Congressman Loebsack discusses fiscal cliff during stop in Osceola

When a question was asked about “getting things settled in Washington” with the fiscal cliff, Democratic Congressman Dave Loebsack tried his best to provide an answer.

However, that’s a hard task, because right now there is no answer to the looming fiscal cliff.

Loebsack is the representative for Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District. He held a public meeting Dec. 6 at the residence of Steve Waterman, chairman of Clarke County Democrats.

“There are only a few people actually involved in these negotiations, and that’s the president and Boehner,” Loebsack said. “Maybe (Harry) Reid, maybe (Mitch) McConnell and staff on either side.”

Best guess

Loebsack’s best guess as to what will happen at the end of the calendar year with the fiscal cliff is there will be some kind of a deal related to taxes.

“I think that eventually the $250,000 and above are going to pay more income taxes,” Loebsack said. “How much, we don’t know at this point. Who knows? And, there may be some kind of a deal where they also get some of their deductions taken away and that kind of thing.”

Loebsack also had concerns with other issues including the alternative minimum tax, dividends and capital gains, production tax credit and biodiesel.

“There’s all these other taxes that people aren’t even talking about that are really, really important, too,” he said. “It’s not just the marginal income-tax rates that we need to be thinking about. There are a lot of other things we need to be thinking about.”

Plans

As for a long-term debt reduction plan for the country, Loebsack said he’s not confident such a plan will be put in place by Dec. 31.

“But, I wouldn’t be shocked if something in the short run gets done, as well, to kind of patch it over, which is what Congress does best, what Washington, D.C., does best, unfortunately,” Loebsack said. “And, hopefully, it will at least be a year agreement or year-long deal, not just three months or six months, or whatever. But, I don’t know that that’s going to happen.

Loebsack added, he recently wrote a letter to Obama and Boehner about meeting every day and not only half-hour conversations on the phone.