U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) George Stern
(D) A. Gonzalez
(R) Sheri Davis
40%
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
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90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(D) Joe Salazar
50%
40%
40%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
November 14, 2010 11:42 PM UTC
44 Comments
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as scheduled, as written — since, as you all know, I’m nothing if not a strict constuctionist. Period. End of Story.
If they had been meant to go on indefinitely the founding fathers would have said so, and therefore structured them in a sustainable manner.
Any temporary extension, or partial extention — even for just one year — only pushes this mess (debate) into 2012 as an election issue, with the likely outcome being even further “extensions.”
Soemthing that the new congress could then work on immediately in January would be a program of tax cuts and stimulus that is sustainable and affordable, and touches 100% of Americans in an equitable manner. It would be a nice project to start getting the kids into the habit of working together — giving 100% of all Americans an income tax cut.
and use that savings to create 6 million jobs. Oh, and after 4 years the savings goes to reduce the deficit as we’ll be back to full employment with the effective stimulus it was used for.
I thought we lost 8 million actual jobs in this recession. And that our population has actually grown over the two years our economy has been in recession. So we would need 8 million plus the percentage growth of the population to get back to our not quite full employment situation we were in before the recession started.
How does 6 million get us to full employment again?
Extending the cuts (all cuts) will, in fact, insure they become permanent.
Letting them expire is not a pretty choice as it could push us back into recession (if you believe we actually are out of it).
So I believe the best option, and the only one the lame duck Congress still has the potential Democratic majority to pass, is to lock in the cuts for under $250k and let the rest expire.
It would be a good time to dress up the bill with some other spending cuts, such as mothballing an aircraft carrier or two.
But the lame duck House leadership should make it clear they have nothing to lose if GOP intransigence forces all the cuts expire.
If the GOP wants to play chicken with the future of America, they need to remember that the next election is only 2 years away.
It’s a very small amount for most people. And for those where the number is greater, it won’t have much impact on what they do with their money.
I think we’re much better off ending them for two reasons:
1. It makes a clear statement that the federal government is capable of increasing taxes, which is essential to keeping borrowing costs low.
2. The additional revenue can be used to effectively increase employment.
I’m the poster child for keeping taxes low so I’ll hire more people. And the bottom line is we’ll continue hiring and this tax difference will have zero impact on that hiring.
I’d prefer to not pay taxes, or to pay less. But even more I want the economy recovering because then I can sell more.
I’ve been poking around with Google, and the most I can find is along these lines:
Given the choice of extending them for the top 2% or letting them expire completely, I’d regretfully support the latter.
Not only would the extension inevitably become permanent, but it would also prove beyond all doubt that we can’t even pay the slightest lipservice to fiscal or political discipline.
But if allowed to expire, then yes David, I hope the revenue would be put immediately to stimulative effect for more jobs and supporting renewable energy.
Closes was http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
I agree with it, with the single caveat that it ignores one important fact:
In the short run, the political and psychological impact will be greatly magnified, so unless the GOP is appropriately tarred as the Party that Still Says NO, the short term economic stumble could perversely strengthen the Tea Party Loons and the newly emboldened GOP.
Borrow from China to invest in China. The Chinese had to love the Bush administration.
I have to agree with Harry, just letting them expire would take us back into the recession and we are back to square one. As with any kind of aid they should be phased out so the recipients are able to plan for life without them, but to just cut them off on the expiry date would be plain crazy.
Your heading says let them expire (and let rates increase as scheduled), but your comments suggest some kind of delay.
Haven’t people had a decade to plan for these cuts? How is another year going to make a difference?
Besides, thanks to the Bush Recession, well over 10% of Americans have “enjoyed” a 100% cut in income taxes for a significant portion over the last couple of years.
I look forward to earning more next year and thus being blessed with the opportunity to pay more taxes. I’d rather have a higher income and pay more taxes as a consequence than be “blessed” with lower taxes this last year due to a dropped income compared to previous years.
The initial ballot results point to a commanding lead for “Allow all Cuts to Expire as Scheduled”. I must say I’m surprised, but we haven’t heard from Boulder yet. 🙂
It seems inconsistent to me to one year offer $800/couple Making Work Pay Credit (although almost no one knew they got it), and then turn around the next year, prior to any real economic improvement, and charge those same people more taxes.
Isn’t that premature? Is this the right time to diminish demand by leaving the middle/lower classes with less money to spend? Wouldn’t letting the cuts for the highest earners expire send a sufficiently positive message about deficit control?
if you let the tax cuts expire and then turn around and fund stimulus-2, as DavidThi proposes. Direct spending does more to stimulate the economy anyway.
Make all Bush-era cuts permanent.
just like the rest of the GOP
Maybe you should have thought about deficit reduction when you were all hot and bothered over passing the failed stimulus and ObamacareВ®.
