This is really bold. It may be, and probably is incredibly stupid, but it's bold. The rationales the president is using are just absurd - 'I promised the middle class no more taxes', etc. People know a lie when it's that bold. And they're messing with the payroll tax. Bad news. He's a lame duck president working with a lame duck Congress. Just imagine the mischief he'll be instructed to inflict when the new Congress shows up ... "the horror."

up to $40K will pay more in taxes. How's that for truth in press conferencing?

But the tax benefits will flow most heavily to the highest earners, just as the original cuts did when they were passed in 2001 and 2003. At least a quarter of the tax savings will go to the wealthiest 1 percent of the population.

The tentative deal includes a two-year patch for the alternative minimum tax, a reduction in the payroll tax and a plan to reinstate the estate tax with lower rates and higher exemptions than in 2009 — all of which will offer far more savings for high earners than those in the low- or middle-income bracket.

The wealthiest Americans will also reap tax savings from the proposal’s plan to keep the cap on dividend and capital gains taxes at 15 percent, well below the highest rates on ordinary income.

And negotiators have agreed that the estimated $900 billion cost of the cuts will simply be added to the deficit — not covered by reductions in spending or increases in other taxes. That is good news for hedge fund managers and private equity investors, who appear to have withstood an effort to get them to pay more by eliminating a quirk in the tax code that allows most of their income to be taxed at just 15 percent.

In fact, the only groups likely to face a tax increase are those near the bottom of the income scale — individuals who make less than $20,000 and families with earnings below $40,000.

“It’s going to look like the rich are getting richer again,” said Anne Mathias, an analyst for MF Global Inc.
SNIP
Although the $120 billion payroll tax reduction offers nearly twice the tax savings of the credit it replaces, it will nonetheless lead to higher tax bills for individuals with incomes below $20,000 and families that make less than $40,000. That is because their payroll tax savings are less than the $400 or $800 they will lose from the Making Work Pay credit.

“It will come to a few dollars a week,” said Roberton Williams, an analyst at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, “but it is an increase.”

If a president tries to mislead this baldly, can we say he's lying?
Now, maybe for him families making $40K a year are in the lower class and the middle class begins somewhere above that amount, so maybe, technically, he's not lying. But, looking at median US income, $40K is pretty close to the median...?

Obama seems hell bent on destroying the Democratic Party. Almost the actions of an...anarchist. Or, more likely, a conservative.

The Money Party allows the lower income citizens to experience the greatest suffering for their country. He is beyond lying, Obama has become a character in a B movie directed by the originators of the Laffer Curve. But he's doing the bidding of his patrons. What a surprise.

Thanks for posting this. It makes the point elegantly.

I'm feeling sick to my stomach. I knew he wasn't going to be liberal, but I never dreamed he would be this bad, this totally corporatized and conservative.

As lambert at Corrent keeps writing: All together now - "Because he's a conservative!"

And asking why may be very interesting to speculate about and some future WikiLeaks documents may show what's behind his actions, but the only important thing is what he actually DOES. Words, just words, don't cut it.

...Couldn't agree more. I think I've finally figured out the answer to a question I've had unanswered for years: Why aren't people out on the streets actively protesting?
The answer is so simple; because we haven't lost enough to be desperate.
When I look at the rest of the world and see the people most active; the ones out on the streets, they're the ones who have nothing.
Nothing left to lose except their lives; and there is no quality to those lives; so they're willing to risk what to them is everything.
We still have too much.

Obama does indeed lie! And this Obama DINO prez is a real Repub whiz at these negotiating things. From In Tax Deal, Many Public Employees Will Pay More:

At a time when state and local governments across the country are imposing furloughs and layoffs, and President Obama has frozen pay for federal employees, it turns out that one of the few groups to face higher federal taxes next year may be public sector employees.

The proposal to extend the Bush-era tax breaks unveiled by Mr. Obama this week would offer a tax cut for most Americans. The deal would end the Making Work Pay credit, which gave a tax reduction of up to $400 to workers with low and middle incomes. That credit will be replaced by a 2 percent decrease in the payroll tax for Social Security for people of all incomes.

But more than six million federal, state and local government employees do not pay into Social Security at all. Instead, they pay into public pension systems. So if the agreed proposal becomes law, such employees will lose the $400 credit and would not reap any benefit from the payroll tax cut.

