Politics Plus

It’s official.  The Super Committee has failed.  Democrats put blood on the table, too much in my view.  But meeting Republicans well more that half way was not enough.  The best offer from Republicans offered 5% of budget savings from revenue enhancements, but also cut the top marginal tax rate for millionaires and billionaires from 35% to 28%.  Republicans refused to negotiate.  That is why the Super Committee failed.  In the process, they may not know it, but they have given Barack Obama a major victory.

A special debt-reduction committee in the U.S. Congress failed to reach agreement, extending partisan gridlock into the 2012 election year and setting the stage for $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts.

President Barack Obama blamed Republicans, saying in remarks at the White House they "refused to listen to the voices of reason and compromise." The president said he would veto any move to avoid the automatic spending cuts that are supposed to start in 2013 as a result of panel’s failure.

Committee co-chairmen Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, a Republican, and Senator Patty Murray of Washington, a Democrat, said in an e-mailed statement that "after months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee’s deadline."

Murray told reporters she would keep working toward a "fair and balanced" deal that could forestall the automatic cuts. "We have a responsibility to find that solution, and I’m going to keep working each and every day until we get there."

Standard & Poor’s said it would keep the U.S. government’s credit rating at AA+ after the Hensarling and Murray announcement. S&P, which stripped the U.S. of its top AAA grade on Aug. 5, said it decided that the failure by the committee didn’t merit another downgrade. Moody’s Investors Service today affirmed its Aaa credit rating of the U.S. while maintaining a negative outlook… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <San Francisco Chronicle>

What the Super Committee should have done is clear.  Bernie Sanders described it well before the failure.

Here is why this is a victory for Obama.  Democrats did not cave-in.  The automatic cuts that take place in 2013 not only puts him past the 2012 elections, but also include no cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.  Obama just walked out of the GOP minefield unharmed.  I have long said that he intended to use Republicans’ unwillingness to raise taxes on millionaires, billionaires and criminal corporations to protect these core programs, and that is exactly what he did.  Here’s Bernie after the failure in an interview by Ed Schultz.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Bernie leaves no doubt about who caused the failure.

The best explanation I have seen of this comes from Lawrence O’Donnell.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

If nothing else happens, the worst thing I will suffer from this is a 50% tax increase.  That’s OK with me.  I will pay the cost of a muffler more, but the super rich will pay the cost of a Mercedes more.  As little as I can afford it, it’s worth it to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for younger workers.  Plus Republicans have painted themselves into a corner.  They have proven that they govern exclusively for the benefit of millionaires, billionaires and corporate criminals.  They do NOT represent YOU!

You might think that Republicans would love the capital gains tax, because it provides a way in which the super rich can pay taxes at a substantially reduced rate, 15% as opposed to 35%, on a substantial part of their income.  If you did, you would be wrong.  In the Republican view, 15% is too high a burden on the multi-millionaires and billionaires they represent.

The preferable treatment that investment income receives in the tax code is one of the factors driving the income inequality and galvanizing the Occupy Wall Street movement. Because the capital gains tax is capped at 15 percent, “anyone making more than $34,500 a year in wages and salary is taxed at a higher rate than a billionaire is taxed on untold millions in capital gains.”

The reason this low rate helps create an income divide is that capital gains are made almost exclusively by the wealthy. In fact, “over the past 20 years, more than 80 percent of the capital gains income realized in the United States has gone to 5 percent of the people.” And the concentration is actually far greater than that, as half of all capital gains are made by the richest 0.1 percent of Americans:

Income and wealth disparities become even more absurd if we look at the top 0.1% of the nation’s earners– rather than the more common 1%. The top 0.1%– about 315,000 individuals out of 315 million– are making about half of all capital gains on the sale of shares or property after 1 year; and these capital gains make up 60% of the income made by the Forbes 400.

It’s crystal clear that the Bush tax reduction on capital gains and dividend income in 2003 was the cutting edge policy that has created the immense increase in net worth of corporate executives, Wall St. professionals and other entrepreneurs.

This is why the various Republican plans floated to reduce or eliminate the capital gains tax are folly… [emphasis original]

Inserted from <Think Progress>

Note that we’re not even talking about the top 1% here.  This is the top 1/10 of 1%.  Essentially, all these flat tax plans Republicans are backing have one purpose:  to allow the 315,000 richest Americans to pay no tax on 60% of their income.

It is a rare thing, when we actually get to see the minds of the one percent and analyze their own perspective on their plots to prevent control od their rapacious greed.  None of this should be overly surprising, except to those who still believe that there is no difference between the two political parties.  If you do, that is exactly what the Banksters want you top believe, as the following unequivocally demonstrates.

A Washington lobbying firm with links to the financial industry has proposed an $850,000 plan to take on the Occupy Wall Street protest and the politicians who support it.

The secret proposal has been revealed in a memo obtained by the MSNBC program ‘Up with Chris Hayes’.

The proposal was written on the letterhead of the lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford (CLGC) and addressed to one of its clients, the American Bankers Association (ABA), reports MSNBC.CLGC’s memo proposes that the ABA pay CLGC $850,000 to conduct ‘opposition research’ on Occupy Wall Street in order to construct ‘negative narratives’ about the protests and allied politicians.

The memo also states that Democratic victories in 2012 would be detrimental for Wall Street and names specific races in which it says Wall Street would benefit by electing Republicans instead, the report says.

According to the memo, if Democrats embrace OWS, ‘This would mean more than just short-term political discomfort for Wall Street.

‘It has the potential to have very long-lasting political, policy and financial impacts on the companies in the center of the bullseye.’

The memo also suggests that Democratic victories in 2012 should not be the ABA’s biggest concern. “… (T)he bigger concern,” the memo says, should be that Republicans will no longer defend Wall Street companies.’… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <The Daily Mail>

Ask yourself this.  Why are Banksters targeting Democrats and supporting Republicans?  The answer is simple.  While they may own a few Democrats, line Benedict Nelson (DINO-NE), they own the entire Republican Party.

Here is Chris Hayes as he broke this story.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Democrats will be tough on the Banksters.  Republicans will give them their way.  Banksters know it.  You should too.  Hayes is right.  What other schemes are Banksters and their Republican lackeys  hatching?  The best way not to find out is to remove Republicans from office in 2012.