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A REPUBLICAN PLAN to let tax breaks expire on US millionaires collapsed late yesterday when it failed to earn enough party support, leaving talks on averting the ‘fiscal cliff’ up in the air.
House Speaker John Boehner had boasted sufficient support for his “Plan B” to put pressure on President Barack Obama to break the stalemate over how to avoid the tax hikes and mandatory spending cuts set to kick in on 1 January.
But Democrats balked at the initiative, and conservatives opposed to raising taxes on anyone, even the wealthy, revolted. Boehner, who sought to use the vote as leverage in his talks with Obama, was forced to pull back.
“The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass,” Boehner said in a statement late yesterday after calling a brief meeting with his Republican caucus.
“Now it is up to the president to work with Senator (Harry) Reid on legislation to avert the fiscal cliff,” he added.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said the House of Representatives now stood adjourned until after Christmas.
Boehner must now work with Obama and the Democrats, who control the Senate and could potentially shepherd a bill approved by moderate Republicans through the House, if he hopes to avoid the year-end fiscal cliff.
“Plan B… is a multi-day exercise in futility at a time when we do not have the luxury of exercises in futility,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said hours before the vote in the House.
“It cannot pass the Senate. The president would veto it.”
But shortly after Plan B crashed to defeat, Carney put out a more conciliatory statement, saying a “bipartisan solution” was still possible.
“The president’s main priority is to ensure that taxes don’t go up on 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses in just a few short days,” Carney said.
Obama “will work with Congress to get this done and we are hopeful that we will be able to find a bipartisan solution quickly that protects the middle class and our economy.”
Boehner’s plan would have extended George W. Bush-era tax breaks for everyone apart from those earning more than $1 million a year and also redirect automatic spending cuts away from defense to other programs.
Republican leaders sweetened the deal by offering a companion spending cut bill, in a bid to win over deficit hawks who see government spending as the main driver behind the country’s $16 billion debt.
But the White House charged that the bill would offer big tax breaks to wealthy Americans earning less than $1 million who do not need them.
Obama had originally insisted on letting tax cuts expire on households earning more than $250,000, but has since upped the threshold to $400,000 in a bid to reach a compromise.
Boehner’s tactics have mystified many in Washington, with some wondering whether he can sell any deal with Obama to his restive caucus.
The speaker has faced intensifying opposition from conservatives who oppose raising any tax rates, arguing that doing so would slow economic growth.
Democrats saw the failed vote as proof that only a bipartisan deal has any hope of averting the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts.
The White House insists the two sides are not that far apart, and Obama has compromised on Social Security retirement benefits and tax rates in ways that have angered liberal supporters.
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The cases mix up the cost of designing the logo and mark with the cost of implementing it. The BP rebrand was so expensive because of how much signage had to be changed all over the world.
If it is done on a gradual basis (as Irish Rail are doing for example) it costs very little. You just renew signage with the new mark as the old signage wears out.
Quite often these rebrands are supposed to be internally symbolic. They mark a major change in an organisation’s development. The costs of these changes of direction are usually confounded with the rebranding.
Imagine being payed 1.4million by the BBC and having the audacity to produce that. By no means a bad logo but sure someone at the BBC could have rustled that up themselves
According to this, I’m actually worth about €78 million.
Catch you drips later.
10 and 11 were ripped off
“Hey we have millions here to spend on a new logo”
“Hang on a second and let me open Microsoft Word”
I think the last couple are misleading. They are not the cost of the logo but of rebranding. That includes changing every petrol station and van/tanker logos in BPs case. British airways changed all their tail fins some years ago and I think it was 100 million. Then they changed them back as so many People complained.
Accenture? Ass-enter more like….
Ha! Classic!
Every time i see the olympics logo it just looks like lisa Simpson going down on bart, how was this not noticed before it was released?
BBC. 1.4 million. Seriously?
Accenture IT consultants in my opinion are the biggest chancers and spoofers in the business.
Red sells…
The Google, Coca Cola, Twitter logos have been redesigned multiple times. The designers who did that work were paid.
Most of the large amounts were for more than just a logo design and many of the low amounts are highly questionable. If windows logos were designed internally the staff’s wages are still an expense that has to be accounted for.
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