PLANK DECEMBER 28, 2012
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
Will we get an agreement on the “fiscal cliff” before year’s end? Even after Friday’s developments, which included a meeting of congressional leaders at the White House, I really don’t know—and neither does anybody else. But when the deal materializes still matters less than what the deal entails.
Let’s review what happens on January 1, at least officially, if Congress and President Obama don’t act:
Tax rates on all incomes would return to what they were during the Clinton era, before the Bush tax cuts reduced rates. Automatic spending cuts to a wide variety of agencies, including the Pentagon, would take effect—a punishment Congress imposed upon itself, by failing to find alternative spending cuts that it had vowed, in 2011, to find. Extensions of refundable tax credits for the working poor, families with children, and people paying college tuition would expire, as would an emergency federal program that provides extra unemployment benefits and a temporary reduction in payroll taxes. Medicare would reduce what it pays doctors and income tax filers would have to consider whether they fall into the “alternative minimum tax,” resulting in substantially higher liabilities.
Lots of people would feel the impact personally—their paychecks would shrink, government services would become less available, and so on. In addition, the policies as a whole would reduce the money going into the economy, causing it to slow down and quite possibly fall back into recession. That’s obviously not an outcome anybody wants.
But would all of these things happen right away? Is January 1 truly the make-or-break date that so many politicians and pundits seem to think? That’s a lot less clear.
The administration has already instructed federal agencies to keep spending money as if the old, 2012 authorizations were still in effect. (For this reason, the Huffington Post's Ryan Grim has likened the fiscal cliff to the Y2K scare.) The Internal Revenue Service, for its part, has not yet issued instructions on how to change withholding calculations for personal income taxes. The IRS has said it’d offer guidance by year’s end, which presumably means Monday. But even if the IRS produces new withholding guidelines, employers and payroll companies would need time to adjust their systems—in many cases it would take a payroll cycle or two, maybe even more. The Labor Department could pay those extended unemployment benefits retroactively, as it has done in the past.
That’s not to say January 1 is meaningless. While getting jobless benefits retroactively is better than not getting them at all, it’s not much help if your rent is due at the beginning of the month. Even temporary reductions in Medicare pay could convince doctors to see fewer patients, making it harder for seniors to get medical attention, at least for some period of time. The spectacle of congressional action could also scare consumers, investors, and employers—weakening a recovery that isn’t all that strong in the first place. That’s obviously not an outcome anybody wants.
But, if you’re a Democrat, holding out past January 1 has its upsides. Once the Bush tax cuts come off the books, the baseline for budget calculations changes: Bills preserving Bush-era rates on lower and middle-incomes, while restoring Clinton-era rates on upper incomes, would become tax cuts rather than tax increases. It's a purely semantic distinction, for sure, but it could win over reluctant Republicans. In addition, the House on January 3 votes for its leadership—and whether to reelect John Boehner as speaker. After that date, Boehner could more easily defy the most conservative members of his caucus, whose opposition could prevent him from serving as speaker again.
And then there are the polls, which suggest that the public overwhelmingly blames Republicans, rather than Obama, for inaction. Polls don’t always predict how people will react to actual political developments in real time. But chances are good that, the longer it takes for a deal, the more pressure Republicans will feel from the voters—not to mention their supporters in the business community—to abandon their opposition to tax increases and determination to cut entitlements.
Do Obama and the Democrats get that? It’s impossible to know. But Friday’s news was at least a little bit encouraging. During the White House meeting, Obama apparently offered no new concessions. Instead, he made a new demand: If weekend talks between the parties break down, Obama said, he wants both houses to hold an up-or-down vote on a Democratic bill. Later, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he wanted to bring just such a bill to a vote on Monday. Not only would that bill raise rates on annual household incomes above $250,000 and extend jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed; according to a senior Democratic aide, the bill would also extend those critical tax breaks for working families and children. (The bill would also put off the cut in Medicare physician payments, according to the aide. Extending the payroll tax holiday seems to be off the agenda, to my great chagrin.)
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell might filibuster such a bill anyway; even if he didn't, Boehner would be unlikely to hold a vote on it, at least right away. But Obama's demand and Reid's cooperation suggest the Democrats want to apply pressure and are willing to hold out a little longer—that they understand a mediocre bill on December 31 is worth less than a good bill on January 4.
