Or: The Two Most Important Graphs The Democrat Won’t Show You. Ever.

Can I Finish? Can I Finish?

We can’t let the people who’ve been hit hardest by this recession and who we need to create the jobs that will get us out of it foot the bill for the Democrats’ two-year adventure in expanded government.

–Mitch McConnell

May as well unpack this idiocy, since I know there not a living Democratic strategist or seat-holder that will deign to do so.

We’re apparently meant to believe that those

“who’ve been hit hardest by this recession”

are uniformly located in that >$250k/yr bracket. And, I guess it’s true, Time tells us that:

A wealthy Boston matron has forsworn her weekly massage and canceled the family’s spring skiing trip to Utah.

A West Coast tycoon has sold one of his two yachts. A socially prominent Manhattan couple has switched from vintage to nonvintage champagne, while some of their affluent friends provide only California jug wine—in Waterford decanters. A Los Angeles millionairess, Elsie Pollack, now features chili at her dinner parties; another wealthy hostess has replaced cut flowers with synthetic centerpieces. A Chicago industrialist has turned in his Cadillac for a relatively miserly Mercedes 220 with a diesel engine that gets up to 32 m.p.g.

So they pretty much may as well commit suicide rather than face those living conditions. We can only assume that the lower-income individuals still blessed with jobs are likewise switching to different $70,000 cars with marginally better gas mileage. Or, I guess, we can look at silly things like the proportional tax rates by income, courtesy New York Times:

My God, it’s almost as if the poor (and relatively poor) are and have been bearing most of the weight of running this country (as measured by proportion of income) for a long time now. Who knew?!? We’re also meant to forget they are the group more likely to have lost homes, jobs, and every thing else as a direct result of this downturn. And will be more likely to end up in a lower-wage, lower-opportunity job as a result of long-term unemployment. But pity the very rich. They’ve had to get new cars and switch wines.

Then there’s this:

“the Democrats’ two-year adventure in expanded government.”

Has government increased in size over the last two years? Over the last 50 as a share of GDP? Again, let’s go to the charts, this one courtesy of Econobrowser, showing the non-defense consumption and gross investment (by government) as a share of GDP:

Astounding! How will the Republic survive that kind of Socialistic tidal wave?

This is why they fail.

Economic Policy Institute gives us a simple chart:

38.7% of all of the income growth accrued to the upper 1% over the 1979-2007 period: a greater share than the 36.3% share received by the entire bottom 90% of the population.

Those in the top 10% of the income scale received 63.7% of all the income growth generated over the 1979-2007 period. In contrast, the bottom 20% of all earners saw such a small share of income growth – just 0.4% – that it barely shows up on the included pie chart.

Let’s repeat: over the last ~30 years, the top 10% got about 60% of all income growth. Everybody else: not so much.
There should be no speech, no appearance, no utterance, no anything involving any Democrat anywhere a camera, microphone, or goodly crowd may gather that does not include this chart. Every time, every day, every hour between now and November.

Don’t hold your breath.

“All the facts we have suggest that health reform was the biggest move toward fiscal responsibility in a long, long time” says Paul Krugman.

Naturally, this sort of thing is too complicated, too boring, or “old news.” Look! Sharks!

I feel certain that Juan Williams will be on NPR at any moment talking about how Serious People now know that The Democrat is poised to crush, CRUSH the GOP come November.

A|B Testing

Which of these tacks do you suppose the MSM will take up?

A:

-or-

B:

Answer: Serious people know it’s always bad for the Democrat. Get ready for the Demcrat Tax Bomb of 2010! Just you try and refudiate it. True deficit hawks know that, if you’re serious about the deficit you make the tough choices: like lowering taxes.

We know this is coming. Are we busily inoculating?
Are you fucking kidding me?

Invincible Ignorance

McConnell Blasts Deficit Spending, Urges Extension of Tax Cuts.
This because, as well know, tax cuts pay for themselves:

Didn’t happen under Bush, didn’t happen under Reagan, didn’t happen under Kennedy. Those were all the result of various coincidences, though.

Next up, we have Mitch McConnell, uh, still:

The last year of the Bush administration, the deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product was 3.2 percent, well within the range of what most economists think is manageable. A year and a half later, it’s almost 10 percent.

Uh, no. In fact, most of our current deficit driver is Bush/Cheney policy:

But, by all means, let’s not get to work explaining any of this or (gasp) using it to call the GOP out as liars and/or fools. Repeatedly. No, we’ve got the facts on our side! It’s all we need.

Unemployment extension: we cannot possibly afford such a deficit exploder; won’t you please think of the children?

Bush tax cuts: Why, we can’t afford not to extend those indefinitely. And no, we don’t need to pay for them in any way. In fact, it would be irresponsible to pay for them.

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2010 GOP. An opponent whose nut(s) The Democrat finds utterly impossible to crack.

(graph via Ezra Klein)