The Blue Board

Correct, it only dealt with taxes. That is why I'm saying the R's failed misserably. By letting Obama separate the two, they now have no leverage on debt reductions. Somehow unemployment got added though

Well McConnell is the one that put this on Boehner and Boehner not only let the vote go, but voted yes,so...

Here. This is what the deal entails.

To FL Buckeye,

For a deal crafted with McConnell and agreed upon by Boehner, Ryan and some dozens of other Republicans, its pretty clear who "won" (I hate using that term though to perpetrate he bitter partisan crap).

It would take some crafty legal writing. I think charitable deductions should be included. It would be better than the terrible written law now where the tax usually only hits people on the lower end which tend to be small businessmen and farmers.

If its not a family heirloom/house/business, it gets valued and that's the tax.

how the estate tax isn't double taxation is beyond my limited comprehension skills.

Everything is taxed more than once. That's life.

Yes the GOP failed miserably. However, they still have leverage.

The debt ceiling and Simpson-Bowles cuts automatically kick in again in 2mo. (Unless, as they certainly will, they push them off again.) So theoretically, if the GOP grew a pair, they could say:
- No extensions
- No debt ceiling increase
- No deals without $4 of cuts for every $1 of new taxes (including those tax increases voted in on 1/1/13).

Of course, they won't grow a pair and both sides will kick it down the road some more. Meanwhile hundreds of billions in additional debt will be wracked up by the Feds. (BTW, the Treasury and Fed had the tools to work around the debt ceiling issue for a month or two...six at most. It's only a hard ceiling if we are not willing to trash the currency or move money around on the Fed books - like they have done a lot since '07.)

On the bright side of all this, we are providing maximum yucks to the Greeks who are laughing at our fiscal irresponsibility.

True, we are at least two years away.

I realize that we all hate taxes, but if we go around cutting as many taxes as possible, how do we expect to pay for the things that taxes support? The stuff we care about, like education, roads, etc. Not talking about debatable things like welfare and its usefulness/unusefulness.

I'm not saying we aren't irresponsible, but there are two stark differences between us and the Greeks

1) we did this to ourselves
2) we can get ourselves out of it

The Greeks haven't caused themselves any farcical "cliffs" and the Greeks can't do anything about it really.