The fiscal cliff

[PrincessFiona]

I'm all for it now. Honestly, our govt. has shown itself to be so inept. Taxes are going up no matter what so I say cut the hell out of govt. Spending. I hope it is a painful lesson for politicians and for us as Americans.
I have to balance my household budget and it can be hard.

Tell me why I'm wrong!


Kris

[Deebs]

I'm not sure you are wrong. Seeing where our government is, I'm afraid if we don't go over the cliff, we'll be the next Greece. I was disgusted to hear that there was a big 'old Christmas party at the White House last night with our Congressional members in attendance.

[moonlight]

My republican congressman posted on FB that he wants to eliminate dept of ed, cut back on entitlements, and end the wars. I agree with the last one. Why can't we do this sooner rather than later and to help solve some of these problems?

[GrayMatterWife]

Push 'em off. Being off the cliff cannot possibly be worse that being deeper in the hole.

[SoonerTexan]

I'm tempted to see what life at the bottom of the cliff is like too. Except I don't want to wait freakin forever for the new tax rules to become available

[HouseofWool]

I am all for abolishing the dept of ed and moving that back to a state issue. Shift the tax burden solely to states for that one too.

I don't think we should go back to a Clinton era sized military, but we certainly need to pull back troops.

Again - don't allow riders on bills and an astonishing amount of pork will disappear.

[bobk]

Just came across this simplified calculator for the coming tax increases:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...cut-scenarios/

In our case, there's no difference between the Democrat and Republican plans, so each month we'd pay ~$100 with either or ~$200 more without.

[Michele]

Crap. I had no idea how much I was going to be paying....I hope enough was taken out of my checks each pay period....

[spotty_dog]

There's been some interesting articles coming out about the benefits of austerity (like Greece) vs stimulus (like Germany) in battling an economic recession. This is a good one: http://www.voxeu.org/article/procycl...ty-vs-stimulus

I think that spending is too high and revenues are too low. But I don't think ripping off the bandaid with sequestration and marginal tax rate expirations and payroll tax expirations and capital gains rate increases and losing tax credits and failing to track the AMT exemption with inflation and yadda yadda, all at once, is the answer. We'll probably survive but there will be painful times ahead and probably a recession worse than 2009. We are just getting back on our feet...I don't think we need to pull the rug back out right now.

Assuming the Democratic and Republican plans are similar to what was proposed during the election campaign, I like the Democratic plan better. It's an easing into the conditions after the cliff. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxto...-tax-plans.cfm

[moonlight]

I guess my taxes would go up around $100 per month next year. It's sort of complicated because we are moving out of a state with very high state income taxes. When that happens our take-come pay should increase.

[bobk]

Crap. I had no idea how much I was going to be paying....I hope enough was taken out of my checks each pay period....

I think the new rates only apply for 2013, so would not affect your 2012 payments.

[Michele]

Whew!

[GrayMatterWife]

I am just getting really tired of people conflating raising taxes with raising revenue.

[HouseofWool]

According to that calculator, I most definitely want the democrats plan... The fiscal cliff means that my tax burden will triple. YIKES!

[HouseofWool]

Raising taxes isn't the answer, we have to cut spending tremendously in order for any positives to come from it.