Northwest Indiana Discussion

Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, made his “fiscal cliff” position clear in a press conference today. “We are not going to do anything,” said Reid.

Reid added, “We are not taking up anything they are working on over there.”

The top Democrat in the Senate was explaining his inaction on the House plan, the proposal put forward by Republican John Boehner, the speaker of the House of Representatives. Boehner’s plan is being referred to as ‘Plan B.’

Mr. Obama repeatedly lost patience with the speaker as negotiations faltered. In an Oval Office meeting last week, he told Mr. Boehner that if the sides didn’t reach agreement, he would use his inaugural address and his State of the Union speech to tell the country the Republicans were at fault.

At one point, according to notes taken by a participant, Mr. Boehner told the president, “I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?”

“You get nothing,” the president said. “I get that for free.”

A majority of voters believe that a recession is likely next year regardless of whether lawmakers reach a last-minute deal to avoid the “fiscal cliff,” according to a new poll.

A full 70 percent of voters told the conservative-leaning pollster Rasmussen they expect a recession next year if Congress fails to stop the tax increases and spending cuts that are set to begin in January.

But even if lawmakers take action before the end of the year, 54 percent believe a recession is coming in 2013, with 26 percent rating that outcome “very likely.”

The Congressional Budget Office and other economic analysts have predicted that a plunge over the fiscal cliff would pull hundreds of billions from the economy and create a recession in the first half of 2013.

What’s more, asked to give a word or short phrase to describe the Republican Party, 65% offered a negative comment, including MORE THAN HALF of Republicans. The top responses: “Bad,” “weak,” “negative,” “uncompromising,” “need to work together,” “broken,” “disorganized” and “lost.”

Middle-class workers will take a bigger hit to their income proportionately than those earning between $200,000 and $500,000 under the new fiscal cliff deal, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

Earners in the latter group will pay an average 1.3 percent more – or an additional $2,711 – in taxes this year, while workers making between $30,000 and $200,000 will see their paychecks shrink by as much as 1.7 percent – or up to $1,784 – the D.C.-based think tank reported.

Overall, nearly 80 percent of households will pay more money to the federal government as a result of the fiscal cliff deal.

‘The economy needs a stimulus, but under the agreement, taxes will go up in 2013 relative to 2012 – not only on high-income households, as widely discussed, but also on every working man and woman in the country, via the end of the payroll tax cut,’ said William G. Gale, co-director of the Tax Policy Center.

‘For most households, the payroll tax takes a far bigger bite than the income tax does, and the payroll tax cut therefore – as [the Congressional Budget Office] and others have shown – was a more effective stimulus than income tax cuts were, because the payroll tax cuts hit lower in the income distribution and hence were more likely to be spent,’ he added.

Workers Making $30K Will Take A Bigger Hit On Their Pay Than Those Earning $500K Under New Fiscal Deal

But pre-cliff taxation levels haven't been so low since the Korean War. The reality is the Bush tax cuts didn't create a motherlode of jobs and were never paid for, while the Republican-supported Iraq and Afghan wars and the Medicare prescription drug plan have created our trillion-dollar deficits.

WASHINGTON — Democratic Illinois Rep. Danny K. Davis told The Daily Caller that President Obama should have the power to raise the nation’s debt ceiling without congressional approval, citing the example of President Abraham Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation as a good use of presidential authority.

“Sometimes when we’ve gotten great answers is when presidents have had enough authority to take some actions,” Davis told TheDC on Capitol Hill Friday. “I mean, remember that we just celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, and if Abraham Lincoln had not had the power, authority and the will to make that decision, we may have gone on with the war that was going to last several additional years and much longer, and thousands and thousands of people could have and would have, in all probability, lost their lives.”

“So, I think that we should have enough faith and confidence in the president and the president ought to have the authority to make that decision without Congress placing limits or determinates or determinations, and so yes, I think the president should have the ability to make that decision.”

Sometimes, watching a Democrat learn something is wonderful, like seeing the family dog finally sit and stay at your command.

With President Obama back in office and his life-saving “fiscal cliff” bill jammed through Congress, the new year has brought a surprising turn of events for his sycophantic supporters.

“What happened that my Social Security withholding’s in my paycheck just went up?” a poster wrote on the liberal site DemocraticUnderground.com. “My paycheck just went down by an amount that I don’t feel comfortable with. I guarantee this decrease is gonna’ hurt me more than the increase in income taxes will hurt those making over 400 grand. What happened?”

Shocker. Democrats who supported the president’s re-election just had NO idea that his steadfast pledge to raise taxes meant that he was really going to raise taxes. They thought he planned to just hit those filthy “1 percenters,” you know, the ones who earned fortunes through their inventiveness and hard work. They thought the free ride would continue forever.

So this week, as taxes went up for millions of Americans — which Republicans predicted throughout the campaign would happen — it was fun to watch the agoggery of the left.

“I know to expect between $93 and $94 less in my paycheck on the 15th,” wrote the ironically named “RomneyLies.”

“My boyfriend has had a lot of expenses and is feeling squeezed right now, and having his paycheck shrink really didn’t help,” wrote “DemocratToTheEnd.”

“BlueIndyBlue” added: “Many of my friends didn’t realize it, either. Our payroll department didn’t do a good job of explaining the coming changes.”

So let’s explain something to our ill-informed Democratic friends. In 2009, Mr. Obama enacted a “holiday” on the payroll tax deduction from employees’ paychecks, dropping the rate from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent. But like the holidays, the drop ended, and like New Year‘s, the revelers woke up the next morning with a massive hangover and a pounding head.

So it turns out that the Bush income tax cuts did benefit everyone who earned any income at all.

But pre-cliff taxation levels haven't been so low since the Korean War. The reality is the Bush tax cuts didn't create a motherlode of jobs and were never paid for, while the Republican-supported Iraq and Afghan wars and the Medicare prescription drug plan have created our trillion-dollar deficits.

A new video game featuring a black alien female superhero delivered to Earth to fight global warming is about to hit the market thanks to a $100,000 grant from the Obama administration.

The National Endowment for the Arts is funding the Spelman College of Atlanta, Ga.’s multi-episode game called “HERadventure.” In the grant announcement made last year, the NEA said the story “focuses on a young female superhero sent to Earth to save her own planet from devastation because of climate changes caused by social issues impacting women and girls.”

The game is set to debut on March 8 on International Women’s Day.

The college’s digital newspaper described the project this way: “What would happen if the societal issues affecting women put other planets at risk? Well, of course, HER, a black female superhero, would swoop in with a plan to save the universe. HER is central toHERadventure, a science fiction-based, multimedia platform project that interweaves virtual worlds, digital and social media to create a gaming and storytelling experience. HERadventure not only entertains but tackles social issues that permeate the daily reality of many women.”