Tag: idiocracy

Via Kevin Drum, a superb chart showing just how historic the growth spurt would need to be to have a hope of actually paying for Trump’s one sheet master plan on taxes. Shouldn’t be a problem, right?

Tax Foundation economist Alan Cole has some relevant comments:

“Pass-through taxes are decently well-structured as they are, and it’s probably best to leave them alone,”[according to the foundation’s model], it would add about 0.12 percent to the country’s annual growth rate, but again, at a cost of about $1.5 trillion. As far as tax reform trades go, really? Is this the one that you want?”

All I see is the rich, rich success of that extra 4% of magic pony growth. Every living American will very likely be a millionaire in short order.

We’re going to get reimbursed, but I don’t want to wait that long. But you start, and then you get reimbursed.

Incoming President Donald Trump. I hope he has the right TPS reports forms for that, because I hear the Mexican government can be sticklers on reciepts, the TPS reports, the cover sheets, and their formatting.

Inside the Republican Party’s Desperate Mission to Stop Donald Trump

I’ve never seen a lede buried by putting the entire text of the story inside of it. But this reunited nut is precisely why Trump resonates and the rest of the GOP’s favored class can’t lay a hand on him:

The scenario Karl Rove outlined was bleak.

Addressing a luncheon of Republican governors and donors in Washington on Feb. 19, he warned that Donald J. Trump’s increasingly likely nomination would be catastrophic, dooming the party in November. But Mr. Rove, the master strategist of George W. Bush’s campaigns, insisted it was not too late for them to stop Mr. Trump, according to three people present.

At a meeting of Republican governors the next morning, Paul R. LePage of Maine called for action. Seated at a long boardroom table at the Willard Hotel, he erupted in frustration over the state of the 2016 race, saying Mr. Trump’s nomination would deeply wound the Republican Party. Mr. LePage urged the governors to draft an open letter “to the people,” disavowing Mr. Trump and his divisive brand of politics. The suggestion was not taken up. Since then, Mr. Trump has only gotten stronger, winning two more state contests […entire rest of story…]

On Friday, a few hours after Mr. Christie endorsed him, Mr. Trump collected support from a second governor, who in a radio interview said Mr. Trump could be “one of the greatest presidents.”

That governor was Paul LePage.

The jig is up, fellas. Literally everyone, even your studiously misled base that you’ve cultivated for decades, is intimitely familiar with your game, knows it on sight, and unless and until you set it aside, Trump will continue to rule your world.

Inside the Republican Party’s Desperate Mission to Stop Donald Trump

As far as my [most recent tax] return, I want to file it, except for many years, I’ve been audited every year. Twelve years or something like that. Every year they audit me, audit me, audit me … I will absolutely give my return, but I’m being audited now for two or three [years’ worth] now so I can’t. […] Maybe [I get audited so frequently] because of the fact that I am a strong Christian … you see what’s happened, you have many religious groups complaining about that.

Donald J. Trump, presumptive presidential nominee for the GOP, is pretty sure his obsessive readings of Two Corinthians (walk into a bar) are to blame for frequent audits.

I said that when I ran four years ago [and I’m saying it again now]— the first thing I’d do is abolish the State Department and start all over [… If the only] tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Every problem that the State Department has, the answer is diplomacy. Why? Because if it’s not diplomacy, they don’t have a job.

Rick “Don’t Google My Name” Santorum brandishing the sort of crystalline logic that powered him to a second place finish last go-round and but thus far in the 2016 cycle has left him seated at the kiddy table.
When do we get to peak abolish-on-day-one? Who will be the first GOP candidate to come out for abolishing our entire system of government ON DAY ONE? I suspect we’re closer than we think to just such a pronouncement.

How long has [the VA] been a problem? Decades. How long have politicians been talking about it? Decades.” Fiorina said she would gather 10 or 12 veterans in a room, including the gentleman from the third row, and ask what they want. Fiorina would then vet this plan via telephone poll, asking Americans to “press one for yes on your smartphone, two for no. You know how to solve these problems, so I’m going to ask you.

Carly Fiorina, wowing us with The Leadership. Rising star, everyone. Deepest GOP bench in a generation or more. To lower taxes, press one!

…modern Republican politicians can’t be serious — not if they want to win primaries and have any future within the party. Crank economics, crank science, crank foreign policy are all necessary parts of a candidate’s resume.

Until now, however, leading Republicans have generally tried to preserve a facade of respectability, helping the news media to maintain the pretense that it was dealing with a normal political party. What distinguishes Mr. Trump is not so much his positions as it is his lack of interest in maintaining appearances. And it turns out that the party’s base, which demands extremist positions, also prefers those positions delivered straight. Why is anyone surprised?

Paul Krugman, laying bare the sad realities of the modern GOP. That last night’s debate is greeted as anything but a sad portent for the forseable future of representative democracy in America is indicative of the depth of our problem.