who lives in a state with a republican senator, please write your senator(s) who have vowed to halt all progress in congress until the tax cut dispute is resolved (all republican senators signed a letter to do this). This country can not afford to have our legislators stop doing their jobs over any given issue. There are way too many way too important things to have congress stop paying attention. Write your senators and demand they learn to compromise and serve the American population. This country isn't going to kick back into high gear until both sides can work together and give and take.

That's a nice thought, but I was under the impression that this is exactly what Republicans had promised that they would do.

So that the Democrats can move ahead on the DREAM act and a bill ensuring unionization for municipal workers? No thanks.

Not doing anything is better then doing things that are bad for the country like what has been happening for the past two years.

Skewed news media,I seen something about this on CBS this morning, and that the Republicans had stopped the extension of unemployment benefits.
The Dems still hold both the House and Senate until January..eh

How is that in any way related to the tax cut, or any other issue?



Actually, aside from the fact that they have been crippled by compromise (e.g. Wall Street reform), there have been some good things accomplished. Unless you work in the health insurance industry, nationalized health care is a great example of the government changing a broken system.



I am not sure what you mean by that... I think that is fair to say. The vast majority of nays came from Republicans.

I'd rather write my Republican Senators and tell them to keep fighting the good fight.

So the good fight is making no progress at all? You would rather that the senate does nothing instead of try to solve the problems of America? Wow.

Problems with Fannie Mae and Freddie mac were left completely unaddressed by the Democrats because those executives are donating to Democratic campaigns. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are also the only two organizations that will leave massive losses for the government. All it did was add bureaucracy without any benefits. There is no excuse for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac being left untouched by "financial reform" considering they were the biggest problems in the first place.

Meanwhile the banks all paid off the money they borrowed with interest, and all the legislation on banks did absolutely nothing. The only difference is that now a lot of these people who used to pay massive amounts of taxes and subsized pretty much all of New York are slowly drifting away as the companies shift personnel over to Singapore, Dubai and Hong Kong where it is more business friendly.

The healthcare reform was a utter disaster, it pretty much combined the worst parts of the private and public insurance and mashed them together so Obama could have a legacy of passing passing a HCR bill. Side effects and concerns about HCR also have lead to large problems with regards to employment and the job market since the costs have changed with regards to implicit costs for hiring a new employee.

There is no reason why health insurance is limited by state borders which limits competition. This was beneficial fix that was left completely unaddressed. The problems with lawsuits and associated increases in prices for healthcare associated with physician lawsuits was unaddressed because a large population of Democrats get funds from trial lawyers.

The HCR included crippling changes to small businesses unrelated to healthcare itself:
http://money.cnn.com/...care_tax_change/index.htm

An all-but-overlooked provision of the health reform law is threatening to swamp U.S. businesses with a flood of new tax paperwork.

Section 9006 of the health care bill -- just a few lines buried in the 2,409-page document -- mandates that beginning in 2012 all companies will have to issue 1099 tax forms not just to contract workers but to any individual or corporation from which they buy more than $600 in goods or services in a tax year.

The stealth change radically alters the nature of 1099s and means businesses will have to issue millions of new tax documents each year.

Right now, the IRS Form 1099 is used to document income for individual workers other than wages and salaries. Freelancers receive them each year from their clients, and businesses issue them to the independent contractors they hire.

But under the new rules, if a freelance designer buys a new iMac from the Apple Store, they'll have to send Apple a 1099. A laundromat that buys soap each week from a local distributor will have to send the supplier a 1099 at the end of the year tallying up their purchases.

The bill makes two key changes to how 1099s are used. First, it expands their scope by using them to track payments not only for services but also for tangible goods. Plus, it requires that 1099s be issued not just to individuals, but also to corporations.

Taken together, the two seemingly small changes will require millions of additional forms to be sent out.

"It's a pretty heavy administrative burden," particularly for small businesses without large in-house accounting staffs, says Bill Rys, tax counsel for the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

Eliminating the goods exemption could launch an avalanche of paperwork, he says: "If you cater a lunch for other businesses every Wednesday, say, that's a lot of information to keep track of throughout the year."
The paper trail

Why did these tax code revisions get included in a health-care reform bill? Welcome to Washington. The idea seems to be that using 1099 forms to capture unreported income will generate more government revenue and help offset the cost of the health bill.

A Democratic aide for the Senate Finance Committee, which authored the changes, defended the move.

