John Boehner: The 'Talk About Raising Revenue Is Over'

[Zorro]

Source: ABC News

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told ABC News' Martha Raddatz during an exclusive interview for "This Week" that talk of including revenue as part of an effort to strike a so-called "grand bargain" to address the $16 trillion debt of the United States was "over," leaving Democrats and Republicans where they have been for months - at loggerheads.

"The president believes that we have to have more taxes from the American people. We're not going to get very far," Boehner said. "The president got his tax hikes on January 1. The talk about raising revenue is over. It's time to deal with the spending problem."

Boehner said the United States does not face an immediate debt problem, agreeing with recent comments by President Obama - but he added debt is an issue that will have to be addressed.

"We do not have an immediate debt crisis - but we all know that we have one looming," he said. "And we have one looming because we have entitlement programs that are not sustainable in their current form. They're going to go bankrupt."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/john-boehner-talk-raising-revenue-over-145307471--abc-news-topstories.html

[Jamaal510]

1. So

the talk about continuing to let the top 1% hoard cash at everyone else's expense is NOT over, then?

[bjobotts]

38. The talk of cutting spending is over also.

Boehner forgets the $1.2 trillion Obama has already cut and YES he has cut the deficit in half already. A hell of a lot more cuts in spending than revenue raising Boehner so that dog don't hunt.

[L0oniX]

2. Well then lets start with cutting congressional entitlements. n/t

[AndyA]

3. To Boehner, raising revenue = ending tax CUTS that were TEMPORARY

The Bush tax cuts were--by GOP design--intended to be temporary for 10 years.

So, no tax increases have happened. They were simply allowed to expire as intended for most people, and they had them several years longer than planned.

Another lie from John Boehner.

[dkf]

12. The ACA increased taxes.

[JDPriestly]

13. If you consider money you pay for health care anyway to be a tax.

The ACA shifts the money spent on health care around and hopefully gets people care when they are younger and doctors can still prevent certain conditions and diseases. That is all it does.

The ACA doesn't create any additional need for health care. It doesn't pay for new weapons. It doesn't subsidize inessential industries. It shares the cost of health care more fairly. That's all it does.

[dkf]

17. The ACA raised taxes on high income earners including cap gains.

So taxes were increased at those levels above the rescinding of the Bush taxes, also at high income levels.

[JDPriestly]

23. Good. The gains in earnings and wages have gone to the high income earners.

I don't think that any other groups have seen any gains in their earnings and wages. I think the other groups have all seen losses.

The losses really hurt when you are in a lower income group. If you had an income of $50,000 per year, and it decreases to $35,000, that can determine whether or not you can pay your rent or afford health insurance. $50,000 is slightly above average, but $35,000 is below it. Assuming it is a loss in income that hits pretty much across that pay range, it is a loss of $15,000 that can't be taxed by the government. At that pay level, your money is taken out of your paycheck. You have normally no choice but to pay your taxes. So the government loses income. And actually, $50,000 is probably a pretty high starting figure for the incomes of people who have been losing the financial tug-of-war.

As we saw with Romney, people who make millions, lots more than the $50,000-30,000 level have all kinds of ways to hide their income and protect it from taxes. At most the earner of the lower wage or salary can maybe buy a house and deduct the interest or the taxes on that. The person earning millions hires an accountant and shields his money from taxes -- finds tax shelters.

That is the way that it works and that is why those who have gained need to pay at very high tax rates while those who earn relatively little should not.

The person earning $35,000 now who earned more later may have already lost a home and may be doing two jobs now rather than the one he or she did before. I have seen that in my family.

The odd thing is that the person who earns less, say a couple with three children, has in some respects more crises in life than those who earn more. The low earners' cars break down. The electricity gets turned off. Buying the kids' school clothes is a crisis that takes mom to the second-hand store. The other kids in school have the internet and computers. Your kids don't. It's a never-ending battle focused on money.

For the families that do better, the big challenge is not buying everything their children want, not accumulating too much.

Disparity in incomes is a far bigger social malady than high taxes on the rich.

It's the disparity that is dividing our country. We were far better off when I was a child and we were ALL a lot poorer.

So yes I would like to see higher taxes on the rich. They should pay a bigger share toward educating and providing health care for all of our children.

I was born during WWII. When I was growing up, I was taught that we are one country, that we are in it together. I remember how we were all so afraid of the atomic bomb. I remember how proud we were of our response to Sputnik. I still believe that we are one country and in it together. Apparently the rich, those who have gained the most from the technological and scientific progress that our tax dollars have made possible, don't.

There would be no internet, no four-lane highways, no cell phones, no news from Mars, fewer new pharmaceutical miracles, less information about healthy diets and what is happening to our environment, especially the oceans and the how we learn and you name it less information and less knowledge if we didn't tax the rich at rates as high as possible.

