News
Fiscal Cliff Negotiations May Go Past Jan.1
By Dana Bash and Tom Cohen CNN
WASHINGTON -- Sometime in the next
10 days, a fiscal cliff agreement is likely.
It almost certainly won't be the grand bar-
gain sought by President Barack Obama and
House Speaker John Boehner that addresses
the nation's chronic federal deficits and
debt.
It may not happen before January 1, the
trigger date for the automatic tax increases
refused to support because it raised taxes
and had no chance of passing the Democrat-
controlled Senate.
Rep. Nan Hayworth, R-New York,
acknowledged Wednesday that a deal will
have to include some form of higher rates
on top income brackets, but she said her
party would fight to make it as minimal as
possible.
“If that's where people have to go, we'll
make the threshold as high as we
can,” Hayworth said on CNN, argu-
ing that higher taxes in any form
burden economic growth. “Because
the more relief we provide, the bet-
ter off we'll be.”
Hayworth also made clear that a
limited agreement was the most to
expect for now, saying: “I don't
think we're going to get the big plan
in the next six days.”
Obama and Democrats have
leverage, based on the president's re-elec-
tion last month and Democratic gains in the
House and Senate in the new Congress that
will convene in January. In addition, polls
consistently show majority support for
Obama's position on taxes.
Economists warn that failure to avoid the
fiscal cliff could bring a recession, and
stocks have been down since the middle of
last week, when apparent progress in the
talks suddenly unraveled with Boehner pro-
posing his own “Plan B” that was rejected
by fellow House Republicans.
The Gallup daily tracking poll released
Wednesday showed 54 percent of respon-
dents support Obama's handling of the fis-
cal cliff negotiations, compared with 26
percent who approve of Boehner's perform-
ance.
Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic majority
leader in the Senate, had an approval rating
of 34 percent for his role so far.
Reid is poised to assume a larger role as
the focus of negotiations appears to be shift-
ing to the Senate after last week's GOP dis-
array in the House stymied any progress
before Christmas.
A senior Senate Democratic source told
CNN on Wednesday that Reid has made
clear in private conversations that he will
need assurance any plan can pass both the
Senate and the House before he will bring it
up.
“It is to nobody's advantage to have a
failed Senate vote at this point,” the source
said on condition of not being identified.
“This will be the last train we will have, and
there is no sense in it leaving the station
before we have assurance it will get
through.”
Remaining questions include whether
Failure to avoid the fiscal
cliff could bring a recession
on everyone and deep spending cuts of the
fiscal cliff.
When it does occur, a deal will likely be
similar to proposals rejected by Republi-
cans during similar brinksmanship efforts of
the past two years.
“It's all about scoring political points,”
GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen complained
Wednesday on CNN, referring to both sides
in the debate. “I know the American people
are tired of all of us.”
Obama is heading back to Washington on
Wednesday night from his Hawaiian vaca-
tion, leaving behind the first family, to be
ready if the Senate comes up with a plan
when it returns Thursday from its own
Christmas break.
Meanwhile, House leaders planned a con-
ference call on Wednesday afternoon to dis-
cuss bringing members back to Washington
this week, according to a House Republican
leadership source. Members were told last
week they would receive 48 hours' notice if
they needed to return after Christmas.
The principal dispute continues to be over
taxes, specifically the demand by Obama
and Democrats to extend most of the tax
cuts passed under President George W.
Bush while allowing higher rates of the
1990s to return on top income brackets.
Obama campaigned for re-election on
keeping the current lower tax rates on fam-
ily income up to $250,000, which he argues
would protect 98 percent of Americans and
97 percent of small businesses from rates
that increase on income above that level.
Republicans oppose any kind of increase
in tax rates, and Boehner suffered the polit-
ical indignity last week of offering a com-
promise -- a $1 million threshold for the
higher rates to kick in -- that his colleagues
Critics Say App is Racist
By Sarah Edwards CNN
The maker of a Google app thinks it’s fun
to make yourself look Asian by changing
the shape of your eyes and wearing a Fu
Manchu mustache and rice paddy hat.
Or you could be a Native American with
brown skin, war paint and a feather head-
band.
“This is just a fun app (that) lets you
indulge you and your friends,” says the
description of the “Make Me Asian” app
created by user KimberyDeiss and available
on Google Play.
“You can for a few seconds to make
(yourself) a Chinese, Japanese, Korean or
any other Asians,” the description says.
Not amusing or cute, say Asian-American
organizations that launched a petition to get
Google to remove both apps.
The apps use dated and racist stereotypes
of Asians and Native Americans, said the
online campaign 18 Million Rising, named
after the number of Asian-Americans in the
United States.
“These racist and offensive portrayals of
Asians and Native Americans perpetuate
damaging racial stereotypes and should not
be distributed on the Google play store,”
said the campaign, which has an online peti-
tion to remove the apps.
Google, however, said the apps are not in
violation of the company’s policies that pro-
tect against hate speech.
“We don’t comment on individual apps,”
Google said in a statement. “We remove
apps from Google Play that violate our poli-
cies.”
KimberyDeiss makes other photo-altering
apps including “Make Me Old” and “Make
Me Fat.” There’s also “Make Me Russian”
and “Make Me Irish,” which play off stereo-
types.
But the furor in the Asian-American com-
munity, sparked a few weeks ago, is grow-
ing. Blogs, including Angry Asian Man,
have reinforced the call to remove the apps.
Washington pastor Peter Chin decided to
mount an even larger protest on the website
Change.org.
