THE FISCAL CLIFF IN TERMS YOU CAN UNDERSTAND

The White House estimates that the average American family will pay $2,200 more in taxes next year if an agreement is not reached. In fact, the final tally could be even higher.

So with rising Democratic opposition to cuts in social spending and teapublican leaders reiterating their opposition to raising taxes on the wealthy, talks on avoiding the fiscal cliff were at a standstill Thursday.

Officials on both sides of the debate say the political jockeying is likely to continue this week. But they warn that the details of a compromise must emerge next week if an agreement is to be reached in time.

Erskine Bowles, the co-chair of the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction task force, said on Wednesday that he was skeptical that a deal would be reached. Bowles put the chances of an agreement before the end of the year at roughly one in three.

"I believe the problem is that we are going over the fiscal cliff," Bowles told The New York Times, "and I think that will be horrible."

Bowles just happens to be right. While potential tax increases on the rich have dominated the political debate, a raft of taxes on the middle class will increase if an agreement is not reached. The scope will vary, depending on a person's income. White House officials estimate that the average American family will pay $2,200 more in taxes next year if an agreement is not reached. But, if an agreement is not reached at all, even after the January 1 deadline, the increase could be higher, particularly for households that make over $100,000 a year. Here's why:

Alternative Minimum Tax: An obscure tax created in the 1960s to ensure that the super-wealthy paid a minimum amount of tax, inflation and other factors have resulted in the AMT now applying to the four to five million Americans who make $200,000 to $1 million, according to the Washington Post. In recent years, Congress has enacted a "patch" that prevents the AMT from applying to Americans who make less. Unless an agreement is reached, no "patch" will be enacted, and another 31 million Americans will have to pay the tax.

The non-partisan Tax Policy Center estimates that over half of all married couples will owe an additional $4,000, the Post reported. And a third of families with children will have to pay the AMT as well, with parents of three or more children facing an extra tax of up to $4,700.

The center estimates that 84 percent of married couples that make a total of $75,000 to $100,000 and have at least two children will pay a significantly higher tax bill this year because of the AMT.

The impact would be much higher in some areas, with the number of AMT-paying taxpayers in New Jersey rising to 50.3 percent, the highest rate in the country, according to the Post. And the percentage of taxpayer paying the AMT in California, New York and Connecticut would rise to over 30 percent.

Given the breadth of the potential AMT increases, experts predict that Congress will enact a "patch" even if a broader agreement is not reached. For middle class families, let's hope they are right.

Payroll tax: A payroll tax holiday that was enacted in 2010 is set to expire, according to the Fiscal Times. The tax holiday cut employee Social Security contributions by two percent for households that make less than $11000 a year. The end of the measure could mean that the average American family pays another $1,000 in taxes per year.

Deductions: Increases in deductions that were part of the Bush tax cuts will expire. Marginal tax rates will change as well, as described in this Washington Post piece. Exactly how this will play out for families depends on multiple factors. One calculator that could help you estimate the impact on your family is here.

A short-term deal will likely be made to not increase middle class taxes. Allowing that to happen would be political suicide for both parties. But I think the chances of a long-term deficit-reduction deal are low. The failure of both parties to seize this post-election moment, show political courage, and compromise is tragic. This missed opportunity will haunt us and our economy for years.

If our elected leaders can't agree with this type of a political and economic gun to their head, I doubt there will be an agreement any closer to the 2014 midterm elections. Even if a short-term deal prevents middle class taxes from rising, our fiscal dysfunction is likely to continue.



NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West

FOUNDATION OF LIES

In America we have only two choices, and until such time [which I doubt ever happens in our time] that changes we have the Democrats and the society of mental patients [republicnas]. I choose the Democrats.

Fiscal Responsibility: Eddie Munster spoke on this very topic last night, Paul Ryan spoke on how fiscal inept this country is and how fiscal sound he is. Facts for the record:

According to Fox News columnist Sally Kohn, vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan's speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday "was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech."

"On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold," Kohn wrote.

In a surprising move, Fox News joined CNN, The Huffington Post, the Washington Post's Wonkblog, and ThinkProgress in publishing a fact-check of the Republican vice presidential nominee's speech, finding that the speech was full of lies and misleading assertions.

Kohn, who describes herself as a "progressive voice on Fox News," wrote in her Thursday column that though Ryan came off as likable during his speech, his misrepresentations and omissions "caused a much larger problem for himself and his running mate."