Much of the wonderful information and basic science that has given us the good lives we now have was paid for back in the WWII and post-WWII years and it was high tax rates on the rich that brought progress to us. Now the rich of today want to benefit from all that free technology floating out there, and they should, but within reason. The rich are the ones who should be thinking about how they can leave a legacy of research and knowledge for the future generation.

It's not the poor suckers breathing their lasts after a life of 9-5 and longer and just surviving on their Social Security checks and Medicare-paid health care. They made their contribution. Don't take their modest incomes from them. And don't blame them. They gave at the office -- literally.

[Brigid]

24. You should make an OP out of this.

[dkf]

29. We would be living more equally poor if some didn't borrow above their means to create a lifestyle

Above their capacity.

What the rich do doesn't affect us so much...they were always going to have a better circumstance than us. They also don't compete for what we want. What matters is how the Joneses live. And when all the Joneses overextend themselves to get that average expected lifestyle that is where the shtf.

[JDPriestly]

35. That is true. But, the people who borrowed "above their means"

in the 2000s were people who had been raised to expect that their wages would rise when profits of the companies they worked for rose. The problem was that the wages did not rise and the people who borrowed believing that next quarter their pay would go up got stuck with debt they could not pay back.

I saw that mostly in my friends who owned businesses, and people who bought overpriced houses at the height of the market. I also so that with people who suddenly lost jobs in which they had received good reviews and which they expected to keep.

It is quote a good thing to live within your means. But most people watch TV and think they have to have this and that.

I visited someone -- a businessman -- this morning. A small group of us held a meeting about a community matter at his house. During the entire meeting, the TV was tuned to some channel that was selling junk. I was quite amazed since I don't watch TV at all. Naturally, if you watch that kind of TV much, you will sooner or later waste your money on something you neither need nor can use.

Same with shows that hawk stocks. People get sucked in. The messages are not aimed at your rational brain. They are aimed at your subconscious. Takes a sharp wit to understand what is going on. Most people watch that stuff because they feel lonely and the salesfolks on the TV make them feel less lonely.

[John2]

37. What does Social

Security, Medicare and medicaid have to do with what you are talking about? "What the rich do doesn't affect us so much." Well tell them that. Aren't they suppose to be the job creators?

People have gotten wealthy because they have been given opportunities in this country. The idea was to give them tax breaks and less regulations to grow the economy. What matters to this entire nation is the economy. The United States has the right as a country to influence or establish economic Policy for this country just as well as National Security or Foreign Policy. I don't care if someone that is a citizen of this country owns trillions of dollars, they still have an obligation to this country as a citizen. Apparently some wealthy people don't think they have obligations to this country. They compete for the right to American technology and to sell goods and services in this country. They compete to have laws in this country to help them in trade, foreign and domestic.

There a lot of Americans, educated enough to replace them and service the citizenry of this country. Whatever money the U.S. government thinks a citizen owe, they do have the power to garnish or freeze those assets. They even have the power to repossess property. Like for instance, the U.S. gave amnesty to a number of wealthy people with offshore accounts that evaded U.S. taxes. They didn't have to give them amnesty. The U.S. was powerful enough in Foreign affairs to pressure Foreign Banks for information and the U.S. is powerful enough to have the same Banks freeze assets just like they did with terrorists if they really wanted to.

And if the Government really wanted to, they could probably prosecute a lot of wealthy people. Especially those tied to entities proclaiming themselves too Big to Fail. That language may fool some people but it doesn't fool me one bit. That is just a cop out by the DOJ. If anybody in this country have gotten a free ride over the last decade, it has been those people calling themselves the wealthy. It certainly has not been the poor or middle class. Whatever money they get, they spend on necessities which go back into the economy. And the only reason prices go up on the very services and goods they need, is because of greed at the top. So the poor and the middle class are getting squeezed because of that greed. Just like the Government can put a stop to rising Oil prices, they can do it everywhere else too. Health care prices in this country are nothing but a ripoff which affects all of us. And guess who makes the costs rise. It certainly isn't at the bottom or in the middle.

[Flatulo]

30. Quotable...

"Disparity in incomes is a far bigger social malady than high taxes on the rich."

[love_katz]

33. Yes. What JDPriestly said.

WORD!

[bjobotts]

39. Only if that 1% refuses to buy health care.REmember Citizen Kane

"...at the rate of losing a million dollars a year I'll have to close this paper in...er a ...a hundred years." And the 1% now would close in a couple thousand years. Get it?

[socialindependocrat]

4. Republican'ts represent 1% of the population of the U.S.

How much clearer does it have to be folks?

[we can do it]

5. Well then there will be know more talk about cutting the safety net.

[Liberalynn]

19. Exactly

[Lobo27]

6. Okay, he says deal w/ spending problem.

Lets cut defense spending? You know that money the pentagon gives to contractors for no apparent reason??? To them spending money on the sick is a sin, but throwing it away in Iraq or Afgahnistan is perfectly fine. Yeah go to to hell Boehner.

