
But first we have to stop offering up our own surrender as a negotiating position -- and start insisting on a little more good faith compromise and a lot less political gamesmanship from the Republicans.
Negotiation on tough issues is a requirement of this job, but we can no longer call it a negotiation if we're the only ones giving anything up.
Follow Rep. Jay Inslee on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JayInslee
Why do we pretend that the wealthy will not get their much needed, job producing, tax break?
The RepublicanÂs got themselves nominated thru the superfundiÂng of campaigns by masked
corporatioÂns, millionairÂes and billionairÂes. It is obvious that this president is going to cave, if not
the super rich will buy another president. He is now in WASHINGTONÂ. Where the rich find like minded misers to make them richer and campaign promises peel away over months.
When the Supreme court allowed corporate wealth to decide our elections, we lost..we all lost and have little control over the next election.
In about 14 months more poison will come to the air waves, only it will be worse. Masked wealth has demonstratÂed that it does not matter the lies they pay heavily for and play over and over until it becomes truth.
It is about GREED and the war against an exhausted middle class.
Let the greedy wear their proud titles, let the tax cuts expire, let unemploymeÂnt compensatiÂon run out, and every bill held hostage by these theives.
Perhaps if enough people get really mad and let these theives know we want what is best for the majority of America and will no longer tolerate unfair and biased selfish, self serving behavior, maybe there will be hope again.
Washington can not solve this, there is too much of a conflict of interest, in ALL HOUSES.
1) Tax cuts for the rich
2) Ended the war in Iraq by only having 50,000 troops on the ground there (mission accomplished)
3) Tripled the troops in Afghanistan to make the world safe for America's favorite druglords who bring $21 million dollars in palletized hundred dollar bills into Dubai
4) Expanded the war to include Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen
5) Brought down Social Security
6) Cut Medicare by $50 billion per year while enabling health insurance companies to increase their rates mandating everyone will HAVE to buy this insurance at the ever-higher rates
7) Shifted a trillion taxpayer dollars to Wall Street CEOs who are too big to fail even after they failed
8) Effectively pardoned Bush crimes, continued rendition, kept Guantanamo open, and continued to spy on Americans
Now thats change we can believe in.
How is giving more money to people who don't need it and aren't spending it, at the expense of the other 98% of Americans, a recipe for deficit reduction and a strong economy?
Refresh our memories. How many is it since GWB resurrected Reagans trickle down?
Is there anything else I can do? I want to make sure I'm heard in this, I figure if he caves I'm going to write another letter only this one won't be as nice. I voted for Obama, I've supported him in the face of all the people that I know that don't, but if the tax cuts for the wealthy get extended, I'm pretty much done. This is too important to just let the republicans have their way on it.
Well it’s like this, we are lost, now strangers in a strange land of bewilderment. Oh over there in the mud I see a map. I crawl to the mud hole and retrieve the map.
My gosh, it shows how we got here (tax cuts for the rich, two wars, the Reagan tax cuts).
But how do we escape without dooming ourselves forever. Ah here it is, (it’s like an election pamphlet where two sides give their opinion). There is a fork in the road. One says reduce taxes, reduce spending, cut Medicare and SS and there is a giant pot of gold at the end of the short road, as we look closer we see it’s a card board cut off and it is just in front of a cliff with no ground below. The other road is longer, but there we see, on a outlined hill, people are
pulling themselves up off the ground with hope in their faces. What road do we take? What is the Moral of this story for us? Tell the story so that it will shake the ground upon which we walk.
Dave Baird Olympia Washington
there are over 300 agencies, in the executive branch, currently most of which are duplicated by the states, which by their nature of being smaller in size, are more efficient and more accessible for review by the chief executive of each state, as the constitution originally intended.
Why does no one mention to obvious conflict of interest? According to investinganswers.com, "More than half of the members of the U.S. Congress are millionaires." (See link below for source.) Most of the Congress people who are for extending the Bush tax cuts would DIRECTLY benefit from that very extension. How is that fair? I know. I know. Life is not fair. But come on. This is just ridiculous.
Source of external quote:
http://www.investinganswers.com/a/number-congressmen-millionaires-and-11-other-shocking-statistics-1991
Please keep putting this message out there and hopefully many more of us will send a message to stand with the American people and ditch the bonus tax cuts for the wealthy.