Weekend Economists:Auld Acquaintance Should Be Forgot December 28-30, 2012

[bread_and_roses]

43. "Bad deal: The White House’s last-ditch plan stinks "

http://www.salon.com/2012/12/28/bad_deal_the_white_houses_plan_stinks/

Bad deal: The White House’s last-ditch plan stinks

Obama's final proposal to House Republicans is a travesty. We're better off going over the "fiscal cliff"
By Alex Seitz-Wald

This afternoon, President Obama is meeting with congressional leaders in a last-ditch attempt to avoid going over the so-called fiscal cliff. Most people in Washington think the effort is futile. That’s probably good thing, as going over the cliff is better than enacting the deal the White House is reportedly putting on the table at the summit.

While the details are sketchy and reports conflicting, according to the New York Times, the proposal would extend the Bush tax cuts up to $400,000 (instead of the $250,000 most Democrats want), and it would extend some important tax credits, but it would leave the estate tax as is, do nothing about the sequester (the automatic spending cuts that will go into effect January 1) and do nothing about the debt ceiling.

If you’re a progressive, those items are, respectively, mediocre, somewhat positive, bad, mixed and terrible. While the $400,000 threshold is tolerable in a larger deal, it’s no good in a bad deal. Changing the estate tax is a must, as current rates exclusively help the heirs of wealthy people to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue. Some of the tax credits are vital, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, but these should be passed automatically, not as something Democrats need to bargain for. The sequester is mixed because half the cuts come from the military, which are valuable and generally politically unachievable, but the other half come from the rest of the government, including programs like Medicaid and food stamps.

There's no need for comment. But I will anyway.

TPTB have invested a LOT of capital in convincing the citizenry that "compromise" is some sort of ultimate value - a lie that, it seems to me, would easily be countered by some straight-forward speak from those who are SUPPOSED to be standing up for us. Do we really think that if - oh, say the Ds, in some world where they were not as bought and sold as the Rs - if the Ds were to stand up and say plainly that "compromise" comes SOLELY OUT OF OUR ALREADY THIN AND PATCHY HIDES - the "people" would not begin to understand that the "compromise" mantra SOLELY BENEFITS OUR CORPORATE OVERLORDS?