If one wishes to see what the rest of the world thinks about "The deal" One has only to look at the price of gold this morning! One might infer that they see better than we?

"Young urged the government to reduce excessive regulations to boost the economy"

Don Young you CAN just stuff it as well! We need regulations because they work to protect "the people" and this is all we "the people" have left!

These idiots should have allowed Bush Tax cuts to expire and that alone would have cleared this debt and solved the mess our country is in!

Listing to him right now, nothing but smoke and mirrors. He is making absolutely no sense at all. This man is a huge embarrassment to this country. I can here Carter laughing his back side off right now. He is asking for more stimulus spending can you believe that?

ArtVandelay - We can say the same about the Dem's (all corrupt!)

Little Rock, Ark. – Republican Party of Arkansas Executive Director Chase Dugger released the following statement concerning voter fraud by the Democrat Party in the Arkansas House District 54 race in Crittenden County:

“Testimony clearly demonstrates voter fraud is occurring by Democrats in the House District 54 race in Crittenden County. Meanwhile, Democrat Candidate Hudson Hallum, the Crittenden County Democrat Committee and the Democrat Party of Arkansas are refusing to acknowledge the illegal corruption happening on their watch. Hallum’s dishonest campaign is taking advantage of voters in Crittenden County. There is absolutely no room for this type of behavior in the Arkansas House of Representatives. Crittenden County deserves better and the Democrat Party needs to disavow their candidate and join us in demanding a fair election process.”

From ABC Channel 24 Memphis:

AR State Police Investigate Voter Fraud In Crittenden County

What's really disturbing is how we all bought into the Aug. 2nd date. The administration created chaos, once again, and everyone scrambled. It's the Alinsky way. And what happened to the pledge to give us 3 days to read the bills?

Did you all see what Krugman is saying today -
he's the talking head of the left on all things economic. No wonder our economy is in such shambles. GDP at 90% is just good, bond rating downgrades don't matter - OMG!

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/triple-a-moody-ratings-are-nonsense-scar...

I will say the Tea Party shaped this debate and came out mostly the winner.

What's worrisome about the bill is the commission that will decide on cuts. And if they can't agree, the cuts are automatic across the board, including defense and the bugaboo, medicare. Did you all see where China is busy building aircraft carriors? We can't let our defenses slip. Our equipment is worn out from 10+ years of war and they're cutting the budget. 16 more months and maybe we can start to turn things around.

The Tea Party should be seen in the same league. Imagine if Democrats threatened the country's credit rating to pursue an unachievable ideological agenda. They would be called traitors; Vice President Joe Biden finally called them "terrorists" but only behind closed doors.

The Tea Party has held the country hostage to a manufactured crisis designed to prove their ideological purity. At best, they are partisans who put their ideological commitments ahead of the country's. More systematically, they serve the interests of those who would destroy government effectiveness. John McCain, now that he has been safely reelected for what is likely to be his last term, has been one of the more effective voices against them. They deserve to be discredited permanently.

And what about common sense? What happens when you raise taxes? Don't you drive inflation? Why? Because higher taxes on businesses means higher costs at the pump, at the grocery story, everywhere. All businesses do is pass on the expense to the little people. They will still make the same amount, probably even more, we will simply all be paying more for everything. Then in turn, our tax increases will have a more dramatic affect on our pocketbook. 1% at $2 a gallon is far less than 1% at $5 per gallon. Oh, then when everything goes up in price, but we're paying a tiny bit lower taxes which is crap because we know that won't ever happen, we'll take pity on the fry guy at McDonalds and raise minimum wage.

Exactly how does charging businesses more in taxes benefit us if all they will do is pass on the expense to their customers? Is driving inflation a good thing? Is running business out of America a good thing? Does this make sense to anyone but me?

wren, makes sense to me! But then again we think in reality and not lala land.

Has anyone else noticed food prices? The producers held off on price increases for as long as they could but now they're having to pass them along to the consumer. Many items have gone up 50%, I've noticed. And how small can they make a cereal box to keep the price "low"?

