Author: lemkin

jeffmiller:

newshour:

The First Family’s 2010 tax return was released today. Reporter/Producer Elizabeth Shell pulled out some of the more interesting numbers.

So President Obama paid $500,000 last year in taxes.  A question for those on the left:  How much should Obama have paid in order to pay his fair share?

By my quick, back of envelope math, his pre-deduction, assuming everything was regular income tax bill was ~$622,114; using current proposals to return to Clinton era rates, that number goes up to the blinding, economy destroying, and Western Civilization threatening number of ~$691,238.

Wow. I can really understand the ferocity of the opposition there. That’s almost $70,000 for a man making about $2 million. Just no way to make that up.

Source: pbs.org

Is S&P Running Interference for the Right?

jasencomstock:

[…] Besides, Democrats could easily interpret (and should, vindictively) the warning from S&P as a call for higher taxation.

Precisely. S&P is commenting on the inability of said gubmint to actually do anything and most definitely not on the underlying capability of the United States economy to produce growth and/or sustain a marginally higher tax rate necessary to retire enough of the debt to keep the entirely mythical bond vigilantes at bay.

But, yeah, why does anyone alive care what S&P or Moody’s et al. says? Serious question. They may as well manufacture high quality buggy whips for all their relevance post-meltdown; there is no greater indictment of the lack of serious change to our financial system than this.

Is S&P Running Interference for the Right?

Confessions of a Climate Convert

Forget all the road to Damascus stuff in the piece, this is what I find important:

I’d argue that conservatives and libertarians should strongly support regulation to reduce carbon pollution, since pollution by one entity invariably infringes upon the rights of others (including property rights), and no entity has a constitutional right to pollute. It does not put America on the road to serfdom to suggest that the federal government has a compelling interest in protecting the country from ecological damage. If anything, it puts America on the road to common sense.

Exactly right. This is how Democrats should be messaging on this issue. It removes the ever-present and undeniable impulse in the MSM to punch the dirty fucking hippies whenever possible, the nigh irresistible impulse to note that it “snowed today,” and the much beloved “well, Al Gore sure is fat” gambit and frames the debate in terms even libertarians can understand.

Part Two of said strategy needs to incorporate the notion that even if we’re 100% wrong these measures will be good for the country and likely even of existential importance relative to our industrial and economic standing in the world. Getting off our oil addiction is, plain and simple, a good idea, no matter what you think the output carbon of our oil economy is doing. We’re going to be getting off of oil sooner or later, may as well start now and be the arbiter or at least one of the arbiters of the post-oil economy. Furthermore, if you want America “making things” again, the most likely and highest value target for said industry is in the post-oil transition. Not only can you sell such technology to the developed world, the whole of the developing world will be knocking at your door as well.
There is not enough reserve oil in American hands to measurably move the global market, even if we could extract it all tonight. There just isn’t. We wouldn’t even make an appreciable impact on our own rate of import were we to employ all of our oil; even that small but measurable impact would only last for a year or two. We may hold 1-2% of proven world reserves. Period. We cannot and will not ever produce our way off of foreign oil. It is simply not possible given current or projected usage. And, oh by the way, there isn’t enough global capacity either, though only the US military seems willing to admit it publicly.
The time to start dealing with both the implicit misconception (Drill baby drill!) and the overriding and much more important harsh reality is right now, not 20 years from now when our oil addiction and its impacts is both (still) utterly undeniable and but it is also too late to do anything about it.

Confessions of a Climate Convert

Birther Boogaloo: You Tell Me

Reality Check: Okay, now, what are the specific requirements in the [TN Ballot Access] bill?
TN State Senator Mae Beavers: That they have to have the long-form birth certificate.
RC: What is the long-form birth certificate?
Beavers: Now, you’re asking me to get into a lot of things that I haven’t really looked into yet.
RC: […] Are you aware that a lot of states now only give the short-form birth certificate?
Beavers: No, I only know about Tennessee, and I was born in Alabama. So I only know what I have seen.
RC: What if someone was not born in a hospital? It wouldn’t have an attending physician signature, so they wouldn’t be eligible to run in Tennessee if this bill passes. Is that correct?
Beavers: But they would have a birth certificate.
RC: Sure, but your bill doesn’t say birth certificate. It says “an original long-form birth certificate that includes date and place of birth, name of the hospital, the attending physician, and signatures of the witnesses.”
Beavers: And that’s normally what’s on a long-form birth certificate.
RC: It used to be, but as a matter of fact, the state of Hawaii, where President Obama was born, for people born since, I believe, around 2001, only gives the time of birth, the name of the parents, and the place of birth. Are you aware of the section of the Constitution called the full faith and credit clause? It’s in Article 4, Section 1.
Beavers: Yes.
RC: Well, do you know what it says about state documents?
Beavers: You tell me.
RC: It says that any state is required to accept the documents from another state. So that basically means that Tennessee has to accept a valid birth certificate from Hawaii or any other state.
Beavers: I have no knowledge of short-form birth certificates in Hawaii.
RC: […] Mitt Romney may not be eligible under this bill. Are you aware of that?
Beavers: No, I wasn’t.
RC: Well, George Romney, his father, was born in Mexico. Mexico confers citizenship by jus soli, which is place of birth. So he was born with dual citizenship, and it also passes down. Unless George Romney somehow gave up his Mexican citizenship, Mitt Romney has dual citizenship.
Beavers: Obviously you’ve studied this whole thing.

