Hold the Phone, John Boehner Didn’t Say Anything About Taxes Going Up

Posted on by Caleb Newquist

Admittedly, The Speaker sounds like he's ready to deal but you'd be a damn fool to think that he's going to roll over:

With President Obama reelected and Republicans returned to a slightly smaller majority in the House, Boehner (R-Ohio) said Tuesday’s election amounted to a plea from voters for the parties to lay down their weapons of the past two years and “do what’s best for our country.”

“That is the will of the people. And we answer to them,” Boehner said, according to advance excerpts of a speech he planned to deliver at an afternoon news conference at the Capitol. “For purposes of forging a bipartisan agreement that begins to solve the problem, we’re willing to accept new revenue, under the right conditions.” While Boehner suggested that Republicans would continue to oppose Obama’s plan to take “a larger share of what the American people earn through higher tax rates,” he said the party is open to “increased revenue . . . as the by-product of a growing economy, energized by a simpler, cleaner, fairer tax code, with fewer loopholes, and lower rates for all.” 

Loosely translated: Grover Norquist is watching.

[WaPo]

Related Posts

Tax Day Countdown: Five Overrated Tax Planning Ideas

There is plenty of tax advice floating around this time of year but the problem, as you may expect, is that not all of it is useful for everyone. Sure, you can throw read every piece of advice out there but some of that advice is worth ignoring or at the very least, investigating further so you can find out for yourself if it will actually benefit you.

We asked Mike Callahan, tax director at Spicer Jeffries LLP in Greenwood Village, CO, to pay us another visit, this time with ideas or strategies that he thought were overrated so that you can sort out some of the noise.


• Buying a car for the “write-off” – Mike told us that deductions related to depreciation on cars are extremely limited. He said, “If you need a new car, fine. But don’t expect a huge tax benefit.”

• Maxing out your mortgage – According to Mike, borrowing as much as possible to purchase a home because of the interest deduction is not worth it. “If your combined federal and state tax rate is 30%. 70% of your interest payments are going out the door.”

• Check your W-4 – Withholding a lot of taxes during the year so you can get a big refund is not the way to go. Mike puts it this way, “You just gave Uncle Sam an interest free loan. Adjust your withholding so you come close to breaking-even at tax time.”

• Running up a credit card on deductible expenses before year-end – This one should be a face-slap moment but, “Using a credit card to prepay expenses before year-end if you can’t afford to pay the balance when the bill comes next month.”

• Don’t sock money in an IRA away if you need it now – Mike said that saving money doesn’t do much good if you plan to withdrawal it later, “[Don’t] contribute to an IRA when you need the money. You’ll end-up withdrawing the funds andsubjecting yourself to a 10% penalty,” and more taxes. And by “need” Mike isn’t referring to your Range Rover payment. Good choices people.

More tax advice:
Six Small Business Tax Strategies for the Entire Year
Tax Day Countdown: Five Tax Planning Ideas for Individuals

Who Is Bizarro Grover Norquist?

If you’ve been keeping up with things, you’ve noticed that Americans for Tax Reform founder and president Grover Norquist is everywhere. He’s like some sort of omnipresent Swedish tax assassin superhero (it helps having an active blog and Twittertter.com/#!/GroverNorquist”>accounts).

He’s getting Presidential candidates to sign his Taxpayer Protection Pledge; he’s preparing for inevitable destruction of our nation’s capital; he’s going on the Colbert Report to make grandmothers everywhere shake in their orthopedic shoes.

This PR assault has resulted in a flurry of blog posts from us (okay, just me) on GN’s wily ways, mostly because we admire said wiliness, political tenacity and overt sarcasm and sass. However, a question has now been asked by Joseph Thorndike that we had not previously considered Who is the anti-Grover Norquist? That is, who is the progressive stalwart on tax policy? Presumably someone who would argue that we need to always raise taxes in every instance possible and any time taxes are cut, a corresponding elimination of tax expenditures would occur. Okay, maybe I’m being a tad literal. Anyway, Thorndike gives it a shot:

During the NPR interview, I was asked if I could think of a left-leaning counterpart to Norquist. I was stumped. A bunch of people came to mind, notably Bob McIntyre at Citizens for Tax Justice and Bob Greenstein at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. But neither seemed to fit the bill very well. Sure, McIntyre and Greenstein have been important and highly influential voices for progressive tax policy. But neither has reshaped political debate in Norquistian fashion.

In my opinion this is an futile exercise since the bizarro version of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge would be the political equivalent of guzzling arsenic. Americans don’t like taxes, so there’s virtually nothing to be gained by taking the 180 degree positions of Norquist (again, in their purest form). Similarly, the organization “Americans for Tax Reform” sounds quite sensible. An organization named “Americans for Keeping This God-awful Fuckshow of a Tax System the Way It Is” on the other hand, is less attractive.

Thorndike then posits that guys like McIntyre and Greenstein are “entirely too knowledgeable when it comes to tax policy to ever be compared to Norquist.” Fine. So Grover isn’t as tax wonky as those other guys. Policy wonks typically don’t make good political tacticians and certainly don’t make for good politicians. Wonks look at actual numbers, facts and statistics to make conclusions. Lots of politicians struggle with English. Norquist is acutely aware of this and relies on speaking to them in terms they can understand, such as, “You raise taxes and I’ll end your political career.” Politicians can understand that. They cannot understand Howard Gleckman.

So bizarro Grover Norquist, if you’re out there, please make yourself known. Every (super)man needs a nemesis.

Not Grover: Who’s the Progressive Counterpart to Norquist? [Joseph Thorndike]