Tag: tea klan

Does that mean that you would raise taxes on the 47 percent of Americans who currently don’t pay taxes?

Anderson Cooper, buying into the entirely wrong, entirely Tea Klan promulgated notion that about half of Americans pay no taxes.
Anderson, and everyone else, everyone, every single adult citizen pays federal taxes in this country or they are breaking the law. Even this 47% to which you refer still pays payroll taxes related to Social Security, Medicare, and etc… if they are employed. However, they may well earn too little money to exceed the standard individual/married filing jointly deduction. Thus, they effectively pay no federal income tax. They do, however, still pay all the rest of it. Period. They do, however, still pay state and local taxes. Period. In any meaningful case: This adds up to a lot more than one dollar (which was Bachmann’s suggested “solution” to the “issue”). But that’s all too boring or too partisan to mention, apparently.
In a functioning society, the media individual selected to mediate this event might just see fit to mention this. Worth noting that, in our society, that sort of thing never, ever happens, and this tax thing is but one of literally hundreds of such opportunities for meaningful intervention in last night’s debate. The level of foreign aid, the current funding totals for defense (with regard to the suggested cut), the real impact of immigration on the economy of this country, foreclosures, and on and on and on.
And so the Republic crumbles.

Herman Cain: If it’s good enough for Sim City, it’s good enough for America.

gonzodave:

Aside from being an egomaniac, Cain is a plagiarist.

~g

Long before Cain was running for president and getting attention for his 999 plan, the residents of SimCity 4 — which was released in 2003 — were living under a system where the default tax rate was 9 percent for commercial taxes, 9 percent for industrial taxes and 9 percent for residential taxes. (That is, of course, if you didn’t use the cheat codes to get unlimited money and avoid taxes altogether.)

Cut to: Bachmann press conference in which she breathlessly announces that she’s gained access to the secret government cheat codes which, when entered into a secret keypad in the Bible on the day of her inauguration, will allow for unlimited revenue on no taxes whatsoever. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new national GOP polls leader.

Herman Cain: If it’s good enough for Sim City, it’s good enough for America.

Only Off by 3.3 million

Steve Benen notes the systematic nature of claiming “zero jobs” created from the stimulus despite the conclusion from the Congressional Budget Office that

“President Barack Obama’s stimulus package may have created or saved as many as 3.3 million jobs last quarter and lowered the unemployment rate by as much as 1.8 percentage points”

Let me make this as clear as I can: The Facts Do Not Matter. Unless and until Wolf Blitzer stops the debate and says “then how do you square that statement with the findings of the CBO and 99.9% of world economists who have all concluded…” we will make zero progress.

The modern GOP is entirely predicated on empty boilerplate, outright lies, and brazen platitudes specifically designed to play well for the low information, low attention voter. That is the essence of the Tea Klan: I want all the government services I prefer to be provided for free, everyone else can kindly go die in the streets; here is my entirely unsubstantiated “plan” to make that happen. The cheers at the notion that an under- or un-insured 30 year old in a coma should simply be allowed to die coupled with boos at any notion of immigration being a powerful and useful economic engine for the country say pretty much everything you need to know about the broader movement. God help us if these folks ever discover just how much of the “Texas Miracle” occurred at the hands of legal and illegal immigration into the state. Thus it should come as no surprise that the audience questions last night reflected this sort of poisonous vacuity relative to the actual state of affairs of numerous, seemingly straightforward issues facing the country.

By way of example, there was a long, multi-participant disquisition on how waste, fraud, and abuse totaling in the tens of millions and maybe even into THE BILLIONS could impact the deficit and debt of an approximately four trillion dollar budget. Not one candidate stepped in to even imply that these maximally estimated waste numbers were extraordinarily small potatoes in the context. And neither did Wolf Blitzer. So what was he doing there, exactly?

The same goes for Social Security. Interminable amount of discussion about a program that is largely self-funding and will not be a significant deficit driver for decades and need never drive the deficit should the government choose to make long-term, minor adjustments to the program. Cost growth within Medicare will have destroyed the federal government long before we ever have to think about Social Security as a threat to the solvency of the government. Did that merit a mention? Did Wolf hold anyone to account for that seeming incongruity?

The same goes for “Obamacare.” Each of the candidates begged for “market-based” private insurance solutions to health care delivery in this county. Precisely what, pray tell, do they think “Obamacare” is? Did Wolf bother to ask?