Update: Matthew O'Brien of the Atlantic has a terrific summary of how the tax effects of the fiscal cliff would affect different taxpayers.
25 comments
In politics, the distinction between tax increases and tax cuts is not "purely semantic"; while policy makers and opinion leaders (such as Cohn) may realize that a partial extension of the Bush tax rates adopted on December 31st has the same economic effect as the adoption of the (identical) Obama tax rates on January 1st, most taxpayers (i.e., voters) don't. In 2014, does a Democrat wish to be remembered as having extended the Bush tax rates or as someone who supported and voted in favor of the Obama tax cuts? In policy, this most likely will be the last time during the Obama administration to make the federal tax system more progressive, maybe the last time in a generation, so whatever compromise Obama and the Democrats are willing to accept to avoid the fiscal cliff will have consequences for many years to come. With an aging population and increasing levels of inequality, revenues to fund entitlements will be stretched to the breaking point, and without the option of additional increases in income tax rates and a more progressive federal tax system, a middling compromise today will all but guarantee another whopping increase in the regressive payroll tax tomorrow, once again identifying Democrats as taxers and spenders and turning ordinary working Americans into tax protesters and Republicans.
- rayward
December 29, 2012 at 7:14am
I have gauged the merits of the proposed compromise on upper income tax increases by reference to the total amount "borrowed" from, and now owed to, the social security trust fund, which is roughly $2.7 trillion. Obama has expressed a willingness to accept a mere $1.2 trillion, not even enough to repay half the debt. The ususal reaction to me is that the debt to the trust fund and this tax compromise are unrelated, and that I don't understand "how things work". Really? It's about the ability to repay the debt, which is another way of saying the ability to fund entitlements. What if I owed $100,000 to Uncle Harry. If I refinance the debt, so now I owe the same amount to the Bank, but my income stays constant, have I enhanced my ability to repay the debt? No. What if I took a second job that will pay me at least $100,000 over the next five years, have I enhanced my ability to repay the debt? It's the same with the debt owed to the trust fund, additional taxes on those with the ability to pay analogous to the income from my second job. Senator McConnell has said many times that, if it were up to him, he would not use income tax receipts to repay the amount owed to the trust fund. How many times does he have to repeat it for Democrats to hear him? If Obama and the Democrats accept a middling compromise, McConnell most likely will get his way. And ordinary working Americans can look forward to another whopping increase in the regressive payroll tax, and Democrats can once again look forward to being labeled taxers and spenders, turning ordinary working Americans into tax protesters and Republicans.
- rayward
December 29, 2012 at 7:43am
Current irresponsible Bush Tax Policy has a working married couple who makes $85,000.00 paying $16,000.00 in taxes (including payroll), but a married couple who makes $85,000.00 in capital gains and dividends pays zero tax (-- try it yourself with tax software). Also, an unmarried billionaire dying on January 1, 2010, would owe zero estate taxes, but if they died a day earlier they would owe millions. Tax policy was treated by Republicans as a silly game, with no improvement to the economy; and the debt is huge. I say, flush the Bush Tax Cuts down the toilet by sunset and start from there, regardless of how it impacts on Republican legislative voting.
- Nusholtz
December 29, 2012 at 9:28am
Absolutely. Over the cliff. Much better, not least because there is no cliff. Merely putting the Republicans in the position of voting against middle-class tax cuts in order to hold out for tax-cuts for the wealthiest would be worth it. Letting the Republicans start to eat their austerity madness too would be worth it. It is time for the public to begin to understand what comes from wacko pseudo-economic Republican tax and fiscal policy. As or more important, we should all understand what the Republican scam is about: (1) reducing the progressivity of taxation -- the exact opposite of what we need but deeply desired by the plutocratic rich, even if they have to throw some tax-favor crumbs to the upper-middle classes and (2) using the deficit in the operating budget as an excuse to cut entitlements that overwhelmingly benefit the poor and middle class. In other words, this is entirely about shifting more net income to the top when the economy is dragging, as it has since 1980, due to income inequality and the imbalance between consumption and investable funds. Let's get this straight. The economy has the capacity for deficit spending, estimated by Krugman at $400 billion per year, without increasing debt/GDP. This capacity should be used to fund entitlements because they were designed that way. We have a demographic bulge, the baby-boom, that produced surpluses in the entitlements when they were in their prime working years in the expectation that there would be deficits when they retired. We should, however, have tax rates that would generate a surplus in the operating budget at fill employment. That's the Keynesian counter-cyclical norm in order to smooth out the business cycle - surpluses during booms, to dampen them, and deficits during recessions, to mitigate and shorten them. Not complicated. What the rapacious Republicans want to do is force the entitlements to or near balance so that we can then run deficits in the operating budget, either using those deficits to reduce the spending they hate -- everything other than defense and corporate welfare -- or to reduce taxes for the rich, or both. Democrats should not cooperate with the vicious Republican scam, and the best way to do it is to have them eat their own poison of austerity and demands for budget-busting tax increases for the rich. Over the cliff, over the cliff, over the cliff. There is only a rhetorical cliff, and we need to go over it so that Republicans have to eat their rhetoric and be naked before the American people. Let the pain begin. Otherwise, we are never really going to get out of the mess we are in.
