On January 1, 2013, Michael mcAuliff and Sabrina Siddiqul write in The Huffington Post:
A day late and trillions of dollars short, Congress passed a hard-won deal to ease large portions of the “fiscal cliff.”
Republicans were upset the deal did not have cuts.
Liberals were unhappy Democrats left out a number of their goals for the bill, and that they did not push for setting the upper limit for retaining the old tax rates at $250,000 — a promise Obama campaigned and won on. Obama had hoped to raise $1.6 trillion in revenue over 10 years. The bill only raises $620 billion, suggesting to many Democrats that future deficit reduction could come from cutting cherished programs.
The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 is a bad deal because the measure locks in low revenue levels that will necessitate dramatic spending cuts in the future without new revenue generation resulting from economic growth. The question is what will the specifics of those spending cuts be during the debate on the sequester debt reduction?
At this stage of our anemic economic growth (2.5 percent) and the exponential march of tectonic shifts in the technologies of production that continue to destroy and devalue jobs, we need massive government investment via loan guarantees to stimulate economic growth and simultaneously broaden private, individual ownership in FUTURE income-producing assets with the result of creating “customers with money” and far less dependence on taxpayer-supported government welfare, open and concealed.
Until President Obama addresses the central issue of CONCENTRATED OWNERSHIP this exercise will continue with the result being no real ECONOMIC GROWTH in which EVERY American benefits as a FUTURE owner of the income-producing productive capital assets made possible by furthering technological innovation and invention, thus empowering them as “customers with money” who can then support the purchase of the products and services that the economy is capable of delivering. The issue comes down to Own or Be Owned!––whether the United States will become a country where EVERY American benefits as owners in its productive capacity or a minority of the wealthiest Americans dominate an otherwise slaved people––employed at low wages or on welfare and dependent on taxpayer-supported charity.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/01/fiscal-cliff-deal-passed-_n_2394022.html
