{"id":712,"date":"2013-01-02T15:59:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-02T15:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2013\/01\/02\/immediate-calamity-averted"},"modified":"2013-01-02T15:59:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-02T15:59:00","slug":"immediate-calamity-averted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=712","title":{"rendered":"Immediate calamity averted"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Note: I am going to write this post without using the words \u201cfiscal cliff,\u201d a description that is beginning to make me as crazy as the phrase \u201cat the end of the day \u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Well, the House of Reps proved me wrong, and I\u2019m glad it did.<\/p>\n

I was sure the purists among them were going to spoil the Senate-passed budget hammered out by Vice President Biden and Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell. The pie-in-the-sky crowd had me going. Then, Speaker John Boehner counted heads and realized he didn\u2019t have enough votes to amend the measure and send it back to the Senate \u2026 and then he put it to a vote.<\/p>\n

Guess what? A bipartisan majority approved the bill \u2013 and that included staunch conservative Republican Rep. Mac Thornberry of Clarendon. Mac said \u201cyes,\u201d and then griped about the need for more spending cuts in his statement announcing his affirmative vote.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad the measure passed, not because I\u2019m crazy about it. It needed immediate spending cuts. They won\u2019t come for another two months when the \u201csequestration\u201d deadline extension expires. That\u2019s when automatic cuts kick in, unless our distinguished lawmakers make the cuts voluntarily.<\/p>\n

But tax rates remain low for us middle-income Americans. The wealthier of us will see a modest increase, to the levels imposed during the Clinton administration, when the economy exploded in a grand expansion.<\/p>\n

Even better news for us older Americans is that the stock market \u2013 which has some of our retirement income tucked away \u2013 took off like a rocket today with news of the budget deal. I don\u2019t expect the market to keep soaring, but at least it didn\u2019t fall off the, um \u2026 never mind.<\/p>\n

I am gratified as well that House members and senators aren\u2019t patting themselves on the backs today. CNN business correspondent Ali Veshi said it best on Tuesday when he reminded us that Congress had 518 days to get this thing done but waited anyway until the last minute. \u201cThey live in a parallel universe,\u201d Velshi said.<\/p>\n

They got the deal enacted, but they still should be ashamed of themselves.<\/p>\n

Goodbye, 112th Congress, and good riddance.<\/p>\n\n

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Note: I am going to write this post without using the words \u201cfiscal cliff,\u201d a description that is beginning to make me as crazy as the phrase \u201cat the end of the day \u2026\u201d Well, the House of Reps proved me wrong, and I\u2019m glad it did. I was sure the purists among them were … Continue reading Immediate calamity averted<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}