The people most affected by [the drug war] are black and brown and poor. It’s the abandoned inner cores of our urban areas. As we said before, economically, we don’t need those people; the American economy doesn’t need them. So as long as they stay in their ghettos and they only kill each other, we’re willing to pay for a police presence to keep them out of our America. And to let them fight over scraps, which is what the drug war, effectively, is. Since we basically have become a market-based culture, that’s what we know, and it’s what’s led us to this sad dénouement. I think we’re going to follow market-based logic right to the bitter end.

David Simon

On Dana Milbank

First they came for the welfare mothers, but I did not speak out, because I was a member of Skull & Bones.

Then they came for middle-class manufacturing unions, but I did not speak out, because I had to get to a party at Marty Peretz’s.

Then they came for the upper middle class people who didn’t have columns in the Washington Post, but I did not speak out, because Dennis Kucinich is short.

And then they came for me…and I was STILL so fucking stupid that I spent my time making fun of the House Progressive Caucus.

On Dana Milbank

You want to repeal health care? Go at it. We’ll have that debate. You’re not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we’re stupid?

[…]

Put [measures like defunding Planned Parenthood] in a separate bill. We’ll call it up. And if you think you can overturn my veto, try it. But don’t try to sneak this through.

[…]

When Paul Ryan says his priority is to make sure, he’s just being America’s accountant … This is the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill – but wasn’t paid for. So it’s not on the level.

President Obama in semi-private remarks to “supporters” as reported here.
I, for one, welcome the arrival of feisty candidate mode Obama. Next thing you know he’ll grow a beard. An action beard.
Plain and simple truths. America craves them. This urge to “look forward” is a self defeating one. You should have been and still need to be to opening every speech with the details of GOP-lead bed shitting from 2000-2008. Even use a chart or two. It’s the only way America will ever learn about what happened and why.

I still don’t like the cheap shots. My point, for example, isn’t that he’s “articulate” or any other similar code word . . . my point is that Obama talks a great game, but isn’t concerned enough with delivering. Anyone who cares about Guantanamo, rendition, Patriot Act, war, etc. ought to agree with this. Anyone who cares about transparency or the influence of lobbyists or clean government ought to agree with this. So when I accuse him of empty rhetoric, it’s not because I’m a closet racist. It’s because his rhetoric is so often empty. But as to your employment charts: (1) the first is overall government employment, (2) the second is simply share of overall market place, which says nothing about employment numbers, (3) neither take into account (as far as I can tell) the shifting of work from government employee to government contractors (which does little to shrink the size of government, (4) I think it’s pretty much undisputed that the number of federal employees has grown under Obama (even if you exclude census workers, (5) it’s a bit strange to measure the size of government by the number of employees and not, say, expenditures, which have undeniably grown since Obama took office, and (6) if Obama had actually shrunk the size of government, it wouldn’t be hard to show me what exactly he did to do this, right?–yet you can’t. Finally, I have no desire to be a GWB apologist–I think he was a terrible president who should have been impeached. But regardless of whether you agree or disagree with him, GWB ran for governor of Texas based upon an agenda, and he actually achieved things he promised to do. You may think these are terrible things that he accomplished, but he accomplished them. What did Obama accomplish as a legislator? Not much. And that’s fine . . . you don’t need to accomplish anything to become President. But you ought to have a burning desire to accomplish something if you’re going to run for President, lest the whole endeavor become a vanity project.

First paragraph: fair enough. It was never intended as a reference to “closet racism”; for that matter, I don’t think Reid is a closet racist either. He simply said something stupid and completely aside from the point at hand…which was sort of my point. That Obama is a gifted orator has as little to do with the Peace Prize as does his choice in socks.
You will get no argument from me on rendition and the rest. This, however, does not render every political statement ever made by the man “empty rhetoric.” You act as though he’s operating in a political vacuum. With what budget money is he going to close Guantanamo? In what federal facility is he going to house these prisoners? With what court system is he going to try them? All of these issues have been brought to you by GOP fear-mongering and Obama’s unwillingness to use political capital to fight them.