The last 20 months, the Dems have acted like a family where a parent loses a job, then responds by financing an atv and borrowing money for a boob job.
I’m willing to bet that the Obama Tax Hike doesn’t happen.
are about half of what the debt would increase by if we followed through with making the tax cuts permanent.
Tax cuts are simply that. Revenue that belongs to the people that actually earned it.
This $700 billion figure is total horseshit. It’s their fucking money – deficits come from too much spending.
Geez, just think of what it’s costing us to not have a 100% tax rate!!! Think of the deficits!!!
When he decided not to cut taxes to ridiculously low levels in the early 90s.
And Reagan, what a nightmare he was when he was TAXING AMERICANS BEYOND RECOGNITION.
You can’t have a serious discussion about spending unless you want to talk about discretionary spending, specifically military and entitlements, and neither party is doing that. The Democrats are slightly better because they at least want to TRY to balance the budget–through, as you would say, stealing Americans’ money–but if you’re more concerned about the debt than millionaires and billionaires getting even richer, then it shouldn’t really be a choice.
Entitlement spending is in Dem DNA. Military spending is something like 5% of GDP, while SS, Medicaid are freaking killing us, with insolvency looming.
The Dems are absolutely not doing better in terms of the deficit – it’s boomed since they took control of Congress.
So, including the last 2 years of Bush, wherein the debt skyrocketed due to massive unemployment, and trillion dollar bank bailouts that the Republicans were begging their members to vote for.
Plus, you’re completely ignoring the fact that entitlements expanded greatly under Bush along with the debt.
Meanwhile, I still stand by my previous statement that Republicans are not serious about reducing entitlements whatsoever, and if you desire a balanced budget, then you should vote Democratic. Because Republicans want to increase the debt to China by $4 trillion.
If we keep racking up debt to China, it’s going to be THEIR money.
Hey, how much did the stimulus package (which was half tax cuts) cost again?
Let people keep all the money they have earned. That’s right: no taxes on earned income.
Instead, place heavy levies on money that people HAVEN’T earned: Inherited money, dividends, interest, etc.
We shall make a special category for income like enormous CEO bonuses, golden parachute payouts, and the like. If the recipient can prove that the money was earned, fine; s/he can keep it. The CEOs who have led their companies to prosperity can keep their bonuses and golden parachutes. The CEOs who ran their companies into the ground get taxed heavily on the payouts.
And Dan Hawkins? His 1.8 million turns into, what, $1800? That sounds about right.
I’ll call our other partner in crime today and see about getting out this week, if you can. You leftist DICK!
🙂
Even if you can’t, it would be great to get together sometime soon.
Why don’t we just abolish the federal government all together. Two birds with one stone.
Reduces spending to zero AND cut’s taxes.
That’s about as reasonable as the non-existent republican plan to reduce the deficit.
Eliminate all federal spending except for military, and let the chips fall where they may. I’m pretty sure that’s the Tea Party ideology in a nutshell.
If you have a military, then you still need taxes. And according to LB, that’s “Revenue that belongs to the people that actually earned it”. So I’m afraid the military will have to go, too. Just can’t afford it with the LB tax plan.
…why would we end that economic success? After all we can clearly see how ready the top 2% has been to spend their new-found wealth on new jobs, investment in small business and charitable giving.
You keep hooting about the deficit – when were you planning on doing something about it?
is that they reduce the deficit in the long term by creating jobs and increasing revenue. You can look no further than to revenue under Bush to see that it’s not true.
It’s one thing to be OK with the spending like Bush was, as long as it served his desired purpose (i.e. Wars of choice and billionaires getting a handout) but when conservatives say, in the same breath, that they’re worried about the debt and we should make the tax cuts permanent, it’s more than a little disingenuous.
To be fair, that’s not what Laughing Boy is saying, per se, but it’s essentially what his party is saying.
Bush only got his tax cuts by forcing them to expire after 10 years. By extending them at all, we’re increasing the deficit immensely.
However, if you want to argue that extending tax cuts is the best (or easiest to pass) way to help the economy along, then at least let the tax break on the top bracket (>$250,000) expire; people making $250k NET income do not need the tax break, and all the arguments that it would hurt employment are hooey – any money that would go to employing people or improving a business would come out pre-tax.
It’d be nice if we had a Dem Party that could make that case and counter the GOP lies. Maybe then we wouldn’t feel so exhausted defending the Obama Administration.
Because it’s not like they earned that money!
Power to the people!
Stick it to the Man!
I’m talking fiscal responsibility in government. We can talk about giving everyone a tax break, but that’s not going to get rid of the largest expenditures our government has: Medicare/Medicaid, Defense spending, and interest on the U.S. debt.
