Geithner Won’t Rule Out Tax Hike for Middle Class
Remember the promise of tax cuts for 95% of Americans plus free beer and pizza (and good pizza; not Little Caesar’s or Pizza Hut)?
George Stephanopoulos writes:
To get the economy back on track, will President Barack Obama have to break his pledge not to raise taxes on 95 percent of Americans? In a “This Week” exclusive, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told me, “We’re going to have to do what’s necessary.”
Geithner was clear that he believes a key component of economic recovery is deficit reduction. When I gave him several opportunities to rule out a middle class tax hike, he wouldn’t do it.
“We have to bring these deficits down very dramatically,” Geithner told me. “And that’s going to require some very hard choices.”
“We will not get this economy back on track, recovery will be not strong and sustained, unless we convince the American people that we are going to have the will to bring these deficits down once recovery is firmly established,” he said.
Hat tip: Janzam, MP Thompson and ABC News
![](http://www.parentalrights.org/vertical/Sites/%7BC49108C5-0630-467E-9B9B-B1FA31A72320%7D/uploads/%7B3EA8D754-D841-4FF4-882C-32895D89991D%7D.PNG")
[1]
What a clown. Go for it, Tax-Cheat! Raise our taxes while you skip! LOL! What a parody these MORONS are!
[2]
Rope, anyone?
[3]
Come on Dems! 20% hike for everyone, except you of course! Don’t chicken out! Listen to Markos!
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..and, rwy, what do you reallythink about this! LOL
[5]
The Communists: Let’s see, the deficit is enormous, because we quadrupled an already bad one, so what to do, what to do.
1 Nothing
2 cut spending
3 raise taxes, make a disastrous economy even worse, cause more unemployment, lower the tax take further, and break your promise in front of the whole world.
Yep. 3 is the clear and obvious answer… No question.
anyone who objects is a RACIST SEXIST BIGOT HOMOPHOBE……
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anyone who objects is a RACIST SEXIST BIGOT HOMOPHOBE……
You make that sound like it’s a bad thing…
[7]
What do they put in the water these politicians drink?
And even more important, how can people at large not go bonkers over such blatant lies and numerous inconsistencies?
[8]
Right now, I don’t believe the GOP is going anywhere in 2010. Dead in the water and sinking.
But, if on top of CommieCare and cap/tax, they jack taxes on both the wealthy and middle classers, (say those with household incomes of $75,000+), then we WILL take the house back in 2010..
And if we don’t, the country is pretty much toast anyway. So, I hope they do it.
20% tax cheat Timmy! Do it! Do it! Do it! You know you want 30%!
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Hell, why stop at 20%? Lets just take any income over $50k a year! That is just as defensible in the CongressCritters eyes.
Come on you gutless wonders DO IT this year!!
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No I am NOT following RWY’s tweets…..
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rwy– I think your pessimism exceeds some of the info the polls are conveying.
Over at HHR Brandon posted a number of congressional/governor races, and most of them looked pretty encouraging for the R side.
We still have a ways to go before 2010 becomes truly competitive, but if the economy doesn’t turn all bright and cheery (which I don’t see how it can), and with the further erosion of jobs (which I think is the likelihood), then Obama is going to have very short coattails to draw his people through the races.
[12]
here a snippet of dialogue from today:
……………
STEPHANOPOULOS: So revenues are on the table as well?
GEITHNER: Again, we’re not at the point yet where we’re going to make a judgment about what it’s going to take. But the important thing…
STEPHANOPOULOS: But you’re not ruling it out. You can’t rule it out.
GEITHNER: Well, I think that what the country needs to do is understand we’re going to have to do what it takes. We’re going to do what’s necessary.
……………
Note the way Stephanopoulus asks if revenues are on the table?? REVENUES? Oh…you mean TAXES!!!!!! Revenues are normally associated with INCOME from the sale of PRODUCTS! The government doesn’t make ANYTHING…they just TAKE things from folks like us!
[13]
This pretty much sums up the current mood of the country, I think.
How does a lefist govern America? Link
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Good catch Justrand!
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Can’t say folks weren’t warned. Biden’s slip (pre-election fer pete’s sake!) when he said the number was 120k a year was not something he just pulled out of his hat accidentally. It is a number that was already on the table, and his dumb a$$ just happened to blurt it out. No one listened. They were too focused on Obama’s words and not so much on his actions and past behavior/ alliances/ views.
Have any of you read Liberty and Tyranny yet? I am only on chapter 3, but his description of a Statist, and the playbook of what is to come is spot on.
[16]
Jan, that quote from Pajamasmedia is very nice. Hopefully most Americans are getting so tired of seeing The One that they are beginning to hope that he just goes away.
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drdog09 –
“Hell, why stop at 20%? Lets just take any income over $50k a year! That is just as defensible in the CongressCritters eyes.”
