“YOU CANNOT COMPROMISE WITH SOMEONE WHO DOES NOT WANT TO MAKE A DEAL”
By Mick Mulvaney || At a recent town hall meeting I had a constituent ask me a fairly straightforward question: “Why won’t you compromise with the President?” My response was probably not what she expected: “Do you want to sell your home?” Taken aback, she responded that she did not. “I’ll give you $100,000,” I told her. Again, she refused. “How about $200,000?” I pressed. “Stop,” she exclaimed, “I don’t want to sell my house.”
“Well, why won’t you compromise with me?” I asked.
I hope my point was fairly made: You cannot compromise with someone who does not want to make a deal.
This is exactly where we are in discussions on the so-called fiscal cliff. If the administration wants to see higher tax rates and the sequester cuts go into effect – which judging from their negotiating stance they do – then it is very difficult to negotiate with them.
Consider the President’s most recent offer, in which he insisted on: 1) $1,600,000,000,000 in new taxes; 2) yet another “stimulus” program; 3) an extension of unemployment insurance; 4) more money to bail out mortgages; and 5) permanent and arbitrary authority to raise the debt ceiling without any Congressional oversight. Oh, and as to the so-called “balanced approach,” not only were no new spending cuts specifically identified, but President Obama is proposing that the currently scheduled cuts be “delayed.” Also notably absent from his offering was any reference whatsoever to entitlement spending.
Going back to the analogy of buying someone’s home for a moment, if you really did want to sell your house and someone offered you $1 for it, would you really think they were serious buyers? That is in essence what the President has done.
I am not sure why any of this should come as a surprise. Many conservatives have thought for some time that the President was more than happy to go over the fiscal cliff – and stay there. After all, doing so would accomplish some things that he has pursued for some time. He never liked the so-called Bush tax cuts, for instance, and it is Democrat orthodoxy that the Clinton-era tax rates – to which all rates would return post-cliff – somehow magically created national prosperity.
As to the sequester cuts, they dramatically reduce military spending, a holy grail to many in his party.
Does that sound like partisan hyperbole? To the contrary, it is consistent with what the President’s own party has been saying to anyone willing to listen (or read a recent article in Investor’s Business Daily on the topic): 1) Paul Krugman wrote a column recently entitled, “Let’s not make a deal;” 2) Daily Kos warned that any “deal” between the president and the Republicans would smack of a “Great Betrayal;” 3) Many Democratic lawmakers have openly suggested that going over the cliff would only strengthen the President’s position; and 4) The Huffington Post called going over the fiscal cliff “a hand Democrats are looking forward to playing.”
More recently former DNC Chair Howard Dean, in a rare moment of candor, acknowledged that “the truth is, everybody needs to pay more taxes, not just the rich.” Going over the cliff accomplishes exactly that.
Of course the key issue for the left is not the taxes or the military spending cuts – but who gets the blame. The fiscal cliff allows Democrats that rare political opportunity to do something that they want to do – something that is politically unpopular – while letting somebody else pay the political price.
I fully admit that I may somehow be missing the serious offer buried within the President’s rhetoric. That said, Mark Zandi – head of Moody’s Analytics and a recent Democrat witness before the Joint Economic Committee just last week – lamented the lack of spending cuts and entitlement reforms in the President’s offer. I would suggest that if he cannot find them, they aren’t there.
People like Messrs. Krugman and Kuttner, the folks at Daily Kos and The Huffington Post – and most especially Mr. Dean – actually deserve our praise in all of this. Why? Because at least they are being honest about where they stand. And at least they are showing the courtesy of not making that $1 offer to buy your house.
Perhaps it is time for the President to consider doing the same.
***
Mick Mulvaney represents South Carolina’s fifth congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives.
33 comments
Thank you Rep. Mulvaney for reminding me why I voted for you in your bid to turn out Spratt 4 years ago.
Mick- Keep up the fight. You are correct
Mulvaney, give it up please. The dance party has already started between the Speaker and the President. But being a democrat please keep up this non compromise BS as that will make it so much easier for us to take the house back two years from now.
Somebody took your house?
Thank you “lil mick” for your most astute opinion! As usual you are off base and make no sense. Like your comrade in the house, jeffy duncan, you are way over your head and out of your league.
You should have remained in Columbia where you fit in well with the other political light weights of your party.
The poor old Jesuits at Georgetown must really proud in turning out such a product as you. Did you fall asleep in your classes?
Mick, you still oppose HR254.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr254
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHsIjMPP2M8
You suck until you start taking on real issues.
More typical Noquest/GOP talking points. It’s not our fault. We are serious, its all the President’s fault. Well, no you are not, and its Republicans who need to get honest.
