you are absolutely right and I really dont believe theyre smart enough to go the route of passing anything that will benefit the middle class or make obama look good even though it is a new term., these people are living in another world and different society than most and still cant grasp reality.!

We didn't get into that big debt in just a year. It took 10+ years to get there, it will take time. If people aren't working no revenue being paid in. If we have to spend more to get people back to work so be it, better then spending funds on misplaced war making!

I think the 2012 deficit is close to 1.5 trillion. The Fourtune 500 after tax earnings for 2011 was $850 billion so tax all the biggest evil corporations all their obsicene profits plus the rich and we will still be over a half a trillion short! OR double the tax on everyone who makes $100,000 and that will do it. The Pres. and every one in Congress knowes these numbers and now so do all of you. These numbers are so HUGE it will take a LOT OF PAIN to solve this problem. Which is not likely to get any one involved re-elected.

You are so right, the math does not add up. But remember we just had an election and it appears that deficit spending is not an issue, we just have the federal reserve print that money and inflate our way out. The voters have spoken and like a bunch of spoiled brats at Christmas it will be forward right over the cliff, screw all those suckers that saved money all their life, that money is worthless. Face it, the country has become a bunch of dumb down fools that our parents generation would be ashamed of. Santa Clause is the new hero.

Do you think anyone maybe should have listened to Ron Paul. Hope This country can be saved from ourself before it is too late. Taxing the rich is not going to be the salvation.

Republicans crashing the country:

"If they don’t – and if they continue their economy-crashing agenda – then they’re committing political suicide and, tragically, risk taking the country down with them."

Thom: Unfortunately, the Republicans signalled their intent to do exactly this when Obama was first elected. They said they would rather see the country crash than to see Obama succeed. I believe they are willing to make good on their threat. The Republicans no doubt view their actions as those of patriots. I see them as traitors, to their country and to the oath of office they took. They are putting their pledge to Grover Norquist ahead of the interests of the country as a whole.

@Mauiman: Your assumption that the deficit has to be cleared from one year's tax reciepts is typical Fox News mis-information and rubbery figures.

Sorry, these Republican lies and mis-direction attempts just don't wash anymore. Ask Rush for some new talk points.

It seems like so little to ask those who have much to at least pay their FAIR share.

It's the only way we'll get people back to work and improve the economy. The people with ALL the money need to put it back into circulation and bring it back into the country they earned it in. Business must be taxed generously, but they must receive breaks for training workers, for hiring workers, and for improving infrastructure. Business uses the roads and bridges and railways and waterways and docks--the wealthy need to contribute like the rest of us to their maintenance and creation.

When their house is on fire, do they not call the fire department? If they have a heart attack, do they not call the EMTs? If their home is broken into, do they not call the police? These are all services paid for by our taxes. We should ALL contribute at the same level/rate. These services are not free, and those with more than the rest of us shouldn't get off the hook.

We didn't vote the million/billionaire into office; this is our Occupy Wall Street moment; this is why we are not in the streets protesting and tarring and feathering the wealthy. We are sick of the rich. We spoke with our vote--that is the mandate.

Listen or continue at your peril, because people will tire of putting their children to bed hungry--this is the seed of the terrorist.

One positive outcome of raising tax rates on upper brackets is that it discourages sucking obscene amounts of money out of corporations by executives in the form of salary and bonuses and encourages rolling that money back into the business - thus more jobs - thus more taxes.

There are numerous stable economy-stimulating tax policy solutions which could be enacted if the absurd concept of supply side economics was abandoned.

However, as long as the congress is composed of morons there will be a long trail of moronic solutions, each more destructive than the last.

It will be very interesting to see the out come of these two money makers.
Which one will be satisfied first : "Cliff or Sandy" ? I,m betting on Sandy,
because the Wall Street bankers and insurance companies will be connected with
Sandy's government billing issues first,and with Federal Reserve allocating 40 billion
a month: mortgage backed securities;well,Cliff will just have to wait. Beside,ladies
are first anyway !

Yeah, sure, like we're going to believe you are taxed at a 50% rate. Aren't you just a little jealous that Romney only pays about 15%? And you think that is all right? That's fair? If you pay any where near 50% taxes then you are either a saint or you have never heard of tax shelters and other creative tax schemes that most wealthy people all take advantage of. I'd like to see all high income earners pay the kind of tax rates they had to pay in Eisenhower's day. They would all still have so much money left over they wouldn't know what to do with it all...except gamble it away on the stock market...and if they lose..they get bailed out anyway. That's what our country has become...a kind of socialism for the very wealthy...corporate welfare which amounts to way more than any so-called bunch of welfare queens. It's time to roll back the clock and tax the heck out of the rich. I mean it's not like they are trying to create more jobs...except in China. Turn the damn Pentagon into a shopping mall and stop milking the middle class with all those costly, illegal, and quite unnecessary foreign wars. It's blood money. War Crimes!