"Information reporting improves tax compliance without raising taxes on small businesses," the aide said. "Health care reform includes more than $35 billion in tax cuts for small businesses ... indicating that during these tough economic times, Congress is delivering the tax breaks small businesses need to thrive."

I agree, the HCR started out great and slowly was reduced to a far from desirable result. If your biggest gripe is the big about 1099s then I don't know what to say to you...


As for saying the legislation on banks did nothing, that is for time to tell. As I said, the Wall Street reform wasn't big enough. I don't think Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac are above it. Maybe we need more senators like Patty Murray and Russ Feingold who weren't content.



Of course my biggest point is that the government needs to get things done. If someone isn't able to compromise and still get something they want then the wrong person is in the seat. If the best you can do is try to stop anything from happening then you have no business running this country.

"How is that in any way related to the tax cut, or any other issue?"

Because those two things along with ending don't ask don't tell are the items on the Democratic agenda for the remainder of the session.

What people seem to forget is that the HCR bill was a framework, not a final solution. Of course it's not ideal, it's only meant to create a framework to further the improvement of the system over time.

And yeah....hooray for derailing progress instead of compromising to move it forward, in my experience that is always in everyone's best interest. Not like both sides are full of mindless twits who don't know their elbows from their assholes when it comes to understanding how the majority of their work affects citizens in the real world because they're so far removed from our reality, and compromise is the only way to extract anything resembling intelligence from them or anything....

And it sure would be terrible to help relieve our embattled troops by letting openly gay citizens serve! Support the troops unless you want tax breaks for the rich!

Launching flawed legislation without consideration of the future is why we have disasters like social security today.

How many congressman or senators read the HCR bill and understood it in its entirety before passing it? Passing things just for the sake of passing them is the reason why harmful legislation has been passed the past two years. Many things associated with HCR are highly harmful for businesses and act as a catalyst to avoid hiring American workers (both small businesses and large corporations).

The fact that vast majority of senators have no idea what was in the HCR bill and never read it before having a vote on it is a much bigger problem. Given that precedent, I highly prefer have absolutely nothing done in congress for the next two years.

Compromising with Democrats will only lead to more failure IMO. I look at Europe and all the failures of various countries there with their social entitlement programs and that is the only inevitable result for the U.S. if there is any compromise with Democrats.

Maybe there are questions about the sustainability of social security right now - but imagine if everyone had invested independently and not only the working class but the retirees had no income either. How would we handle a bunch of broke old folks who have nothing? It is clear that the banks have no interest in being responsible with the money that people entrust to them.

You think that in two years you will have senators who read the bills before voting? Unlikely.




Examples?

That is the problem in a nutshell. We have de-incentivized our "best and brightest" from going into the health care professions. That is a terrible idea. There is a reason Canadian and British citizens come here for health care...

And Russ Feingold is a TERRIBLE senator. We need less government, not more. Look at what happened in New Zealand after they kicked the government out of everything, then look what happened in the rest of the world when government took everything over.

Do you pay any attention to what the troops have to say? Allowing openly gay soldiers would be TERRIBLE for morale. The media is bad enough for our soldiers' mindset, don't add this to it.

And you want examples from Europe failing? How about every single country? Duh...

I know a ton of medical doctors... they are the greediest and the most prestige driven. A medical doctor becomes a doctor through rote memorization, not critical thinking. Some doctors are incredibly smart... others are just not dumb but work hard for their goals. There is a reason in 2002 that WHO ranked the US as #37 in health care... the US is NOT the best. It is pretty good in SOME areas (not if you're pregnant though, for example, where we're terrible). Furthermore, it doesn't matter how good the ceiling for health care is if it is unaffordable to Americans.



I don't live in New Zealand so I have no idea what you're talking about. Russ Feingold was the only senator who voted against the Patriot Act... looks to me like he is the only one against the nanny state.



I do. 70% of the military is a-ok with it and 5% more don't really care. What is bad enough for our troops is sending them overseas to fight meaningless wars (e.g. Iraq) or impossible wars (e.g. Afghanistan). If we wanted to help our troops we'd bring them home.

And how is every European country failing? If you are talking about economically then guess what, so is the US.

I know we are failing! That's the problem! We are trying to be like Europe!

As far as the pregnancy thing: I know, my second child was and my third (due may 6) will be home born. The hospital model is all about efficiency of time, which is totally wrong for birth.