That is all crap, the public is no longer buying. You need to admit that you are willing to see higher taxes on everyone in an attempt to preserve tax rates for your billionaire donors. You are willing to hold 98% of Americans hostage to coerce a better deal for the people who waisted a billion dollars on this last election.
As for “entitlement cuts” what is your proposal? Privatize Social Security? Turn Medicare into a voucher program? If so why don’t you say, that is what you are fighting for. And by the way please stop calling them entitlements. Just say you want to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. That is being honest.
i wish i could vote u up; well said Jan!!!!
republicans continue to bow before their rich masters; this is why money must be removed from politics.
mulvaney sucked long and hard at the billionaire teat to get into office. thats the only coolaide he understands.
Typical GOP bullshit!
Jan, you ignorant slut. High taxes to pay for entitlements that support unproductivity is not asking to much, is it? This is your point? The truth is to pay for these entitlements, taxes must be raised on 90% of Americans, which begins next year with the roll back of the Obama tax Cuts of 2008.
cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20026069-503544.html
Healthcare Act? Try the mandatory sales tax on healthcare, to be passed onto premium holders. The ACA imposes a new $100 billion sales tax on health insurance that will add to the cost of coverage for people purchasing coverage on their own, small employers, Medicare Advantage beneficiaries, and Medicaid managed care programs. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has said that this tax will be “largely passed through to consumers in the form of higher premiums.” An analysis by Oliver Wyman estimates that this tax alone “will increase premiums in the insured market on average by 1.9% to 2.3% in 2014,” and by 2023 “will increase premiums 2.8% to 3.7%.
http://ahip.org/Issues/January-1-2014-Provisions.aspx
You still do not know what was in the Healthcarse Act of 2010, even though your Democrat Party passed it without debate, in the middle of the night, and using kickbacks to buy votes.
You want tax hikes, there is your tax hikes. Time for Democrats to be honest. These tax hikes are for what? Entitlements? Really?
Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI)
Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA)
Public Assistance (PA)
Medicaid
Medicaid Buy-In Program
Food Stamps
Social Security
children’s health insurance
school lunch programs
welfare
unemployment insurance
the Child Tax Credit
Earned Income Tax Credit
The above programs are rife with waste. many on these programs need to be employed, and paying for their own way in life. Oh, but Obama has spent trillions of shovel ready jobs that never existed or went to illegal immigrants who shovel the income tax free money south of the border, but I digress. Of the total number of Americans, not illegal immigrants and Americans,
just Americans who receive entitlements, 53% are elderly. No problem there as they paid into the system. What of the other 47%….ohh, there is that number again. 20% are disabled and 18% live in non-elderly, non-disabled working household. You want reform, start sifting through this 47% for fraud and waste.
gmhc.org/get-support/stay-healthy/benefits-and-entitlements
Your unions spent more than 400 million union due money on the last election. Money spent without asking donors if they approved of giving all that money to one political party, the Democrat Party. Money that was stolen from working middle class families.
realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/02/22/unions_gearing_up_to_spend_big_in_2012_election_113211.html
George Soros gave upwards of 200 million dollars to various Democrat SuperPacs. Time for you, Jan, to get up to speed on the filth you allow into your brain from MSNBC and The Nation.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/27/soros-gives-1-million-to-democratic-super-pac
Time for you Jan, and Smirks and the rest of the rabid, leftist, brainwashed 20 somethings that are in their first jobs or live in mommy’s basement looking for work or both to get a clue that America is not as stupid as you folks seem to be.
Why not say, we should pay entitlements and tax the wealthy more to do so? “Pay for tax cuts”, is an illogical statement.
I would never say that, because I am no longer using the word entitlement. It is a Republican word used to confuse the voting public. We are talking about Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Twice now Republicans have gone after those programs and twice the electorate has punished them for doing so.
They are afraid to say what they want to do. They want to keep the current tax rates for the top 2% and replace the revenue lost by doing so with cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. If they believe that is what we should do they should say so. But they will not, because they know that is unpopular even among Republican voters.
Ah, to be a twenty something. Thomas I employee 6 people full time. How many jobs have you created?
Thomas,
I’m fifty fucking years old and know that you GOPer’s austerity economic bullshit isn’t/hasn’t worked out. Just fucking look at Europe.
I get it Jan, atleast you are old enough to remember Point, Counter Point with Dan Akroyd and Jane Curtin.
This makes you even worse.
All that is important to you is the score of a game, we win, they lose. You have no interest in the workings of the game if it does not involve your personal interests.
You say you employ 6 people. I say bovine sewage. You suck money out off other people’s hard work and good intentions. I suppose you offer healthcare and are ok with Unemployment Insurance rates in SC? You do not run anything. I would wager you live off a charitable tax donation from donors and foundations, probably seeded with federal grant money. Your cause? Probably the advancement of the LGTB selfish interests.