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

In her column, Kohn called out four lies in Ryan's speech. She critcized Ryan for blaming President Obama for the shutdown of a General Motors plant in Janesville, Wis., that actually was closed during the Bush administration. She also knocked Ryan for pinning the blame for S&P's downgrade of U.S. debt on Obama, when Republicans in Congress helped precipitate the downgrade by threatening to refuse to raise the debt ceiling.

"The good news is that the Romney-Ryan campaign has likely created dozens of new jobs among the legions of additional fact checkers that media outlets are rushing to hire to sift through the mountain of cow dung that flowed from Ryan’s mouth," Kohn wrote.

You can read Sally Kohn's full takedown of Paul Ryan's speech for Fox News here.

At a basic level of humanity, what pisses me off about politicians who lie, especially at a national level, is that the deceptions are degrading. A candidate who knows the truth, but makes a deliberate decision to deceive, is working from the assumption that Americans are suckers.

And last night, Paul Ryan made painfully clear that he thinks we're all profound idiots who'll believe an endless string of lies, so long as they're packaged well and presented with conviction. Jonathan Cohn suggested last night's address may have been the "most dishonest convention speech" ever delivered.

It was a truly breathtaking display of brazen dishonesty. Paul Ryan looked America in the eye and without a hint a shame, lied to our face:

Ryan lied about President Obama's auto-industry rescue, blaming the administration for a plant closing orchestrated by President Bush. Ryan lied about Medicare, falsely accusing Obama of undermining the system. Ryan lied about the debt downgrade, falsely blaming the president for a downgrade caused by Ryan and congressional Republicans.

Ryan lied about the Simpson-Bowles commission, falsely accusing Obama of walking away from debt reduction, and ignoring the fact that Ryan himself fought to ensure the Simpson-Bowles commission never even released a report. Ryan lied about his plans for the safety net, saying he intends to "protect the weak" when he budget plan intends to gut public investments that benefit the poor.

Ryan lied about the debt, saying Obama "has added more debt than any other president before him," when the truth is, that was George W. Bush -- who added over $5 trillion to the debt thanks in large part to congressional votes cast by Paul Ryan.

Ryan lied about the Recovery Act, calling the stimulus "a case of political patronage, corporate welfare, and cronyism at their worst," when reality shows the exact opposite. Ryan lied about small businesses, accusing Obama of raising their taxes, when he actually cut their taxes.

Paul Ryan, the man the media and 'the American Taliban" celebrate as a bold truth-teller, told one lie after another, demonstrating a near-pathological disdain for honesty. His speech presented no substantive ideas, no policy solutions, and no bold positions on any key issue, but it included enough falsehoods to choke a fact-checker -- all because he assumes you're a fool.

Dan Amira called the speech "appallingly disingenuous and shamelessly hypocritical," but added this gem:

Most of the millions of people who watched the speech on television tonight do not read fact-checks or obsessively consume news 15 hours a day, and will never know how much Ryan's case against Obama relied on lies and deception. Ryan's pants are on fire, but all America saw was a barn-burner.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer said he counted "seven or eight" claims that "fact checkers will have some opportunities to dispute," but concluded the lies didn't matter because it was "a powerful speech" that gave Republicans what they "were hoping for."

Let that sentence roll around in your brain for a moment, and ponder what it means for our country.

Ryan lied uncontrollably, but that's not terribly important. It undermines our democracy and the basic norms of the American political system, but no one seems to care anymore. Ryan thinks we're idiots, but his cynicism matters less than the electoral implications.

The United States is better than Paul Ryan's dishonesty. It has to be. Our future depends on it.

Facts about Paul "Eddie Munster" Ryan and what he voted for:

Bush Tax Cuts
TARP
Auto bailout
Two unfunded wars
both stimulus 2008/2009
Rx drug program for the elderly


How 'fiscal responsible' is this for the pathological liar named Paul Ryan?

It is now clear that the Romney-Ryan ticket is dead set on running the most extreme, out of touch, outrageous, dishonest, hypocritical and mindless campaign in the history of modern American presidential politics. The campaign itself has said on numerous occasions that "facts" are meaningless and they will ignore them. This is not only absurd, but a dangerous trend for our nation and our democracy. We have Paul Ryan on stage throwing red meat lies to a crowd of the most radical elements of the American Taliban imaginable. Ryan is no budget genius; he is a phony. Ryan endorses tax cuts for the rich, subsidies for Big Oil, and record spending on military contractors with no way to pay for them. At the same time, he wants to end Medicare as we know it and leave tens of millions of Americans without way to pay their bills. This is how we grow the economy? Good luck America with Thurston Howell III and Eddie Munster running your country.



NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West