[Botany]

7. I am sick of that asshole

Boner made fun of President Obama's reaching out to the republicans
saying we will have no more "dinner dates."

These are economic terrorists who want to sink the economy for
political reasons and to protect the very rich.

"We do not have an immediate debt crisis .... " but we do have crisis w/ these
republicans who damn well know that Obama's programs are working and they
want to stop that from happening.

BTW I never heard one word from boner when W was spending $600,000 per minute
w/money borrowed from China to run that unneeded war in Iraq.

[MoreGOPoop]

8. Koch addicts say

"We stole it fair and square and we're not getting up off of it until we see torches and pitchforks."

[Brigid]

26. Then it is time for said pitchforks and torches.

[Newest Reality]

28. Historically

guillotines are also handy to have in some circumstances.

[santamargarita]

9. I'll be glad when the talk about Bonner is over...

...he fades fast into history along with the rest of the servile scum.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

10. When you hear a Republican say, "entitlement program"...

Or "Obama's Spending" that's code for "welfare".

They are STILL playing a game of words to imply that Obama wrecked the economy by giving welfare to black people.

Don't believe me?

Ask a Conservative.

I ran into one that STILL believes Obama stole money out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare which he believes is free heath care for black people. He also believes everything has been cut BUT Obama's welfare program. (He's a FOX "News" viewer.)

[BeyondGeography]

11. Damn the gerrymandered map and bring on the mid-terms

The only way out is to defeat these bastards.

[LongTomH]

14. Marginal tax rates under FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, JFK ranged from 70% to 91%

All those presidents used that revenue to build infrastructure, from the federal highway system to rural electrification that built the US prosperity of the 40s through the 60s. They also made investments in science and technology that made the US a world leader and took us to the moon.

Now our infrastructure is crumbling; bridges are collapsing and highways are buckling in global warming's record temperatures. The infrastructure for the Apollo project is corroding in the salt air at Cape Canaveral and Houston.

The big science projects, from the Large Hadron Collider to the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array are European. We still lead the world in patents; but, how long will that last?

[olddots]

15. maggots like Boner used to get no attention.

now with a 24 hour news cycle he gets so much attention he starts believing his own verbal farts.Could this be the reason the repukes are so crazy ? Does someone like Mr. Tan think if he wasn't such a jerk nobody would give him air time ?

[OneAngryDemocrat]

16. WAR!

We now have TWO (2) choices.

(1) Call the swine on their bluff, or (2) cave.

If there is a third, I'd like to know what it is.

[bhikkhu]

18. In other words, talk about cutting Social Security is over

as revenue increases were the only excuses to even consider it.

That excepts medicare, which has some long-term issues that Social Security does not.

[DallasNE]

20. What A Buffoon Boehner Is

Boehner has already gotten $2 in spending cuts for $1 in revenue, for starters, so he already has his spending cuts if he wants to play that game. As a result of what has already happened, spending is now at its lowest level since Eisenhower was President so we don't have a spending problem, we have a tax loophole problem.

Regarding tax loopholes the Sen. Corker today said that revenue is on the table as long as they create growth. In other words, you can't close any of the loopholes for the "job creators" -- the 1%, yet not one Republican voted for a resolution taking the home interest deduction off the chopping block -- that loophole will be gone, hurting the middle and lower income brackets. Plus, we have another in the series of cliffs coming up at the end of this month and people are not talking to each other. Here we go again with another self-inflicted wound. Nice job Boehner -- NOT.

[judesedit]

21. 2014 2014 2014 2014 2014 2014 2014 2014 2014 VOTE IN THE PRIMARYS.GET RID OF THE SLOTHES

[Dawson Leery]

22. Every morning, orange man takes a count to see if he has 218 votes to retain his speakership.

Weak.

[RBInMaine]

25. We are still getting screwed from the colossal screwup of 2010. We better LEARN from it.

WAY too many Dems stayed home and bitched. Now they are REALLY bitching. The RePukes have spent the last 2+ years fucking up this country BIGTIME, and way too many of them are still in power and still able to fuck things up. So, LEARN Democrats and Progressives. LEARN ! Staying home and bitching out of purity will only cause to bitch ten times more and ten times louder for YEARS by allowing the right wing fucknuts to win. LEARN FROM IT ! 2014 is coming. This time, VOTE.

[Freddie]

32. ^^^^this^^^^^^

We must get Congress and the state legislations and governors mansions back!!! The worst Democrat is better than any Repug.

[Crowman1979]

27. Your career is over!

Now get in the drunk tank.

[liberal N proud]

31. The Orange Man must received a call from Grover.

[ErikJ]

34. Socialism!

[madrchsod]

36. no pork?

good luck getting reelected