Let me give you a clue, private Foundations peg annual disbursements on the stock market closing the last business day in December. Where do you think they invest their money to make money to donate money to people like you? If the stock market crashes, foundations have less to donate to your favorite political, selfish cause. You live off charitable tax contributions but are too ashamed to say that.
I bet you could not even begin to see that I trounced you and your Democrat party using your own bible. Alas, you probably do not read the NYT. I do sometimes.
You know the times we are in, QE spending, tax talks in DC, Syria burning, Egypt in protests, Benghazi, North Korea, etc….serious stuff, but do you know what the most popular stories at the NYT is for the last 24 hours?
1) Fallen Dean’s Life, Contradictory to Its Grisly End
2)P-ED COLUMNIST The God Glut
3)Photo Shows Man, Gun in Hand, Just Before Fatal Shot
4)Obesity in Young Is Seen as Falling in Several Cities
5)OP-ED COLUMNIST Social Science Palooza III
6)FIVETHIRTYEIGHT Why Hillary Clinton Would Be Strong in 2016
7)New Problems With Boeing 787 Revive Concerns
8)Michigan Governor Signs Laws Limiting Unions
9)When Daily Stress Gets in the Way of Life
10) Understanding How Children Develop Empathy
Democrats are being spoon fed hate talk against the GOP on one end, and denied the truth on the other end. I am hip to it, get a clue.
As for you mojo biscuit risin, you have no clue why austerity is needed. If you did, you would not make ignorant comments such as the one above. GREECE is broke, finito, no mas dinero. Does that resonate in your empty skull? The programs are being cut by sequestration or automatic across the board cuts, such as it will be around here since politicians have no guts to find a solution nor do they want a solution. The bad ones on both sides want you so much buried in personal debt that they can dictate how you live your life, where you work, where you live. That is their game plan. You snicker when American’s are purged from committees in Congress, when states rise up to take back their finances at the behest of union labor dirty negotiations. You laugh until it is too late for you.
I think Tom is beginning to smell the death of the Republican Party…there’s fear, good reason…
Thank you, George Osbourne! I see your policies are really turning the U.K. around…
Thomas you have no class or brains. Did someone mention social security and entitlements in the same sentence? Let’s keep in mind that social security is NOT an entitlement. Let me say it once more, IT’S NOT AN ENTITLEMENT.
Look at the facts, history and how social sercurity was set up. It has been stated many times that we, the working slobs, pay into social security. Not so. Current workers make “contributions”, from their paychecks, to current retirees. This is not paying into but contributing, pure and simple. AND NOT PART OF THE CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET.
If some of the members of the GOP, and South Carolina’s extremely conservative tea party “second termers” such as Mulvaney, Scott, Trey whatever his last name is and my very favorite Mister Clumson footbawler lil jeffy duncan; would come clean and admit that the law is unambigous. That social security cannot be counted for purposes of the congressional budget. PERIOD!
What I really believe is that these are either lies, which Duncan is very good at, or a scam to frighten the people who they should be representing , or these idiots who have only served TWO years in congress just don’t have a clue.
My goodness they are $175,000 plus a staff and perks for on the job training! Oh hell, you get for what you pay for, and look what we got. Night all.
The GOP is saying alot in public, but my guess is behind the scenes they are scratching for deal because they do not want to be labeled the reason for any hardship. It would hurt them in two years.
Now, this cliff doesn’t really exist. Even if 12-31 is not reached, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be changed after 12-31. They all know that.
Look for higher taxes on $300K and above (net income), keep the cuts for lesser incomes, keep the cuts on FICA (which is wrong) and who knows where the cuts will come from. Defense does need trimming. Other areas of the budget do too.
Will, if you’ve “made it clear that we think U.S. Rep. Mick Mulvaney is the best choice to carry on the pro-free market, pro-taxpayer legacy of Jim DeMint,” you should not let him show his ass with articles like this.
Dude…didn’t you get the Red Diaper Baby memo? O’s mamma was a hardcore commie…in order to “fundamentally transform” America, you gotta destroy it financially. O and his party are hell-bent on doing just that…Look at O’s little brother in Kenya…no heat… no electricity…no runny water…that’s Obama’s little brother’s lot in life (while O spends our money on lavish vacations yet refuses to give his brother a dime)…Soon the American middle class will fare no better than O’s little brother…the rich will get richer (ask soros or buffett how they are doing)…the middle class and poor will get poorer…that’s Obama’s policies for you…
You might not seem like just another Republican hack, if you had any facts to back those arguments up. But since you don’t you are just another Palin, Bachmann, Romney, Gingrich, Ryan etc. etc etc. All bluster and no substance.
In the end you just hate Obama.
