Which of these tacks do you suppose the MSM will take up?
-or-
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?
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)
There’s no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue, they increased revenue because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy. So I think what Senator Kyl was expressing was the view of virtually every Republican on that subject.
Remarkable! The Bush tax cuts decreased revenue. Who knew!?! Certainly not Boehner or Kyl…
…now that the enviros have embraced a GHG tax or its cap-and-trade equivalent as the way to deal with global warming, conservative support is nowhere in sight. They’re all too afraid of Grover Norquist.
Remember this the next time a conservative explains how we ought to voucherize public education. The minute that happens, the conservatives will come back and decide that we need to means-test the vouchers. That done, they’ll attack the remaining program as “welfare.”
This is not a group of people it’s possible to do business with.
People who have swimming pools don’t need state parks. If you buy your books at Borders you don’t need libraries. If your kids are in private school, you don’t need K-12.
A second reason, however, was that I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism. On the available evidence, I suspect that it is Lord Ashcroft’s idea of being a mug.
Witness the Shirks, perhaps the most ironically named Tea Klanners in existence:
For the Shirks, it was a day for their children to seek inspiration from Palin and the other speakers, who questioned Obama’s patriotism and at least one of whom referred to him repeatedly as Barack Hussein.
The couple, who rely on Medicaid for their health care, were also upset about the nation’s new health reforms.
When asked why her family used state-subsidized health care when she criticized people who take handouts, Valerie Shirk said she did not want to stop having children, and that her husband’s income was not enough to cover the family with private insurance.
“I know there’s a dichotomy because of what we get from the state,’’ she said. “But I just look at each of my children as a blessing.’’
Truly paragons of the Individual Responsibility arm (far-right lunatic division) of the GOP. I mean, seriously. No doubt they arrived in a Cadillac.
Lest you think this is some isolated case, here’s another just like it (served up with a twist):
Tea Party supporters said they did not want to cut Medicare or Social Security – the biggest domestic programs, suggesting instead a focus on “waste.”
Some defended being on Social Security while fighting big government by saying that since they had paid into the system, they deserved the benefits.
Others could not explain the contradiction.
“That’s a conundrum, isn’t it?” asked Jodine White, 62, of Rocklin, Calif. “I don’t know what to say. Maybe I don’t want smaller government. I guess I want smaller government and my Social Security.” She added, “I didn’t look at it from the perspective of losing things I need. I think I’ve changed my mind.”
Progress, I guess. When faced with a serious logical disconnect, a Tea Klanner didn’t just impugn the veracity of Social Security being a government program or somesuch, they reassessed their position. More like this, please.
And maybe there would be more like that if we bothered to teach any kind of formal reasoning or critical thinking in schools. Unfortunately, we all know that shit went out along with any other R not relating to Religion. Years ago.
The other angle here, of course, is the failure of the Democrat. Bridge falls, E. coli outbreak, mine explosion, train crash, whatever: each a powerful object lesson in what functional government can do that a non-functional, regulatory captured government cannot. But that sort of talk is, apparently, too shrill.
Just two examples. Let’s count how many times we hear about this sort of thing in the 2010 election cycle. I’m boldly setting the over/under at 0.
Tax expert Roberton Williams, interviewed by Derek Thompson at the Atlantic has some notes on the political landscape for reform (as currently proposed via Wyden Gregg, which itself only has life so long as the President disavows any and all knowledge of it):
From a political perspective, you say, “We’ve got to do it because you can’t trust big government.” That’s it. That’s all you can say. That’s the only argument I can see [against radically simplifying the filing process for ~80% of Americans by having the IRS essentially pre-fill your form].
Uh, no. The GOP will allow meaningful reforms over their dead bodies. You can pry said bill from their cold, dead hands. Why? Because they are utterly dependent on the government being perceived as a faceless automaton meant to screw you out of your money with no perceptible civic gain in return. Period.
Making healthcare delivery work, making tax codes simpler, efficient government-run response to disaster, making the trains run on time, or whatever other example of government actually working you want to use: none of them comply with the current GOP vision for government. They are fundamentally opposed to all of it. And will fight any attempt to fix it. To. The. Death.
Witness the various tax pickles that Obama’s nominees found themselves in. This wasn’t because they’re all crooks. It’s because our tax codes are vastly overcomplicated. Did the Democrat fight to make that point? Of course not. The nominees largely just withdrew. Instead of a teachable moment, the administration got a fundamental reduction in the available pool of nominees: those with very, very simple tax histories who also decide each and every interpretive question that may arise in favor of the IRS. I think you’ll find vanishingly few CPAs or tax-preparers out there who decide that way. In fact, this problem is sufficiently prevalent that it comes up in the interview (emphasis original):
a study I think in Alabama where they went to a number of preparers with a fake tax case that legally couldn’t qualify for the earned income tax credit. But this particular tax preparer’s thing was to tell people, “We’ll get you the EITC.” And guess what? In only one case did the tax preparers say, “You don’t qualify for this credit.” You pay people a couple hundred bucks for a tax return, you want a real return. You want a credit. If you don’t get it, there goes the business model.
Precisely. Combine this tendency with a complex, multi-national employment record and you’re simply not likely to survive the confirmation process. And, writ large, the GOP likes it this way. They want government to look as ineffectual, impotent, and its processes as internecine as possible. That is the foundational principle of Grover Norquist’s “Starve the Beast” and really all of Reaganism as practiced today. It’s why Medicare Part D (and many other Bush era spending programs) was passed without funding it: the GOP wants financial meltdown such that the government is forced to eliminate said spending programs.
The GOP as currently constituted is and always will be against good policy until such time as they are forced to change tactics. Period. The existence of good policy (and its outcomes) fundamentally weaken their entire volitional paradigm. Period. Democrats need to message accordingly and queue legislation initiatives (like this tax reforms package) that highlight that. Period.
They never will.
Lemkin 