According to the most recent statistics by the House Ways and Means Committee, more than 174 million workers paid into Social Security in 2007, but about 5.7 million state and local government employees paid into other pension systems. While the federal government has been moving its work force into Social Security in recent decades, there were still 600,000 employees excluded from it in 2007.

But maybe Obama doesn't think public employees are "real" middle
class people,so, technically, he's not lying?

Some tax experts say that it is unfair for a $900 billion tax cut package to give a quarter of its benefits to the top 1 percent of wage earners while forcing public sector workers, who are largely middle class, to have to pay more.

Ya think? Ya think Obama cares?

The lack of revenue, exacerbated by the rise in interest rates, will be used as the lever to cut Medicare and Social Security.

The deficit hawks will return with a vengeance next year now they have their tax cuts.

Deficit spending is never harmless, is shifts wealth to the rich, the creditors. The governess is choosing to borrow and pay interest, instead of collecting taxes.

And the stupid right keeps repeating the lies "it was the taxpayers money" and "the poor pay no taxes". Taxes are built into ever penny one spends, and to enjoy your money, you must pay taxes. The alternative is anarchy.

amended in some awful manner. Why else did he set up his Cat Food Commission? Over the objections of Congress. Stacked by him with anti-SocSec Austerians and deficit hawks, larded with corporatists?

Why, indeed. Well, all together now: "Because he's a conservative!"

If they decided to use that sad deficit commission as a feint to distract people from the real shot fired at Social Security, this payroll tax cut? Not that they'd plan it out in advance. Just speculating.

Who knows which move was/is/will be the tipping point for an irreversible decline and fall. This move is so cynical, it's my personal favorite, but the Geithner-Summers appointments may have sealed our fate.

If there was a chance for a reversal (I was an optimist), this may cancel that - "they can't as easily control how it is all financed." They probably think they can in their house of mirrors but globalization has taken care of that;)

Threading the needle is exactly right. He has managed to get the rich into heaven.

The payroll tax holiday is just grist for the cut Social Security mill. There are other, and better ways to accomplish this without involving SS.

It used to be that I thought Obama was merely challenging Bush the younger for worst Pres. ever. He now begins to make the case for total victory.

openly betraying and mocking his constituency, and consistently doing the wrong thing when it is most important to do something right, the big O has pulled off a stunning upset. Worst President Ever!

We should have known that was in store when he declined to reverse the worst abuses of the previous villains, or even to pursue any of them for their flagrant crimes.

_______________________________________________________________

"In the netherlands most of us do not ware a helmet. Also most of us do not have a gun. Still we get very old." - jojo

He threaded it with his head.

Obama's Compromise on Extending Highest-Income Tax Cuts Unpopular in Poll, Bloomberg, Dec 8

Americans don’t approve of keeping the breaks for upper-income taxpayers that are part of the deal President Barack Obama brokered with congressional Republicans, a Bloomberg National Poll shows.

The survey, conducted before, during and after the tax negotiations, shows that only a third of Americans support keeping the lower rates for the highest earners. Even among backers of the cuts for the wealthy, fewer than half say they should be made permanent.

Another third say they want only the tax cuts for the middle class to be extended, while more than a fourth say all the tax cuts should be allowed to expire Dec. 31, as scheduled.

Poll: Obama supporters strongly opposed to deal extending Bush tax cuts Dec 7

Okay, we now have our first poll measuring the impact on the Democratic base of Obama's support for a temporary extension of all the Bush tax cuts. Suffice it to say this is a major, make-or-break issue with them that could have real political ramifications for the President and Congressional Democrats.

The poll, done by the respected non-partisan firm Survey USA, surveyed over 1,000 people who contributed time or money to Obama in 2008, and found intense, overwhelming opposition among them to Obama's support for a temporary extension of the tax cuts for the rich. This supports the notion that there may indeed be a serious liberal revolt in reaction to it.

Indeed, majorities of people who contributed to Obama in 2008 say they are less likely to support Obama and Democrats because of his backing for the temporary extension.

Polling Memo

All of it. The money form the securities bought was used as General Revenue.

The trust fund is a set of IOUs.

have been trying to destroy it since FDR initially offered legislation for SocSec. Very long term goal.

...but the Republicans got Barack Obama. How much are those special Treasury Notes worth that they've used to consume the hard cash of our payroll taxes? There won't be enough places to hide for the perpetrators of that fraud. May they get their just deserts.

Yeah, guess what? The 113th Congress will have to fix the piece for the middle class and then endorse, in full view, cuts for the upper 1%. Sweet!