- roidubouloi
December 29, 2012 at 10:23am
So, roi, do you suppose this could mean that Congressional Repubs are standing pat until the last possible moment before the prow of the ship starts to tip forward and down; they hope they can win the maximum of concessions from the White House before acquiescing to a deal? I don't understand how any of this works. There seems to be, perhaps deliberately so, no agreed on moment to mark the last of all chances to avert a tip-over. And I take your point about letting the ship begin to tilt at the brink so Republicans see they will lose eventually and they better join the rest of us in preventing a *real* disaster. But all of this is of course is speculation. I don't think anybody knows for sure what will happen once the ship has breeched. That's what makes it so dramatic. Not really scary, but plenty of drama, to be sure.
- Tgossard
December 29, 2012 at 1:31pm
One thing I'll say for myself—I love getting to use naval terminology in this preposterous situation. Reminds me of Star Trek. (;
- Tgossard
December 29, 2012 at 1:34pm
And now a word from al Qaeda, brought to you by Andy Borowitz: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/12/al-qaeda-disbands-says-job-of-destroying-us-economy-now-in-congress-hands.html
- Sophia
December 29, 2012 at 1:47pm
roi. You're right. But Dems don't get it.. including BHO and almost every editor and blogger on this site. Yes... increasing taxes on those making less than somewhere between 75-200K is anti-Keynesian and increases the chances of a recession. But so does every BHO plan I've heared so far. And going over the cliff reduces all sorts of expenditures--- a goodly portion of which is military. AND brings in much tax revenue. Do you really think Repubs and Dems can resist spending any of that tax money coming in??? I'd bet heaving against THAT occurring. I'd wager we get more stimulus spending by going over the cliff than anything BHO has advocated to date. His inadequacies are saved by the insanity of his opposition who refuse to accept his dishonorable deal because thay want immediate total surrender. Pray that our 21st century reincarnation of Nevill C can resist making a deal----any deal to avoid going temprarilily avoiding a (perceived) economic crisis, i.e., the equivalent of any deal to temporarily avoid war. As was once remarked of Neville, "He chose dishonor to avoid war. He will get war." ...[But even Neville didn't offer the Sudetenland as his STARTING position!!] And he learned something by the time war came. It's not at all clear what BHO really learned from the 2010 election and the 2011 debt-limit crisis. Although almost no Dem openly admits it, but BHO has made it abundantly clear that he'll take a dishorable deal to avoid an economic crisis. He will get a crisis. He will only embolden the intractable opposition who believe they have his measure. I might also note that until some Dem leader openly advocates a set of Progressive and Keynesian principals, Dems will constantly be pushed further and further rightward by their timid and inadequate leaders in the Executive and Senate. There is some hope for the House-- albeit Pelosi has not exactly been a Profile in Courage poster-child since November. The current situation is what I feared last summer. It will take some 3-6 months before we know how it plays out.
