So reports CNBC and Reuters, here, noting that taxes go up only on the wealthy and that the sequester agreement cutting spending is post-poned for two months. I'm sure Standard and Poors is not amused.
Without agreement on spending cuts the US risks more downgrades of its debt rating, yet Democrats in particular seem not to care about that.
Separate reports indicated that taxes revert to the old Clinton era rates under the measure for individuals making $400,000 a year or more, which in 2011 included barely 0.3% of wage earners, or 586,000 people, and that new revenue expectations from the agreement amount to a laughable $60 billion per year. Expect this group to take even less ordinary income in the future, which came to barely $500 billion last year.
The expiration of the Bush tax cuts, combined with the sequestration cuts, was supposed to translate into ten times that new revenue per year, or $600 billion, a Pyrrhic victory for the president who was already gloating yesterday at an event clearly staged in advance for the purpose that he got Republicans to flip-flop on raising taxes.
If the House doesn't pass the bill today or tomorrow, that will complicate things, says the story:
"A new, informal deadline for Congress to legislate is now Wednesday when the current body expires and it is replaced by a new Congress chosen at last November's election."
If there is any virtue to the bill, it is that it makes a number of tax rates permanent, and permanently fixes the Alternative Minimum Tax.
The House would do well to take the deal, and press the spending cuts issue separately in two months on the sequestration, and again when the debt ceiling must be raised, but the extension of unemployment benefits yet again for another whole year could be a problem.
Like making the real thing, government sausage isn't pretty.
