Making high end Tax Cuts work for ALL Americans

What’s heard in virtually all circles who are even slightly sympathetic to President Barack Obama’s agenda are pretty homogenous; tax cuts for rich should expire, all tax cuts should expire, etc. But what seems to be ignored or rather the idea that remains unexplored is turning these tax cuts into the economically stimulating reduction of government revenue Republicans claim they are on their own.

Clearly, we have plenty of anecdotal evidence that suggests tax cuts on their own DO NOT create jobs. George Bush’s tax cuts were arguably unnecessary, whether or not that’s the case, the data reflects a stagnation in job creation throughout his tenure as President. To compound onto the fact the cuts didn’t create jobs, the tax cuts quickly ate away at the budget surplus left at the end of the Clinton administration and turned into a crippling deficit as Bush ramped up two wars and increased defense spending to unprecedented levels.

The math doesn’t quite work out here. High or normal government revenue means low deficits, Bush made a terrible mistake in severely cutting tax revenues right before he would begin the country’s biggest plunge into deficit spending since the Truman administration in World War II. So much for fiscal conservatism.

So now we find ourselves in the middle of a fight to renew or kill these tax cuts, for better or worse. The common theme sounded by left and right is that of a false dichotomy. Tax cut extension and tax cut expiration are NOT our only two options, and it seems disingenuous that the White House and Democrats would let that storyline develop on its own that way.

A real progressive plan would seek to put Republican’s assertions of job creation through tax cuts where their mouth is, not just seek to kill them in an effort to get back at the wealthy.

What does this mean?

Well, it means making it IMPLICIT and perhaps legally BINDING in the bills that these tax cuts be used in ways that would create jobs.

This could be done in one of two ways.

1. Prohibit the savings in tax cuts from being held, as in, don’t let the tax cuts pad corporation’s balance sheets. Or for the major companies who are doing not so well, prevent the savings from being used to stave off bankruptcy.

2. Make the taxes ‘opt-in’. In order to receive the tax breaks, the corps would need to commit investing AT LEAST 1/4th to 1/2 of the tax savings into expansion, equipment, or straight up new jobs, higher commitments resulting in lower tax rate. To do this, corps who want to ‘opt-in’ could be required to jump through bureaucratic loops that would require financial documents proving they’ve invested sufficiently, at the risk of losing the savings altogether.

The 'opt-in' component would give corporations a choice. On the other end, significantly diminished tax cuts could be given to corporations who don't opt in, as a way to make sure it's not a completely forced choice to 'opt-in'.

This is clearly a more progressive plan than anyone in DC would likely envision, but this solves every single problem the tax cuts pose if extended on their own.

If the tax cuts were extended for 10 years, or even longer under these conditions, and assuming a reinvestment of at least $1 TRILLION of the $4T the cuts would cost, this is what would happen:

A) The tax cuts would likely pay for themselves.
B) TONS of private sector jobs created.
C) Tax cuts would truly stimulate economy.
D) If extended over 10yrs & correctly worked, deficit could be slashed by billions.

If the President is going to be truly looking to make the regretful realities of our time work for American citizens, then this is a good way to start. We don’t have to kill every policy every Republican has come up with, we can make them work for us if we can remain thoughtful, pragmatic, patient, and hopeful. We can’t expect to obtain victories by throwing temper tantrums or threatening to primary a politician when they don’t see things the way we see them.

It’s high time we begin to look at Washington and politics in a different way, no longer the support/oppose custom we are used to seeing, but in a ‘how can we make this work for everyone’ kind of way. If politicians in DC can get around that idea, the country may not need to be so bitterly divided all the time.

How democrats f***ed up Health Care Reform

Being a party loyalist entails general support of the party platform, it entails supporting the nominees to your party even if you disagree with a certain item they are running on, and most importantly it entails rebuffing them when they've messed things up.

When getting asked recently what went wrong with Health Care reform that it went from what seemed like an inevitable fate inspired passage of the bill to such an ambiguous and gloomy mentality that perhaps we are on the cusp of repeating 1994, the answer really could not be much clearer.

We took an incredibly successful 2008 election and ended up widely committing an error that many have incorrectly tried to attribute solely to Coakley in the Massachusetts election. We've taken a decisive election and a filibuster proof majority and fed off of ourselves this feeling of entitlement of this being our time, as if we had no need to continue working for the policy initiatives we feel are most necessary to restore a strong America.

This was evident in op-ed pieces on the Huffington Post, Daily Kos, New York Times, etc.

Democrats and the White House truly took for granted the 60 vote filibuster proof majority and continuously wasted time and effort that could've seen the health care reform bill passed by the original August 2008 deadline.

How could we mess up so bad? I think the answer is somewhat obvious.

Scott Brown used the tactics we should've used to have kept up the 65% of people supporting "Obama-care" in getting elected. Populism got dems elected in '08 but for some reason decided to abandon that this year. People are hurting just as bad as they were in the fall of 2008, if not realistically worse because of dire unemployment numbers.

It would've been easy as pie to have shaped the debate using populism as a cornerstone. The people elected the first grassroots candidate to the White House, the people made universal health care possible. It could easily have been marketed as a big win for the middle class by the middle classes; a win by the people, for the people.

For some strange reason, the administration and congress decided to let republicans, the tea party movement, and everyone else define the debate by doing these town halls instead of outright campaigning for the bill and championing it as a populist and popular idea that everyone in this country should have health care.

There was no real attention brought to how many jobs could be created with the passage of the bill, there was no effort to get Americans on board. It was simply assumed the support we began the debate with would stay, but why we would have made such a terrible assumption is beyond comprehension.

This administration really faltered and made a similar mistake that Bill Clinton did in failing to shape the narrative. Being reactionaries and offering those types of arguments only after republicans and others had begun their opposition really left democrats in the dust. It put needless congressional seats in danger and the bill's future in real doubt. This was a flat out strategic failure.

To the President's credit, his reunion with the populism that had gotten him elected will likely drive up his and democrats approval numbers in the near future if they can do right this time what they did wrong during his entire first year. The Huffington Post is reporting that the President and the House of Representatives will hold deliberations about passing the Senate bill and using reconciliation in public; something that should've been done from the start and has hurt the entire process.

This effort is not dead, but to say anything less than “we f***ed up” would be a complete understatement. This Massachusetts election has really brought democrats down to earth. Maybe we can finally take the job of governing with new resolve and a realization that power isn't everything.

America sure needs real change in Washington.