Just like ObamaCare, Obama and members of Congress will be exempt.
[18]
Code words for bend over and spread’em, uncle sam got another surprise for you.
[19]
We still have a ways to go before 2010 becomes truly competitive,
We should not have “a ways to go”, with the country on fire and unemployment at 10%-17% depending on what measure you use. (It’s pretty clear the 10% is lamely optimistic.)
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We should not have “a ways to go”
Patience Grasshopper, patience.
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OT,
Sobering news. The remains of Michael Speicher the first loss of Gulf War I has been found. Link.
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Just like ObamaCare, Obama and members of Congress will be exempt. — BC
Faster Please!! So that the Second American Revolution maybe begin in earnest. I want in on it before I get too damn old.
[23]
PelosiCare is breaking something that’s already fixed. Forward this around to your entire email list and tell them to do the same– needs to go viral:
http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/49525427.html
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Will I have to find my long form birth certificate to prove that I qualify for citizenship in our soon to be new nation of Oklatex???
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm…
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To me the “green shoots” appearing are the signs, here and there, that people are coming out of their obama slumber.
There are more questions being asked by the center right/left (the far left will never succumb to being an inquiring mind), state polls are looking better, and there is more rabble rousing going on by disenchanted folks. Just look at gnqanq’s rally the other day. I wonder if it got any state press?
That is the irritating facet of this — the refusal of the MSM to climb on board and report straight news, instead of only the news slanted towards their fellow.
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Michelle Malkin on ABC Sunday Roundtable discussion Link
Catch the distainful looks from Cynthia Tucker! It’s like see is looking daggers, at times, at this little “newbie.”
[27]
Cynthia Tucker was born with a distasteful look. Can you say “affirmative action?”
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Yahoo –
“We should not have “a ways to go”, with the country on fire and unemployment at 10%-17% depending on what measure you use. (It’s pretty clear the 10% is lamely optimistic.)”
The problem is that being successful in 2010 requires recapturing the “great unwashed masses” of the middle class. That’s not whom David Frum and Peggy Noonan (in her sober moments) want to attract.
To quote Peggy, “They’re yucky.” Yucky = someone who buys wine with a twist-off cap.
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bc — I liked Cynthia Tucker better as a younger woman. She didn’t seem to be as bitter, in the old days. Now she looks like she is sucking on a lemon 24/7.
Here’s another girl who isn’t too happy.
College grad can’t find a job so wants her money back…is suing her college! Link
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Romer says economy hasn’t hit the bottom Link
“But, but, but….Obama says we’re turning around!”
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Yucky = someone who buys wine with a twist-off cap. — BC
Yahoo!! Jokes on her! The wine in a box and twist off type dispensers are better for the environment. I also read somewhere that if you purge the air from the bladders the wine keeps longer. The snooty crowd still like their corks, though you have to kills trees to get it. Not that I don’t turn my nose up at fancy bottle of wine.
[32]
Janzam –
One of my clients’ sons just graduated from Boston College and doesn’t have a job yet. My client can’t understand since he graduated from college in 1982 (near the end of a recession) and found work right away. I reminded him of all the jobs lost in the past 27 years due to outsourcing and mergers and consolidation (particularly in the financial industry.
For example, National Bank of Detroit bought up a bunch of smaller banks and became NBD. NBD was acquired by Bank One. Bank One got swallowed up by Chase. Think of how many jobs were eliminated.
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There are no jobs. None.
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drdog09 –
Plus you don’t need an opener and there’s less problem resealing the bottle if you don’t knock it off (which I am sure is not a problem at your house).
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“There are no jobs. None.”
That’s the problem, yahoo. The companies doing “better than expected” are doing better than expected not because they have increased sales, but rather because they continue to cut costs (reducing the workforce).
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“…but rather because they continue to cut costs (reducing the workforce).” That is the truth. Three weeks ago I was brought in to consolidate a small data center and lay 4 people off. I know a lot of folks over at the Telco’s are taking furloughs and reduced work weeks. Chronic under-employment, which is not showing up on the unemployment rolls.
[37]
Several eng firms in my area are on reduced weeks, as well, with layoffs around the corner.
Not me, not yet, but unless this turns around, it’s coming.. It’s a miracle I found my job when I was laid off from my “work at home” gig in June 2008.
Prior to that, I had not been without work since July 1993.
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though you have to kills trees to get it.
Cork harvesting does not kill trees. They peel it off and another layer grows back.
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FL growth went belly up in March 2008. There have been virtually zero new development since then. Since 2007, net “immigration” to FL has been umm down.