The military thing: I am from a military family. My brother was in the Marine Corps and has many Marine friends. My stepfather is a colonel in the Air Force (can't tell you or would have to kill you type stuff). Using strictly anecdotal evidence from these two, the VAST majority of their fellows oppose gays serving.

ok, so let me get this straight....

the republicans had control of the presidency and both houses of congress for a few years, did whatever they wanted to and basically send the country into a tailspin. Two wars that weren't paid for, turning a surplus into an insurmountable deficit and creating an economic climate that obliterates the middle class in favour of the rich and special interests. This left a major economic mess which -- surprise surprise -- came to fruition right as the Bush presidency ended.

Then when the Republicans are kicked out of office, they play obstructionist politics, not working to make the country better and only worrying about getting back in office for a few years and try to blame all the underlying problems in the country on the democrats, while discounting ANY attempts to make things better as "left wing lunacy".

You guys need to reform your electoral system first and foremost. As an outsider, it doesn't seem like there is much if any focus left on actually governing, it's all just posturing and rhetoric.

*touches nose and points at Pang*

Only thing I don't agree on is the electoral system. It's not what's really at the core of this issue.

a different electoral system won't change the fact that most republicans are little different from your average african despot, interested only in money and power.

And it won't change the fact that there seem to be an unusually high number of uneducated idiots in the country, that seem to have little grasp on anything resembling reality.

e.g. vic rattlehead, who feels that the opinions of his 2 relatives, as representative of the entire military forces. Clearly not someone who did any study of basic statistical analysis ;-)

basically, i'd just say, get out while you can, go live in canada or something:p

If your family are a better sampling of the military than the pentagon survey, and if the media attention is bad for morale, then wouldn't it make a lot of sense to have the legislators getting to work on resolving it, rather than just letting it look over the soldiers?

I didn't read the whole thread, so forgive me.

As far as the new healthcare bill, my family and family friends all own their own small buisnisses. We/they have laid off 20% of our employees and cut the pay of the rest. Some was because of the economy, mut most was in relation to the new bill.

One instance. My friend owns a few meinikes. Their employees were fluff happy about the healthcare reform. They were pretty ignorant about it and only looked at the positives. What they didn't understand was that they bad to take a sizably paycut when the new healthcare rules hit their buisness. This is playin out all over the country.

I forget the exact number, but the majority of workers in the united states are employed by small buisness. Passing legislation that cripples these buisnisses in the midst of a massive recession was a incredibly stupid move. It is one that I can't believe more people are talking about. It is one that I think will define obamas short legacy.

Apparently the middle class doesn't fluff as much as the poor or rich. I have no other explination

God Save The Queen(s)!!!

200+ years of law making and we still ain't got it right yet.

Woohoo! Woohoo! Woohoo! Boing! Clunk! Dowt!

I agree with you in a few ways, mrford, but disagree with a few others...

I agree with you that the bill, as is, isn't as good as other countries systems for health care. It's a hack job compared to entirely socialized medicine (which, btw, is eventually where you're going to end up. And in 50 years, people are going to wonder why it wasn't done sooner and love it, same as we do in Canada :p) and the way it was rolled out wasn't good for things.

But to help people like you and your friends/family, I favour the following:
- Extending tax cuts for low and middle income earners as-is
- Letting the tax cuts for high income earners expire
- Replacing the tax cuts for high income earners with small business incentives, such as measures to mitigate the cost of healthcare costs for employees

I agree with giving money to people who will spend it during bad economic times. If it's given to all high income earners, who generally have a higher propensity to save, that's just going to make the rich get richer while the country continues to struggle it's way into recovery.

you do understand that they are high income earners because they are ripping a bunch of people off, don't you?

Most small buisness owners make a "high income" and have a "high networth"

but they put so much money into their buisness that they really don't end up making much, but are still in a high tax bracket. This country is in no way set up to massivly reward the employers of the majority of this countries workers.

The health care plan just extended upon that fact. It baffles me why a bill would be passed that fluffs small buisness owners in a great recession

is that because most small business owners are doctors?
dude, high networth? most are probably suffering under a very high debt to income ratio.

besides, they'll just pass the buck to their customers who will absorb the loss for them. sorry, i gots to charge you more money for my services because the government decided to pass laws that increased my expenditures.

The avg small business owner grosses like 60k or 70k a year. I don't think it's them that's high :-P

that means that the average small business owner is a sole-proprietorship and doesn't have any employees to give them a reason to buy health insurance.