In fact, so long as the interest payments are this large, we will never regain control over government spending. Same with Medicare/Medicaid (we really need stronger health care reforms, i.e. single payer or Medicare buy-in, plus drug price negotiation) and Defense (time to start charging for being the world’s policeman, and time to stop Defense project boondoggles and wars of choice).
As to your up-on-a-pedestal tax righteousness, if you look at the tax rate pre-Bush, the wealthy were doing almost as good (11% vs. 12% income growth avg. IIRC) at accumulating wealth at the higher tax bracket. The difference lies in the lower and middle tax brackets; policies under Clinton spread that wealth increase down into the lower tax brackets while Bush policies led to flat or even declining wealth among the lower brackets. So – no rich people suffering for lack of cash under the higher tax rate.
If you want to talk about “fair” and “earnings” – the lower and middle tax brackets are the ones doing the jobs that make the wealthy rich (unless the rich got that way by gambling essentially at taxpayer expense on the stock market). If you want to return to the robber baron society, please do it somewhere else; we went there, it sucked, and we set up a social safety net to try to ensure that it never happened again.
It’s kind of weird. Dude, you need a beer.
10-year and 30-year bond rates rose significantly today, extending a rise in rates that started about a week ago.
I’m making money on an investment that goes up when bond rates increase, kind of like a contra-bond fund. I have to admit that I made that initial bet a while ago thinking that rates were going to rise earlier. But, it’s a long-term investment that is beginning to pay off.
We can try to get our politicians to do the right thing, but I’d bet (and have bet) otherwise.
and fears about the Eurozone. AND all the things the EU may have to do to preserve their financial stability and markets.
is tactical idiocy.
If you are going to fight for a deal, do it now, when you are in a position of relative strength, and not later, when you are not.
Thats how I first read it.
No, actually thanks for everyone who took the poll.
I’ll draft a letter to Senators Udall and Bennet informing them of the results. Then, we can create our own commercial Ken Buck-style, saying we sent them an email and even took a poll, yet they didn’t listen to us. (Where did I put that 2nd Amendment?)
2/3 wanted some form of the “wealthy” tax cuts to expire as scheduled.
I was surprised that 1/3 wanted all cuts to expire, including low/middle income cuts. Ruthless! And maybe politically naive, but fiscally sound. The idea of putting the savings into new stimulus is intriguing.
Of course, there was also Laughing Boy who wanted all cuts to be made permanent. He must be lonely since the other GOP ilk seem to have disappeared.
I have all my commie pinko friends on Pols to keep me company.
🙂
I got this reply from Senator Bennet’s office. I guess he’s not going to be swayed by a poll on ColoradoPols since he supports a one year extension of the tax cuts for everyone. Oh well, Rich Guy told us that would be the case.
“Thank you for contacting me regarding the upcoming expiration of the Bush tax cuts. I appreciate hearing from you.
I agree that we need to provide responsible tax relief in this difficult economy. And we have to be mindful about our growing national debt, which now stands at over $13 trillion. If we don’t get our long-term deficits and debt under control, our children and grandchildren will have less opportunities than our generation has enjoyed.
As you may know, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (P.L. 107-16) and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (P.L. 108-27) were passed under President George W. Bush’s Administration, and are set to expire at the end of 2010. I support extending these tax cuts for everyone – regardless of income level – through the end of 2011 and providing long-term tax relief for individuals making $200,000 or less and families making $250,000 or less. Similarly, we need to take a balanced approach on dividends and capital gains that promotes economic recovery in a fiscally responsible manner. Such an approach – short-term tax relief for all taxpayers and long-term fiscal management – enables us to provide tax relief for working families at a time of economic uncertainty, without allowing tax cuts that aren’t paid for to put a permanent strain on our economy.
On September 29th, I voted against adjourning because the Senate needed to provide long-term middle class tax relief before it ended the work period. I understand that American citizens need to plan their budgets for the coming months. It’s time for an end to the political games. Both sides should be willing to compromise – providing middle class tax relief and making some tough decision to restrain our deficits. That’s why I am determined to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and find a solution when we return later this year.
Throughout my brief time in Congress, I have worked to pass responsible tax relief to families in Colorado. For example, I supported the Making Work Pay tax credit, which provided up to a $400 tax credit for individuals and up to an $800 tax credit for families in 2009 and 2010. This provided tax relief to 1.8 million families across Colorado. I also supported the first time homebuyer tax credit, and its subsequent extension. As we continue to struggle with the effects of the worst recession since the Great Depression, I will continue to look for ways to provide responsible tax relief to Colorado families.
I value the input of fellow Coloradans in considering the wide variety of important issues and legislative initiatives that come before the Senate. I hope you will continue to inform me of your thoughts and concerns.”
Senator Michael Bennet