- drofnats1
December 29, 2012 at 2:06pm
Note also what Krugman says today: "..the Bush experience tells us something important about fiscal policy: namely, that when Democrats get obsessed with deficit reduction, all they do is provide a pot of money that Republicans will squander on more tax breaks for the wealthy as soon as they get a chance. Suppose Romney had won; do you have even a bit of doubt that all the supposed deficit hawks of the GOP would suddenly have discovered that unfunded tax cuts and military spending are perfectly fine?" [Note that is Keynesian, albeit with a miserable return for fax cuts.] "The point is that the whole focus of budget discussion is based on a combination of bad economics and bad (and fundamentally dishonest) politics. We’re looking not so much at a Grand Bargain as at a Great Scam." And who buys into the scam??? ... BHO. and too many other Dems in the Senate, and some in the House. And most tnr editors and bloggers as representative of too many Dem voters. Including Krugman--- who contantly points out failures of Dem leadership, but never advocates doing much about it.
- drofnats1
December 29, 2012 at 2:23pm
The country's psyche was deeply damaged by McCarthyism imo. We don't even have a Socialist political party in the US. The Democrats are right wing. Isn't it time for a corrective swing? Even a little swing? What do people think will happen to the US if we wind up with a dog-eat-dog society?
- Sophia
December 29, 2012 at 3:48pm
I agree with the posters here who argue, echoing Krugman, that there is no fiscal cliff in the true sense and that there are significant advantages to the White House and the Dems in going over it. It's obvious too that, for many Republicans, the recognition -- along with their confusion, admittedly -- that the revenue position for the federal goverment improves on Jan 1 is galling as they don't want everyone to look around and say, well, that wasn't so bad. Nevertheless, the motif has become ensconsed in American politics and therefore in people's minds. At the moment, the majority of the electorate sees the GOP as being pretty much the kid standing by the broken window and saying "Me? I swear, I just found it that way" but that can change, especially if there is longer-term damage to the delicate recovery now in motion. drofnats, your arguments would have a lot more conviction if you didn't undermine them enthusiastically with Michele Bachman-type comparisons between Obama and Neville Chamberlain. This isn't about negotiating with Hitler and it's not about territorial expansion by a fascist state. Asserting how totally smart you are in comparison to the rest of us rings hollow from the guy who wanted Mitt Romney to win because that would be better for progressive politics.
- ironyroad
December 29, 2012 at 4:18pm
irony. you don't have to be fascist to be intractable opposition. If you prefer, use James Buchanan as as example--- albeit fewer know the historical parallels.
- drofnats1
December 29, 2012 at 7:11pm
I have watched US politics for over 40 years. I have never been so disgusted as I am by the anarchist tactics of the little boys on the right. It is staggering that they are so arrogant and self-important while being amazingly dense and short sighted. They have such a distorted view of themselves, just as they were so sure the polls, and the job numbers were all cooked for Obama. They are paranoid sociopathic schizophrenics with gray faces and bad haircuts with a major case of stupid or missing chromosomes. It is just gross that our country has been hijacked by these ignorant clowns, spewing their Christian dogma as they grab food out of babies' mouths. Boehner is a worthless drunk who throws his hands up like a little girl when he doesn't get his way, making everyone else rush to do his job because he doesn't want to do the hard parts. And we pay for this crap? Tens of millions of us ought to show up on the steps of the People's house on Monday and dare their pathetic asses to leave until they get their work done. It is like a bunch of out of control two year olds who haven't had their naps. Gross, Old, Pathetic...today's GOP.
- smabry03
December 29, 2012 at 7:22pm
irony. Help me out. What other President has consistently misread the nature of his political opposition for four years--- and to boot presumably represents a competing ideolgy that he rarely articulates ??? Dems at tnr nailed Mittens political insanities... but are way too willing to ignore to BHO's inadequacies. It does the country no good.
- drofnats1
December 29, 2012 at 7:39pm
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/what-comes-after-the-fiscal-cliff-by-j--bradford-delong "Over the Cliff We Go" [good read but fails to note that the US federal government is now seen as hopelessly dysfunctional by everyone except tnr. "....Even temporary reductions in Medicare pay could convince doctors to see fewer patients, making it harder for seniors to get medical attention, at least for some period of time. ..." For the record, doctors have been dropping Medicare patients since 2007 because they are tired of waiting for that last minute 'doc fix' every year. That is what they keep telling me at my final appointment. It's ok - living on raw garlic keeps everyone with germs away :)
- K2K
December 29, 2012 at 7:50pm
drofnats, I agree fully that Obama misread the nature of the opposition in 2009-10 but I dispute that he has continued to do so. I strongly suggest, in fact, that the nature of his re-election victory had a lot to do with not only recognizing the road the GOP had taken but also making it clear to the American public where that road would bring us. Obviously there are many things I would like the administration to have done, but I also recognize the value of what it has done, from the auto company rescue to the ACA to the student loan reforms. "Inadequecies" is simply too myopic to be a convincing analysis. While I am in favor of the cliff jump for the reasons enumerated by various posters (including yourself) and others cited, I also recognize that there are reasons to be cautious and not to regard one's own assessment of things as completely closed to counter-arguments. And I strongly suspect, for example, that Obama's backing off from the 250k limit to the 400k limit in his pre-Christmas offer to Boehner was made in the 90% certainty that Boenher would be the loser when his own caucus left him swinging in the wind.