GROSS dibs, GROSS.

I put it in quotes for a reason guys.

GROSS? PUKE? HOLD NOSE? CLOSE EYES?

gross is higher than net though.

maybe it's a salary thing. because, i'm thinking that most small business owners GROSS whatever the business brings in in the way of income.

http://www.zdnet.com/...er-salary-is-233600/11901

for the military issue, id like to know who they asked and what there jobs are..did any of the people i know get asked? no, did i get asked? no.. of those asked, grunts (aka front line rifleman) were 60% against repealing the law in the middle of war, so before u say we're all for it, for one get the whole story and secondly, remember they didnt even come close to asking the majority (u do realize and im just guessing, of those asked, how many were enlisted pvts pfc's etc., how many have to live in a room with another guy in there? im just guessing they asked higher rankiing enlisted and officers, maybe not all but im guessing the majority was)

what does it matter anyway? when you serve your country you basically sacrifice your freedom in order to protect other people's freedom. you're not there to do whatever you want, you're there to follow orders. it's not a democracy in there.

ur right which is why no matter what we have to do whatever the politicians decide is right..i hate the fact that civilians and politicians get to decide the military policies but not much i can do about that(i mean u dnt understandthe lifestyle so stay out of it) the thing thats funny to me is people sign a contract that says i am not gay OR that you wont be OPENLY gay...honestly the military could care less about what u do in ur bedroom unless u put it out in the open...people signed the contract, broke there contract...and now want that changed bc they couldnt followwhat THEY agreed to?

a big thing at least to people in the BEQs is that we live 2 to a room, now males and females cannot be roomed together, so allowing gays (cause there not here now -_-) to be in means every single person is to be roomed by themselves, its just alot more in depth then alot of people realize, not to mention the whole morale thing

Original Topic:
By doing nothing, they are doing something potentially significant; They are forcing or attempting to force changes to be made. I see that as better than compromising when they were voted in to stand strong. If everyone compromised then we might as well not even bother to vote.

"Most small buisness owners make a "high income" and have a "high networth"

I know that is absolutely false. I know offhand of several local small business which hire employees yet the owners clearly make no more than 40,000 - 60,000 per year, with work hours far above the norm; Compile that the risk of owning a small business.. certainly not "high income" or "high networth".

"That is the problem in a nutshell. We have de-incentivized our "best and brightest" from going into the health care professions. That is a terrible idea. There is a reason Canadian and British citizens come here for health care..."

Exactly.

"I agree with you that the bill, as is, isn't as good as other countries systems for health care. It's a hack job compared to entirely socialized medicine (which, btw, is eventually where you're going to end up. And in 50 years, people are going to wonder why it wasn't done sooner and love it, same as we do in Canada :p) and the way it was rolled out wasn't good for things."

Read above, that's the core problem with entirely socialized healthcare.

...

dude, seriously, most of the health care reform for suckers in the USA didn`t take effect yet.

shhh....you're slowing down the rhetoric train.

ahhhhh politics lol!

I do! It's that you don't really understand how the HCRA actually affects small business or what its true implications will be for them, or how the funding for these health care plans can be funded for employees of small business. :-P

You don't really believe that the demoncrats are so ebil they would knowingly pass a bill that would cripple our economy, do you? Or that the US can't pull off the same health care system as some 100+ other countries in the world?

Wealthcare For Everyone!

oh, and from what i remember from watching
http://www.history.com/videos/black-blizzard
the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl
was caused by the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Act

they probably just do ebil by accident, don't think they're intelligent enough to do it on purpose.

what i hate is the fact that only gays are required to have to tell the truth before they sign the contract. i served with pedophiles, rapists, drunks and whores, why aren't they required to tell the truth before they sign the contract?

in other words, you can't tell me to shut up and mind my own business because i'm a veteran, dumbass. plus i spell a bit better than you.

So Detmer... Shouldn't you have a post up urging anyone with a Democratic representative to write and call because the Democrats are now the party preventing compromise on the tax issue? The Republicans are willing to give Obama quite a lot in return. I'm starting to suspect the GOP was telling the truth when they argued the Democrats would not listen to any of their health care proposals. Perhaps the Democrats are the party actually creating the problems.

So what is the current compromise? No extension of unemployment benefits for in exchange for tax cuts for the wealthy? I don't see what the compromise is there...