Fiscal Cliff -O- Rama!!

[Guest Phailadelphia]

Taylor, what would you like to see in the final bill that they eventually pass?

 

I don't even care anymore. The deal they're about to agree to is just going to lead us into a bunch of "mini-cliffs" in 2013 PLUS the debt ceiling debacle the GOP has promised to conjure up AGAIN in February. These fuckers just toy with the economy on a whim with no regard to national or global consequences. It's infuriating.

 

Edit: And this deal may not pass anyway. The Senate has essentially come to an agreement and is just working out the kinks for now. But does anyone really believe the House GOP is going to pass it? I don't.

Edited December 31, 2012 by Phailadelphia

[Guest Phailadelphia]

The House has announced it will not vote on the fiscal cliff (or anything else) tonight. So we're going off the cliff for at least one day.

[Guest Phailadelphia]

1-1-13 update:

The Senate came together and passed a bill late last night. Because the fiscal cliff began at midnight and there was no deal yet, this new bill was essentially full of tax cuts and tax hikes. Individuals below 400k and families below 450k got tax cuts. Anyone higher than that got tax increases. The estate tax remained unchanged (dumb imo) while the child tax credit took a hit (this is why the unchanged estate tax is dumb). But it did not contain any spending cuts. This bill was basically just purely the revenues side of the fiscal cliff agreement because Congress doesn't want to let everyone get hit by tax hikes. Instead the sequester cuts get postponed for 2 months (so basically we get Fiscal Cliff Part Deux in February).

 

Anyway. This thing passed 89-9 in the Senate last night thanks to McConnell, Reid, and Biden. It reached the House today and needless to say House Republicans aren't pleased. They're working on amending it, which has drawn the ire of everyone in the Senate + House Dems. In other words, House Republicans are probably going to fuck the entire deal up and send us over the cliff. Which is ridiculous. They couldn't get shit done so Boehner handed the hot potate to the Senate and said "here, we're too incompetent to agree to anything so you come up with a deal and then we'll sign off on it."

 

There's still a small change the House just has a simple up/down vote on the unamended Senate bill but that decision is squarely on the shoulders of Boehner.

 

There's been some fucking up on this by both sides but if we go over the cliff at this point, it's Republicans hands that are bloody. They're the only ones impeding a deal at this point.

 

Edit: And House GOP is STILL trying to defund Dodd-Frank. Unless you work for Wall Street you should not be on board with that imo.

 

Edit 2: Looks like the House *will* vote on the Senate bill, unamended. Can't say I saw that one coming. It might actually pass too.

Edited January 2, 2013 by Phailadelphia

[SteVo+ 3,702]

The House will vote on the Senate's bill within the next hour or so.

 

[SteVo+ 3,702]

So, the bill has passed. And I'm sure the President will sign it at some point today. Perhaps this is good news in the short term for the middle class, but it's worth noting that in this bill provides $41 of tax increases for every $1 of spending cuts. http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/12/31/Fiscal-cliff-deal-41-1-in-tax-increases-to-spending-cuts-ratio

[ATL_Predator+ 1,196]

Bill signed?

 

[Maverick 791]

My coworkers were discussing this a bit.

 

Apparently I'll be giving the government more of my money under the Payroll Tax for the next year at least? I'm under 30k a year so if the math is done right I'll be losing like $15 more than I normally did. And it gets worse as your yearly wages increase. I'm definitely not very clear about what's going on but that's what I got from it.

[SteVo+ 3,702]

My coworkers were discussing this a bit.

 

Apparently I'll be giving the government more of my money under the Payroll Tax for the next year at least? I'm under 30k a year so if the math is done right I'll be losing like $15 more than I normally did. And it gets worse as your yearly wages increase. I'm definitely not very clear about what's going on but that's what I got from it.

 

Yes, while the Senate's bill kept income tax rates the same, payroll tax rates will rise from 4.2% to 6.2%. So, let's say you earn $30,000 annually. Under the previous rates, you would pay $1,260 in payroll taxes per year; starting this year, you would pay $1,860. That's a $600 increase, or $50 per month.

[Maverick 791]

Yes, while the Senate's bill kept income tax rates the same, payroll tax rates will rise from 4.2% to 6.2%. So, let's say you earn $30,000 annually. Under the previous rates, you would pay $1,260 in payroll taxes per year; starting this year, you would pay $1,860. That's a $600 increase, or $50 per month.

 

Fuckers.

[SteVo+ 3,702]

Fuckers.

 

Basically.

 

And my understanding of our payroll tax (though I'm not totally sure about it) is that it primarily funds Social Security, which is going bankrupt. It's more than mildly frustrating that our taxes are going up to fund a failing program.

[Omerta+ 1,206]

WE should have just gone over the cliff. I knew this half baked bullshit was going to screw us. Stupid fucks on both sides.

[SteVo+ 3,702]

[OSUViking 505]

Right... so I just came back to reality after like 4 days of Assassin's Creed 3, Halo 4, Madden 13, and BF3.

 

We avoided the cliff?

 

EDIT: Well... I'll start making the fallout bunker so that I'm prepared for February.

Edited January 3, 2013 by Vikingfan465