@wren: please, please, please learn a little about economics before making broad, sweeping statements about who pays for tax increases.

Businesses are ONLY able to pass on a tax increase when a good/service's price is inelastic (usually necessary items that we can't live without, such as petroleum and food staples), because demand doesn't respond to an increase in price. But most goods have varying degrees of elasticity, which means that when price goes up, demand goes down. This means that businesses can't pass on all of a tax increase to the consumer, because the rise in price drives consumers to seek alternatives, thus reducing demand and the business' profits. An example of a very elastic product would be soda. If Mug Root Beer were to suddenly raise their prices by 25%, you'd see a sharp decrease in Mug consumption and a sharp increase in other brands of root beer consumption. The increase in price wouldn't really be passed onto consumers because consumers would respond by buying less of that product and more of alternatives. Or if the price of ALL root beer were increased by 25%, consumers would respond by simply buying less root beer (or more of other sodas).

What typically happens is that part of a new tax or tax increase gets passed on to the consumer, but not all of it. And when those taxes go towards providing a public service of some sort, it often results in a net benefit to consumers.

One of the things I have heard, which would never get passed, is an amendment that Congress can make no rule that it exempts itself from.

A Top Notch Koch Botch.

@Milspec.: As you should already know, businesses are profit-maximizing entities. Coca-Cola isn't going to lay off employees due to a soda tax; they're going to largely eat the tax increase and continue to produce and sell the same amount of product (laying off employees will reduce their ability to do this and thus reduce revenue). For less elastic goods, prices will simply rise more. There's no "taking a chance" that sales will remain the same--the general elasticity of most goods and services is known, and if you know the elasticity of a product, you know how consumers will react to it given a price increase or decrease.

Layoffs occur in instances when a business has excess productivity. When a business is producing too much of a product and thus reduces demand below the optimal level, layoffs may occur as it reduces unnecessary workforce. This can happen if a business simply has unprofitable sections, or if a large tax/cost increase on a relatively inelastic good reduces demand significantly that the business needs to lower its output.

But taxes on individuals don't figure into this, as this has nothing to do with corporations and private business income is taxed as personal income, separate from the business' revenues. Tax increases on corporations also would have a lesser effect than the doomsayers commenting on this article, except on very inelastic goods like oil (but at the same time, higher oil prices would spur mass transit and renewable energy development, which would be a good thing).

Great tutorial on economics. So, you're saying that it's ok to raise taxes on business and I shouldn't buy Mug Root Beer or a particular television or whatever. In turn, driving inflation. But that's alright because the increases in taxes provides a benefit to consumers. What if I work for a living and don't care about having a benefit to consumers such as when I've been by people in low income housing and smelled the pot flowing out of the front of their subsidized condo. Or when the crack head in front of me in line at the grocery store is using food stamps while picking the scabs from their face created by their addiction.

Exactly when did compassion become enabling? Why should I settle for anything less than Mug Root Beer when I'm making MY money? I do not care to have a hand-out for a government program/service. I make money to spend it my way, not to have it taken from me and manditorally spent the way government sees fit.

Yea, shame on me for attacking the poor non-working citizens of Juneau. Well, I know a dozen employers that would hire them if they were willing to get off their stoned butts and quit growing weed in their government subsidized housing.

For those that are poor and trying to get back on your feet, good for you! Keep trying, you'll get there.

I guess you're right, maybe we should tax the wealthy. After all, who needs business in America. Let's just inflate until we explode and start over. Let's just give away money to contributers until our money is worthless. After all, a fresh start is probably what this country needs anyhow.

There are a ridiculous amount of jobs. You may not get to make $60k, but there are lots of jobs. I get offered about one every two weeks or so. I used to have 5 jobs and three businesses, so lots of people know I will work crazy hours. I have scaled back now and only have one job and a few hobby businesses. The jobs are out there. From the employers I have talked to, the stumbling blocks are people want to get paid without doing any work, cant pass a drug test, or think they should just move right into the exec job without having to work their way up the ladder or have any experience.