Second paragraph: of course expenditures have risen dramatically. One time stimulus, TARP money, auto bailouts, and automatic stabilizers. It’s a recession. Spending goes up. It comes back down again too. This is the core reason “do nothing” will work at all; the spending is largely one time or automatic stabilizers and is or soon will be over. Then the Bush tax cuts automatically expire and you find yourself most of the way back to balance.
Using the “up” side of that equation as a bludgeon against the social safety net is simply political misdirection in aid of a long term goal (the elimination of the New Deal and its policy descendents). Cantor has publicly said as much.

The Bush tax cuts were and are the primary deficit driver in the past decade. Obama signed their extension, and for that he does indeed share some of the blame, but this doesn’t make him a big government socialist. By the by, Bush promised the complete repayment of the debt at the hand of these tax cuts within 10 years.

Beating “Beating a Dead Hobby Horse”

jeffmiller:

I think this response is at times weird and at times unfair.

1. You may hate Ryan’s plan. You may agree with Krugman. (Whose criticisms, ironically, can be just as appropriately applied to the Affordable Care Act.) You might think its unserious, or that its ideological. I would agree that its ideological, and that it’s based on some fantasy numbers. But it is a plan and not a speech. Obama has offered a speech. We’d like to see a plan. That’s a fair request of a President who has increased spending to unprecedented levels.

Outline for Obama’s plan. Isn’t legislation but he’s also not the House.

2. The Negro Dialect crack is completely unfair. It has nothing to do with my criticism.

3. Yes, winning office is an achievement. Becoming Senator is an achievement. Neither of these made the world more peaceful. It is wonderful that Obama was able to become the first African-American president. He deserves a lot of credit for this. So does the American electorate, but I wouldn’t give them a Peace prize either.

You specifically stated that the President won his Nobel because of his oratorical gifts. I simply say that this is not significantly different than pointing out that he has “no negro dialect”. Hyperbole to be sure, but not utterly unfair as they are similarly unrelated to the issue at hand: the Nobel Prize. He did not win the Peace Prize because he is a fine orator. Didn’t hurt his chances, but not why he won. Deserved or not, he won it because he had an historically significant election over the more typical “angry old white man who promises endless war if elected” and because he was replacing Bush. I don’t think this is even a particularly debated point outside of more loopy websites. This factors into (8), but we’ll get there.

4. Why are you acting as though I suggested or believe that ACORN rigged the election, or that Obama didn’t win legitimately? Again, that’s completely unfair.

Again, you stated he had no experience whatever. This despite the fact that he previously won an election for a national office. Disregarding that implies that that win was not won fairly or otherwise simply doesn’t count for some reason. I simply inserted a potential motivation for that belief.

5. Obama has not reduced the size of government, […] Federal government employment has grown since Obama took office.

We’ve covered this extensively before. But, by all means, let’s go to the chartsngraphs:


You are simply incorrect by any measure you care to look at. The federal government hired people to conduct the Constitutionally mandated census. Period. The GOP has used this particular hobby horse again and again to create the illusion of massive federal government expansion and “takeover” of everything under the sun that simply does not exist. Period. Repeating this bit of dogma, though, again leads to point (8).

6. George W. Bush, Clinton, and most of their predecessors had a considerably firmer record of actual achievement prior to election than Obama. I find it difficult to imagine how one could make a case to the contrary. But if you can provide a list of Obama’s legislative achievements, I’ll gladly reconsider.

George W. Bush owned the Rangers (primarily and by his own admission he was there as the “showcase” minority owner) and was governor of Texas, also a largely ceremonial position. He had very little achievement politically. Every business he was involved with prior to his political career had failed. He couldn’t even show up regularly for the National Guard. It is an insult to imply that he was more qualified than Obama. Period. I see this level of purposeful ignorance and silliness as on par with birtherism; the previous statements above simply add to that. Thus point (8). Again: hyperbole. But hyperbole in service of a larger point made across a relatively long post.

Just me on my little tumblr. Nothing personal.

…the most plausible deficit reduction plan is to rely on gridlock rather than cooperation. Obama yesterday held absolutely firm in his opposition to extending tax cuts on income over $250,000. If Obama won’t relent, then Republicans probably won’t relent on the rest of the tax cuts, and the whole thing will expire. And then, if Obama wins reelection, he’ll be most of the way toward a sustainable deficit, and the Republicans will have had their triumphalism beaten out of them. At that point, a deal to raise a little revenue by reforming the tax code plus spending restraint would be far more plausible.

Jonathan Chait, seemingly forgetting the part where Obama gets to campaign on the GOP eliminating tax cuts for the middle class because they weren’t getting tax cuts for the very richest of the rich. Who, you know, only destroyed the global economy and aren’t the most popular folks electorally. But by all means, GOP, campaign on an all fat-cat ticket. It’s working out great so far in the Midwest.