- ironyroad
December 29, 2012 at 8:00pm
who will ever have confidence in the Federal government again? not just Americans whose confidence is the only factor that drives most of the domestic economy, but foreign sources of surplus dollars looking for a safe haven. Why does no one ever delve into what happens when no one wants to buy even more debt from such a dysfunctional government? Uncertainty keeps interfering with everyone's financial decisions. Now that uncertainty is considered the norm because America is fighting a never-ending civil war of ideas with other people's trillions. No wonder Susan Rice was buying gold.
- K2K
December 29, 2012 at 8:47pm
The key thing to watch over the next few days is whether a debt ceiling extension is included as part of any tax deal. Ignoring other factors, the Democrats should be able to get the tax deal Obama campaigned on, plus the AMT patch, by just going over the cliff and letting the pressure on Republicans build. But they also want the extension for unemployment benefits, which Republicans would happily allow to lapse, so they may have to give up something more--maybe a higher threshhold for tax rate increases ($400,000?). If an increased debt ceiling is not part of that deal, however, the Republicans will be squeezing the Administration on spending cuts before the ink is dry on the tax legislation. Although ending or mitigating the Bush tax cuts will be a major step toward fiscal sanity and economic fairness, it's hard to see how the spending side of the equation has a happy ending. With the sunset of the 2% payroll tax holiday (which doesn't seem to be in play), plus spending cuts equal to or greater than those mandated by the fiscal cliff sequestration, the country will be taking a major step toward fiscal austerity. The economy may now be generating enough momentum to absorb the blow, but this is not rational economic policy. We'll be suppressing much-needed economic growth now, for the sake of reducing budget deficits which may or may not be a legitimate concern in future years. But of course, as Krugman said time and time again, this is not really about federal budget deficits. It's about cutting down the welfare state.
- fbraconi
December 29, 2012 at 11:08pm
I wonder if the deficit hawks, who are as fbraconi states are trying to "cut down the welfare state," realize that they will create real victims, who in most cases are old or disabled, sick people, working poor, lower middle class people and/or children? What on earth is the point? To create privatized work houses? Or what? How will this help anything or anybody? Will punishing poor people, old people, disabled people make America a better, stronger, richer, more "exceptional" country? The voters stood in line this fall protesting, among other things, this obscene idea, that we should should revert to savagery.
- Sophia
December 30, 2012 at 2:21am
Mankiw has an op/ed in today's NYT in which he argues that middle class tax increases must be a part of an deal on taxes, citing a relatively low (about 11%) federal tax rate for the middle class as compared to a rate in excess of 31% fir thee wealth. Unfortunately, his misuse of statistics defeats his very valid point (about the need for tax increases for the middle class). I say misuse because he selected an income group to define middle class that includes a high percentage of unemployed and retired, whose income for the most part is not subject to federal tax. If Mankiw had limited the income group to working Americans, their effective tax rate would be almost as high as the rate for the wealthy. Now, I suppose Mankiw was concerned that it would defeat his larger point about additional taxes for the middle class, but instead his misuse of statistics emphasizes the unfairness of the tax burden, which he would exacerbate further. Rather than misusing statistics, he should have made the valid point that the middle class, by being so large in numbers, must be considered for tax increases for reasons of simple math (aging population, etc.). Let's hope that TNR's resident expert on inequality, Mr. Noah, pens a post that addresses the Mankiw op/ed.