All of the blustery talk by some Obama supporters indicating they believe Obama will be more aggressive this time around and negotiate from a stronger position is much ado about nothing...what will amount to yet another give away to the rich. Any "compromises" will put a hurt on the social programs...Social Security, Medicare, etc. and the Pentagon's spending will continue to pillage the middle class taxpayers and make those who have spent their working lives paying into the system and deserve every bit of SS and MC they get, while the rich tax evaders will continue to blame social programs while avoiding paying their fair share of taxes.

Compromise?! We don't need no stinking compromises! The Republicans haven't compromised! Instead of whining that we all just should get along...Democrats, in any moment of advantage, should use it to do what the Republicans have done to us all along. But they won't because they are not much better than the Republicans. They are all in it together. None of them are....middle class or poor. The grand illusion will continue to fool a lot of people until they are too disillusioned, hungry, sick, and weak to really fight back. And when they see those drones flying over head they will wimp out...or will they? We'll see.

Tsars, Kings and other heads of state who continued to ignore what their really ticked off peasants could do may have wished in those last moments.."my kingdom for a horse". Mubarak was put in a little cage and urinated on. Ghadafi was beaten to a bloody pulp. al-Assad is frightened for his life. And somebody here in the US must be just a little nervous if they have to leak that various government departments are buying up millions of rounds of ammunition, spying on us, and starting to fly drones around our neighborhoods.

The overwhelming government forces in other countries were not enough to hold back the raging citizens. If the obstinate and obstreperous wealthy continue in the same path they did in the last 4 years...we may very well see some very violent actions in our streets and in places of business. Prices will shoot up making the necessities of life..food..etc. and it will force the people to take action. It won't be pretty!

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/ron-paul-on-fiscal-cliff-and-vows-to-compromise-MYkAiqYBTaiHwXZL9Tvxkw.html

Ron Paul comments on the fiscal cliff.

Let's see, the democrat's plan, the one that is to end temporary extensions on tax cuts that were temporary to begin with, and only on the very wealthy, is according to all the mass media reports I hear, simply a "tax increase." which makes it sound like a tax increase for everyone.

It only took the first 28 words of my initial statement to state a truth you will never hear the corp media mention to those who need to hear it most, future voters with little interest, most of the time anyway, in political discussion, which is the vast majority of the American people. An under informed electorate is why the house is still controlled by those who would do us all great economic harm in exchange for their own selfish financial gain. Maybe social media is the best answer for a way to well inform the general public, because it sure as hell appears the corp media is the best way to well misinform!

Let's finish them off- burn 'em to the ground !!!

ScottfromOz, I did not mean to imply that it had to be closed in one year, but it certainly needs to be significantly narrowed. This one trillion a year stuff has got to stop, and "tax the rich" is just a very small step in the right direction at best.

The way I see this issue is very simple. It is not a tax increase to the 1%, it is just go back to how it was prior to Bush's Era. If they have billions to "buy" their Republican buddies they should have money to pay their share. They are not "job creators" they are "abusers of the system." If they don't like it, let them go, we do not need these toxic corporations. In my book, Rove and his gangsters are not citizens they are inhabitants, there is a big difference. As to Riley's comment about Mr. Obama giving the 99% "stuff" the only stuff takers is pundits like him and Rove's gangsters who are giving money and then "collect and profit" from recipients. Tampa, FL

I have no idea what your income might be, but I'm pretty sure no one believes you should pay more than 50% unless it's in the UNEARNED muti millions as in Uncle Mitt's type of catagory.

Say I happen to work for a company which is one of Uncle Mitt's Bain acquisitions and end up making $30,000, an amount requiring me most likely to be a head manager. I end up with $20,000 after all forms of taxes, property, gas pump, and all other types of sales tax, income, what you might call entitlements, but programs we still pay for, you name it. So I ended up paying a 33% tax rate.

Now at the same time Uncle Mitt made 30 million without lifting a finger thanks in part becasuse I showed up to work for his Bain acquisition and thus made it possible for him to make his money without working. He ends up paying anywhere from 0% to 13.9% and still has at least 25 million left to pay his landscapers, buy his food, gas, car elevator, you name it. Maybe you could explain to me what is moral about this current tax set up?

Although it is difficult not to agree with Vice President Joe Biden and Patty Murrey, it looks like the President has different ideas. He is replacing some of his cabinet. The first to go will be Timothy Geithner. Barack Obama's #1 choice to fill the seat of Treasury Secretary is Erskine Bowles. This is the guy who worships Paul Ryan and the Ryan budget, as the following clip would suggest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dbzpuqWo6yU

If this is also the way our president thinks, then the Ryan Budget is not far behind.