Chin said he understood Google’s motto
is “Don’t be evil.” That makes it hard to
fathom why the company would support
these apps, he said.
enough Republicans will support a compro-
mise acceptable to Democrats, and whether
Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell will
allow a simple majority vote to take up and
pass any proposal, or stick to the filibuster
level of 60 percent.
At the same time, some Senate Democrats
have discussed holding off on bringing up a
proposal until the final days of 2012 to
increase pressure on Republicans to support
avoiding higher taxes on everyone due to
the fiscal cliff.
While the focus now is on a possible
agreement in coming days or weeks, anti-
tax crusader Grover Norquist told CNN ear-
lier this week that the nation should gird for
long-range battle.
“It's four years of a fight. It's not one week
of a fight,” said Norquist, who has threat-
ened to mount primary challenges against
Republicans who violate a pledge they
signed at his behest against ever voting for
a tax increase.
While both sides say they want to avoid
the fiscal cliff, signs are emerging that a
deal would come after the new year to blunt
the harshest impacts.
Under that scenario, the new Congress
convening in early January would vote to
lower taxes from the higher rates that will
go into effect in January when the Bush cuts
expire, with the new top rates staying intact.
American history, because of the impact it
will have on almost every American.”
However, Norquist called the situation
part of a longer process, predicting “a regu-
lar fight” when Congress needs to authorize
more government spending and raise the
federal debt ceiling in coming months.
“There the Republicans have a lot of clout
because they can say we'll let you run the
government for the next month, but you've
got to make these reforms,” he explained.
Before heading to Hawaii last Friday,
Obama called for Congress to come back
after Christmas and work with him on a lim-
ited agreement to prevent tax hikes on the
middle class, extend unemployment insur-
ance and set a framework for future deficit
reduction steps.
Boehner's spokesman said the speaker
will be “ready to find a solution that can
pass both houses of Congress” when he
returns to Washington, expected to occur on
Thursday.
The GOP opposition to any kind of tax
rate increase has stalled deficit negotiations
for two years and led to unusual political
drama, such as McConnell recently filibus-
tering a proposal he introduced and Thurs-
day night's rebuff by House Republicans of
the alternative tax plan pushed by Boehner,
their leader.
Reid and other Senate Democrats say
Republicans reject Obama’s $250,000
threshhold for tax cuts
According to a senior administration offi-
cial, Obama continues to oppose a Republi-
can call for extending the Bush-era tax cuts
for everyone to buy time for working out a
broader deficit reduction deal that would
include overall tax reform.
However, a Senate Republican leadership
aide told CNN that Republicans reject
Obama's $250,000 threshold for tax cut
extensions.
“We're going to be here New Year's Eve,”
retiring Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday on
CNN's “State of the Union,” adding that it
was likely the nation would go over the fis-
cal cliff.
Failing to meet the year-end deadline on
striking a deal would amount to “the most
colossal, consequential act of congressional
irresponsibility in a long time,” said Lieber-
man, an independent from Connecticut who
caucuses with Democrats. “Maybe ever in
House Republicans must accept that agree-
ment will require support from legislators in
both parties, rather than a GOP majority in
the House pushing through a measure on its
own.
He insisted that a Senate-passed plan with
Obama's $250,000 threshold would pass the
House if Boehner would allow a vote. How-
ever, the Senate proposal is held up on con-
stitutional grounds, because legislation that
increases revenue must originate in the
House.
Boehner and Republicans complain the
Senate has refused to take up any proposals
they have passed in the past two years. Reid
argues that the GOP measures amount to a
conservative wish list of unacceptable
spending cuts and reforms intended to
shrink government and weaken entitlement
programs vital to senior citizens, the poor
and the disabled.
Obama is Time Magazine
Person of The Year
CNN
President Barack Obama
is Time magazine’s Person
of the Year for 2012.
“We are in the midst of
historic cultural and demo-
graphic
changes,
and
Barack Obama is both the
symbol and in some ways
the architect of this new
America,” Time said in
announcing its choice. “In
2012, he found and forged a
new majority, turned weak-
ness into opportunity and
sought, amid great adversi-
ty, to create a more perfect
union.”
Democrat Obama won re-
election to a second term in
the Oval Office in Novem-
ber, beating Republican
challenger Mitt Romney 51
percent to 47 percent in the
popular vote and 302 votes
to 207 votes in the Electoral
College.
In doing so, he overcame
political challenges —
“Obama is the first Demo-
cratic president since FDR
to win more than 50 percent
of the vote in consecutive
elections and the first presi-
dent since 1940 to win re-
election
with
an
unemployment rate north of
7.5 percent,” Time points
out — but also cultural
ones, capitalizing on his
popularity with “young peo-
ple, minorities, Hispanics,
and
college-educated
women” to show that
“demographic change is
here to stay,” Time said.
The magazine’s four run-
ners-up for Person of the
Year were:
— Malala Yousafzai, the
15-year-old girl who was
shot in the head by a Taliban
assassin for her outspoken
support of education for
girls in Pakistan.
— Tim Cook, Steve Job’s
handpicked successor as
CEO of Apple.
— Mohamed Morsi,
Egypt’s first democratically
elected president who then
won international praise for
helping broker a cease-fire
in the November fighting
between Hamas and Israel
in Gaza.
— Fabiola Gianotti, who
led a team of scientists at
the European Organization
for
Nuclear
Research
(CERN) in capturing the
Higgs boson particle, the
so-called God particle
which gives all other parti-
cles their mass.
December 26, 2012 The Seattle Skanner Page 3