- rayward
December 30, 2012 at 8:07am
I didn't bother to look at Mankiw -- yet, but when you include payroll taxes, the Federal tax burden is remarkably flat. When you include state and local taxes, it is even flatter. We have largely abandoned progressive taxation in this country since 1980, but the rapacious savages of the right, with flacks like Mankiw to shill for them with distortions a first-semester econ student could spot, want more. It is also not true that taxes on the middle class have to rise, at least if you define middle class as an income up to $100,000. The increased GDP share of the top 10% (really the top 5%, and mostly the top 1%) since 1980, when Reagan rode into town with his ouiji board, is about 17%. That is approximately $2.5 trillion in today's economy. The top 10% could pay the entire Federal operating budget out of that increase and still have a higher net income share than it did in 1980, and it wasn't poor then. The claim that taxes have to rise on the middle class is just one more of those endlessly repeated right-wing economic myths meant to scare the crap out of everyone and induce the middle class to shoot itself in the foot by reducing entitlements (not the actual problem). Taxation should mitigate the increasingly skewed distribution of income, not exacerbate it as the Republicans want. The implication of the huge swing in income shares since 1980 is that we could exempt the first $100,000 of income from income tax, impose a 50% rate above that, and have no deficit. Add on a super-bracket for the mega earners, with annual income above $10 million, or even $20 million, and we are rolling in tax revenues. THAT would be a good basis for eliminating all tax preferences, the so-called "broadening of the base" that Republicans claim to want but will fight against tooth-and-nail if it results in more progressive rather than more regressive taxation. Wacko, right-wing, libertarian regressive taxation is the ONLY thing that the GOP cares about, other than corporate welfare and military spending, with periodic deployment of the military to show what it can do and have fun with the hardware, never mind about the lives lost. They can only hope to achieve this with lies, so lie incessantly is what they do. That about sums it up, tgossard. They have no real strategy other than keep lying and obstructing actual governance. They are insurgents, terrorists, trying to bring down government by the patient destruction of its functionality.
- roidubouloi
December 30, 2012 at 10:21am
In addition to a more progressive tax structure: Impose universal single-payer, in some version, to control medical costs, replace payroll taxes with sufficient carbon taxes for the long-term solvency of entitlements, and the US will experience explosive economic growth and be an economic paradise for all. It should be.
- roidubouloi
December 30, 2012 at 10:23am
Cue Obama: December 30, 2012 Quote of the Day "They say that their biggest priority is making sure that we deal with the deficit in a serious way, but the way they're behaving is that their only priority is making sure that tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are protected. That seems to be their only overriding, unifying theme." -- President Obama, on Meet the Press, blaming Republicans for failing to reach a deal to avert the fiscal cliff. 'ya think?
- roidubouloi
December 30, 2012 at 11:12am
Plenty of good content but the title says it all, "Over the Cliff? A Better Deal Would Be Worth the Wait". Worse still and very sadly too, rayward comment #1 is probably true that this may be the last opportunity in a generation "to make the federal tax system more progressive". Progressive taxation is like the plate tectonics of capitalism. This may be the last chance to do real, lasting good for the economy.
- dcwood10
December 30, 2012 at 1:04pm
"irony. you don't have to be fascist to be intractable opposition. If you prefer, use James Buchanan as as example--- albeit fewer know the historical parallels." Drof: You miss the point. The issue is not that the "parallel" is inapposite because the Republicans are intractable - or whatever. The issue is that to compare "BHO" to " Neville C.", and fiscal negotiations to Munich, is not a "historical parallel", and only a uniquely fungus-ridden brain with no sense of history or analogy would come up with that. The causes and effects of Munich are so completely out of any context today that to raise it demonstrates an addled mind. This is true whenever Republicans do it to Obama; it is equally true when "progressives" do it to him as well. As for Buchanan - you're right, somewhat obscure, but equally moronic. Is it likely that as a result of the failure of negotiations, the country would be plunged into a civil war claiming six million dead (proportionate to population)? To ask the question is to answer it. Yeah, we get it. You think that Obama is spineless and a right-wing stooge. Not just Obama, but the entire Democratic machinery that advises and supports him. Great. You have his upon insight that eludes hundreds of elected and thousands of appointed officials. Fantastic. We get it. Brilliant. Now, if you have something to say, say it please without dragging in "a certain Adolph ŝicç H.".
- icarus-r
December 31, 2012 at 9:49am