I highly doubt that anyone who is really making so much money that he/she has to worry about having their taxes increased (because they are making so much money) would take the time, or interest, in participating in communicating in a blog like this. Most likely, they are rich-man/woman wannabes, dreamers and schemers, pretenders, who are convinced that they, themselves, will one day be at the top of the economic pyramid. Or they are paid lackey sock puppets sent by their wealthy employers to argue in their defense. Truly wealthy people would not bother, themselves, to mingle with the riff raff. But, there are a lot of wishful true believers that hope to scam enough people one day to amass their own personal wealth.

Vaporization of assets...trillions in stock certificates and other paper securities...millions of American's 401k's, pensions, and stock accounts destroyed by Sandy? With a warning a week ahead of time...no one thought that all these 13.1 million pieces of paper would be destroyed by a potential flooding from hurricane Sandy? The lower floor vaults containing these very vulnerable to destruction pieces of paper were not water tight. Why not? They had plenty of time to move these securities to a high level why did they not move them? Why was all of the news attention focused on the watertight vaults that contained gold which would not be threatened with destruction even if they were exposed to flooding? Max Keiser has a lot to say about all of this.

No one created Hurricane Sandy, except perhaps through global warming, but I think something very shady could have taken place...just like during 911 (when billions of illegal bonds that were to come due on 912) were destroyed.

Jay Cay Johnstone described the willfully misleading language of business when it says things like, "From now on our employees will have to pay more of their own pension." or, "... more of their own health insurance." as though those payments were, until then, charitable generosities on the part of those employers when in fact they were part of the agreed upon compensation of those workers. It's like they're saying, "From now on our employees are going to have to pay more of their own salaries or wages."

Similarly, taxes on business must be seen as the just compensation business must pay to the people who work for them and not a charitability, however mandatory, on their part. We earned all the government's social programs with our hard work making Mitt Romneys rich.

Just as Walmart gave its employees in California instruction on how to get on food stamps, most welfare recipients are the "working poor" - which is itself an abomination of any justice - or, grossly undercompensated workers. So, what business doesn't pay in wages it pays in taxes. If it refuses to do either - as it is doing now - you have, resulting, what is happening now, the destruction of the middle class and the pauperization of the working people. .

I disagree...I believe the wealthy should pay more...much more because they have the most to lose in the event our country is invaded and occupied...just for starters. Those who have very little to lose would not lose very much compared to the wealthy. What would it really matter to those at the bottom who rules...China, Russia, Aliens? Those A$$ hole, arrogant, scumbag, ruling elite Americans are not any more worthy of being our rulers than anyone else. Those with a lot to lose would lose a lot and should be taxed the most.!

As our Pentagon takes up a very large slice of the taxation pie...ostensibly to protect us...but in reality, they are more offensive rather than defensive and mostly make the wealthy wealthier. It is the wealthiest people in America who should have the highest taxes. But, of course, the wealthiest pay the least as a percentage of their incomes while they use their patriotic clap trap propaganda to get the less fortunate people to sacrifice their sons and daughters to murder and be murdered on behalf of making the wealthy wealthier.

In addition, the wealthy have been getting away with not paying their fair share of taxes, squeezing the workers out of sufficient wages and benefits, and shipping our jobs overseas for 30 plus years now. They are not job creators..they are job destroyers. We need to insist...force these maggots to pay their fair share and force them to keep our jobs here in America...how about making them pay 80-90 percent in taxes? That, or we send these criminals to prison where they all belong..they are traitors who are selling out Americans...then invade all those tax havens and confiscate all their money and their stateside property.

Watch California over the next couple of years as they drive out the tax payers. They can't print money so look for a begging hand out to the federal government. California will be bankrupt.

The whole country is already bankrupt because of the criminal deeds of arrogant greedsters at the top of the economic dung heap...the ones who have been shipping our jobs overseas...the ones who turned our economy from a manufacturing one to a Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate (FIRE) one...to a reckless gambling with the savings of other people's money one. There's no law and order anymore...the gangsters are running the country. And those who praise themselves for deserving the lion's share of the country's resources (because they are smarter and harder working than everyone else?...total bulls..t!!!) are morally bankrupt and are deceiving only themselves.

I bet Mubarak, Ghadafi, and al-Assad all thought they were most deserving of their lofty status as well. Mubarak wound up in a small cage where he was urinated on, Ghadafi was beaten to a bloody pulp, and al-Assad is very worried that he may suffer the same kind of fate. Arrogant pigs in the US may also, one day, wish they had been a little less piggish.