That’s going on a year and a half, and some “small FL” types love it, being down on development, but let me say that those people are going to have to get used to 11%-12% unemployment then, because without development that is what you’re going to get….
http://orlando.bizjournals.com/orlando/stories/2009/03/23/daily14.html
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Off Topic: Anyone know the best way for an investor to purchase gold? I’m reworking my personal investments and I’m interested in gold as a small part of my portfolio as a last line of defense should the sh*t really hit the fan with regards to the dollar. Does one literally take possession of 1 oz ingots/coins and bury them in the back yard or does one invest in gold stocks, bonds or mutual funds? What other things can a prudent investor do to protect against the threat of high inflation?
[41]
So, WND and Pat Dollard have new posts up on the newly uncovered Mombasa birth certificate.
Coming to a theatre near you.
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You may do either, mpt…
I have both from Goldline, http://www.goldline.com. Silver coins, and gold-backed 401k-rollover….
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RWY, thanks. I’ll check them out this week.
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Now the bad news.
I remember reading a few weeks back on Yahoo News that this was going to be a JOBLESS RECOVERY. And that this could last 5 years with flat growth. Now that is going to play well – NOT.
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Cork harvesting does not kill trees. — BCL
I stand corrected.
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mp
I have some gold and silver coin, but mostly a 15% allocation of gold investments like the Spdr (GLD) and some mining stocks. Mining gives you a higher leverage. When the price of gold moves up, mining stocks benefit exponentially because of reserves in the ground. By the same token, they have the same volatility downward and the costs of extraction enters in.
As far as gold in hand, smaller denominations are easier to deal, and 14k and 18k gold jewelry are better for barter.
Inflation is coming, and gold makes sense. You have to have patience.
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Jobless recovery!?!? LOL. I’ve heard the term before and I have to wonder who came up with that oxymoron.
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“That’s going on a year and a half, and some “small FL” types love it….” — RWY
Heh. My dad is in the ‘kick their frigging asses out’ crowd.
[49]
Cork harvesting does not kill trees.
~drdog
Once I harvest a cork, I usually kill the bottle.
or two.
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Heh. My dad is in the ‘kick their frigging asses out’ crowd.
That’s because he does not need a job. Local Radio personality Bud Hedinger, a good guy in most respects, wants to turn this place into upstate NY, where he’s from, or is that Jersey.
Anyway, people=jobs. No people= no jobs. Ask all the towns in ND and some other states that are dying…..
[51]
Well now we have a variant of Rush’s ‘Operation Chaos’ afoot — http://www.operationembarrassyourcongressman.com/
I am somewhat at a pause. These kind of tactics can backfire if not handled properly, though they can work.
[52]
Of course this is one argument the open borders crowd uses.
And its the one place they are telling the truth. Although the math says it’s not worth it. Too few locally grown kids….
Anyway, FL is dying, and I will not be here much longer. If my job goes, I’ll probably leave…of course I thought that 2 years ago and am still here…
[53]
As far a gold goes, I prefer to get the gold and mix in a little coin collecting at the same time. Sometimes you get lucky and the value is more than just the gold content.
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RWY, Florida is banking and tourism for the most part. It was that way when I was growing up and it still is the backbone of the economy there.
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“Jobless Recovery” is the perfect term for what Obama is trying to do. If you consider that he wants unemployment to remain at 10% then it is an apt term.
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RWY, took my family to Florida last November to visit friends, vacation and watch a shuttle launch. We were mostly in the Palm Coast area and then Orlando. The weather was terrific (for someone from California), but must everywhere was pretty much deserted except for Disneyland. Walked around many half-built vacation projects where the exteriors were finished, but the insides didn’t even have drywall up. Pretty eerie.
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CongressCritters feeling the heat — http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25646.html
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RWY, Florida is banking and tourism for the most part. It was that way when I was growing up and it still is the backbone of the economy there.
so, 11% unemployment is, what, normal? Good?
FL has been a growth state since Disney opened up. That’s when you started to see people come here for work…. That’s when my dad came, and why I live here.
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so, 11% unemployment is, what, normal? Good?–rwy
If you’re a Liberal trying to move as many people to the government teat, then, yes it is normal.
[60]
RWY,
11% good? Of course not. But then I have seen worse. Was in Fla when the gas lines of the Carter years were in ‘vogue’. There were no tourists. Nobody wanted to take the risk to get stuck in Tenn or Ga with no gas. Getting a summer job was tough when I was a kid. Most of the blue hairs and tourists left around labor day. Temp jobs would dry up in the summer. That’s 1965-70 time frames.
[61]
yeah, the last time FL had a sh*tty economy. Since then it’s been one long boom.
Over now, I guess….
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So the Recess Revolt begins — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8UjY3YDlwA&feature=player_embedded This is Doggett in Austin, Texas. Its one of the more liberal districts.
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RWY,
I just sent you an email.
[64]
Goldman gets money one way or the other.