Guess someone’s upset Obama dropped a pair…
Where are the damn jobs Micky boy. Here’s the deal, either you dumbass Repubicunts agree to raise taxes on the most wealthy or they will be raised on everyone. Raising the taxes all at once on the lower 98% is what may lead us to a doubledip recession. That said Dr. Dean is probably right. The Bush tax cuts while fighting two wars was and still is fiscally irresponsible.
Good grief, you people are so remedial.
JFK proposed tax cuts in 1963. LBJ passed them in ’64. Unemployment fell from 5.2% to 3.8%. Tax revenues increased 3.7% in 1965, and 12.0% in ’66.
Reagan cut taxes. The unemployment rate dropped from 10.8% to 5.4%. After an initial dip of -2.8% in revenues in 1983, tax revenues increased 11% in ’84, 10% in ’85, slowed to a 4.8% in ’86 after further tax cuts then bounced up to 11.1% again in ’87.
Clinton’s policies were a mixed bag. The economy definitely benefitted from the Internet boom. Clinton balanced income tax hikes with capital gains cuts and annual revenue increases remained steady at around 8% per year. But the capital gains tax cut caused revenue increases to climb to 10.8% by 2000.
W cut taxes to counter the economic hits from the .com bust and 9/11. Unemployment dropped from 6.3% to 4.4%. Revenues rose 5.5% in 2004, 14.5% in ’05, 11.8% in ’06 and 6.7% in ’07.
So please, just knock it off with the “lower taxes cause recessions” crap. Lowering taxes gets you OUT of recessions — EVERY TIME.
Talk about remedial
Tax cuts goood. Tax increases baaad. Grover tell me so.
Nice try, Mick, but you still didn’t make the short list.
Well, actually, it wasn’t even a very good try.
I’m a Mulvaney staffer and I’m here to set the record straite, duh, see mi boss penis is almost big enuf to see duh and we won the last election by 50% of da vodes and our nearist opnit almost beet us even though shes a political nobody.
duh, speaker boner is thupid an a meanie cause he kicked us off a few committees.
Im dum cause i eat my own feces on a regular basis. vote for me.
Race for White House Wide Open After Hillary Leaves Office in 2024
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) — The race for the White House will most likely be “wide open” after Hillary Clinton serves her two terms as President, experts agree.
“What happens in 2024 is anyone’s guess — and if anyone tells you differently, they’re lying,” says political science professor Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota. “The only thing we can say with any certainty is that Hillary Clinton will be elected President by a landslide in 2016 and reëlected by an even bigger margin in 2020.”
Mr. Logsdon says that possible Republican Presidential candidates in 2024 could include Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, with this caveat: “If any of those men have the misfortune of running against Hillary in 2016 or 2020, she will defeat them so soundly that their political careers will be finished and they will vanish from public life forever.”
As for the future of the Democratic Party after Hillary’s two terms are over, Mr. Logsdon offers this prediction: “I can tell you right now that Hillary’s Presidency will be so successful that she will usher in a Democratic dynasty of sorts. I’m not a betting man, but if I had to guess, I’d say that after eight years of Hillary there will be eight years of Michelle, then eight years each for Chelsea, Sasha, and Malia.”
But “not so fast,” says Democratic strategist Tracy Klugian, who believes such predictions sell Hillary short: “Assuming her current poll numbers hold up in 2024, I think it’s safe to say that Hillary Clinton will be the most popular President in U.S. history. In that event, the Twenty-second Amendment, which limits the President to two terms, will be repealed and Hillary will run again.”
Mr. Logsdon, however, scoffs at that scenario: “If the Twenty-second Amendment is repealed, Bill will run again.”
Give it up Shawty. Your ass ain’t seeing the US Senate from demint’s chair.
How about everybody working for a bowl of rice a day. You really don’t need much more than that. To each according to his need, from each according to his ability.
Forward, Slaves!
“Of the 10 members speaking at the lowest grade level, all but two are freshmen, and every one is a Republican.
South Carolina Republican Rep. Mick Mulvaney ranks the very lowest, with a grade level of 7.94.”
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/05/21/153024432/sophomoric-members-of-congress-talk-like-10th-graders-analysis-shows
The US isn’t being “destroyed financially”. It’s recovering at a reasonable pace and in a reasonable way.
Change is scary to the historically ignorant who can only spout propaganda.
The same old White people who have always owned and run the US still run the US. One President (who is functionally Centrist) doesn’t mean shit. We have the same masters.
The American Middle Class statistics are worth a look over time. The realities which created the post-WWII boom are gone. GONE. They were a fluke caused by WWII destroying our competition. Deal with it. They cannot return.
The good news for the South, at least for Southerners who aren’t unskilled trash, is that the economy is steadily expanding and looks to continue.
If we are going to factor in “discouraged” workers (pussies who gave up), then we should factor in “losers” such as those with criminal records and other oxygen wasters too.