SEQUESTRATION, THE FISCAL CLIFF, it is looming and it is a real threat to the entire nation. The difference is in who will actually suffer if a budget agreement is not achieved. The poor and the working poor, the retired, the disabled, the least among us, those living on the very edge (and I do not mean in a risk taking way) will be hit the hardest. The gop and the tea-baggers are already pushing for a budget agreement to protect the rich and to shift the cost of any budget agreement onto the middle class, working class and the poor. Pres Obama and Progressive Democrats in Congress are girding for the fight as laid out by the President, dedicated to making sure the bush tax cuts for the rich are ended so they start paying their fair share and making sure cuts are not directed to vital government agencies and the social safety net. From HuffPost....
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama will enter high-stakes budget
negotiations firmly committed to seeing the tax rates for high-income
earners rise to pre-George W. Bush levels, he assured a gathering of
progressive and labor leaders on Tuesday.
"I am not going to budge," he told the group, according to an
attendee who relayed material from the meeting on condition of
anonymity. "I said in 2010 that I'm going to do this once, and I meant
it."
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment, but
two other sources who attended the meeting confirmed the quote. The
administration seems to have staked out a firmer position than during
the first stand-off over the Bush-era tax cuts, in November and December
of 2010, leaving the impression that it won't sign off on a compromise
that doesn't increase the tax burden on the wealthy as a means of paying
down the deficit.
How the president plans to effect that outcome is still unclear. Top
Democrats in the Senate have said they would be comfortable letting all
the tax rates expire -- as they are scheduled to do -- at the end of the
year, after which they will put together a tax cut bill that would
re-establish the Bush-era rates for incomes below $250,000.
Several sources at the meeting said the president was, as one noted,
"more nuanced than going off the cliff." Obama hopes to place "maximum
pressure on House Republicans so at the end of the day he may be able to
budge them," the source added.
"It seemed like he meant it," the first source said. "That suggests that they are ready to go over the ledge."
Following the meeting, a handful of attendees spoke briefly to the
press, praising Obama for vowing to firmly oppose an extension of the
tax cuts for the wealthy.
"It was a very, very positive meeting," said AFL-CIO President
Richard Trumka. "We're very committed to making sure that the middle
class and workers don't end up paying the tab for a party that we didn't
get to go to, and the president is committed to that as well."
"The president was really standing firm on taxes," said Neera Tanden,
president of the Center for American Progress. "Everyone in the room
talked about how much they have the president's back in this fight."
The expiring Bush-era tax cuts are just one component of a larger
budget deal that needs to be hammered out with congressional
Republicans, the details of which remain unclear. White House Press
Secretary Jay Carney ducked a question during Tuesday's press briefing
as to whether Obama would be willing to put cuts to entitlement benefits
on the table in negotiations with Republicans. Instead, Carney pointed
to the $340 billion in savings from entitlement reform already in
Obama's plan.
The first source said that the president "seemed to agree that Social
Security" should not be part of any grand bargain because it "didn't
add to the deficit."
Carney also left the door open to the idea of raising the threshold
for extending the Bush-era tax cuts to $500,000 or $1 million. Obama
drew the line at $250,000 in his proposal.
"He is not wedded to every detail of that plan," Carney said, when
asked specifically if Obama would be willing to raise the limit.
In the process of putting together a far-reaching piece of
legislation, the president will have the help of the progressive
community's political arms. All of the meeting's attendees pledged to
keep their election-season campaign apparatuses intact for purposes of
drumming up support for the president's budget priorities.
Obama asked the attendees to focus their efforts on pressuring House
Republicans to reach an agreement on the tax cuts, reminding them that
the American people made clear in last week's elections that they want
to see the wealthiest pay more in taxes, according to a source familiar
with what was discussed at the meeting.
AFSCME president Lee Saunders, who attended the meeting, said his
members are prepared to devote as much energy to pressuring Republicans
to reach a balanced debt deal as they put into the campaign season.
"We're going to have our folks engaged, just like they were in the
election," Saunders said. "They're going to be engaged in this
campaign."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/13/obama-bush-tax-cuts_n_2124324.html?utm_source=Alert-blogger&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Email%2BNotifications
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