This is all before we even touch lengthy discussions of tax policies featuring 0% rates, 9% national sales taxes, and every other kind of pie-in-the-sky nonsense without even a whisper of how such a rate of collection could even partially pay for existing military budgets, much less everything else dread government does (but don’t cut my pet program!). Was any of this even tangentially addressed? Did anyone get asked what sort of total spending their wonderful tax plan would presage and how that would change federal priorities as we know them (assuming for the moment that the candidate pushing their idea got exactly what they were asking for)? Doesn’t that seem like the sort of thing a moderator should be doing, Wolf?

Of course not, because within our modern media construct the facts do not matter. The facts are the last thing they are concerned with. This was an event entirely predicated on and existing only to produce new sound and fury signifying nothing that will nonetheless be dissected and replayed purely from a horse-race perspective until the next one of these intellectual disasters transpires. It’s why they’re having 52 of them: to feed the mill. What, you thought it was to better understand the relevance and relative merits of the various platforms?

Until we in America force the broader media to start doing its job (by taking our eyes and ears elsewhere), we will continue to get exactly this kind of crap, which is precisely the sort of leadership such an electorate deserves. I wouldn’t hold your breath.

Only Off by 3.3 million

Not Conservative Enough

danielholter:

A Come to Jesus Moment for American Religion

The Republican Party in the United States—15 months before the next presidential election—has already burdened itself with an array of front-running presidential candidates […] [and] it now seems a necessary qualification for the Republican nomination, at least at the present primaries stage, to be a born-again fundamentalist Protestant. Yet in the United States the majority of the electorate is not fundamentalist, evangelical or Protestant.

This last bit is key. If we assume that the economic situation gets no worse and, perhaps, even improves a bit between now and 2012, and we further simply take the polling of the GOP field as it stands today (giving the nomination to Perry in a walk), it’s very hard to see how he beats Obama. So: Perry gets crushed in the general election. In the inevitable “we lost because we weren’t conservative enough” aftermath, how exactly does one make that case? Because that’s the case that will be made. The “message of the American voter” in delivering a massive tidal wave of support to 2012-Obama will universally be seen to have been a clear, ringing demand for lower taxes on the rich, a dismantling of the social safety net, and that the poor and out of work should just go die in the streets already.

Perhaps you just blame Boehner. You’ve presumably lost some House seats (but retained the majority). Cantor wants to be Speaker, so you spin it as “Perry only lost because Boehner was too easygoing on radical urban liberal Obama.” Seems impossible that anyone would buy it, but then most of FOXnews’ more successful narratives seem pretty unlikely when viewed in the abstract.

GOP Loves Tax Hikes

Marginal Revolution’s Alex Tabarrok:

If Republicans have their way, taxes will increase next year by $120 billion. Republicans in favor of tax increases? Sadly, yes.

The post goes on to lay out its theories on the GOP loving only tax cuts for the rich and so forth. But I think this is wrong.

The House GOP is against this particular tax cut continuing solely because Obama wants it to continue. Any policy underlying that singular issue is beside the point. “Obama’s for it” is reason enough for them to oppose anything to the bitter end.

A simple experiment would clear this up for the broader electorate. Obama should choose two or three of the most dearly held GOP beliefs and take them up. Argue for their immediate passage. But he should be sure to stand clear of the microphone, as there will be a stampede of Tea Klanners vying to be the first to refudiate lower capital gains taxes, or an end to the “death” tax, or massive corporate welfare giveaways to our Galtian Overlords.
We’ve said it before, and Serious People tend to think it’s some kind of a joke when you point it out to them, but if he wants to succeed on the policy front Obama needs to come out against wind power, trains, lower taxes, and single payer health care. It’s the only way those issues will ever get any traction from either party.

Try it and see. It’s the awful truth of today’s politics and sadly how things “work.”

GOP Loves Tax Hikes

Rick Perry’s an idiot, and I don’t think anyone would disagree with that

Bruce Bartlett, former H.W. Bush Treasury official and Reagan adviser, minces words when asked his thoughts on Rick Perry. More evidence of Turd Blossom’s tentacles? Or just the party apparatus trying to help Perry out by appearing to denigrate his intellect while hedging bets against his inevitable defeat in a national election?
I’d say: A little from column A, a little from column B.

You don’t want these candidates moving so right in the Republican primary that it becomes impossible for them to win the general election, because it will become a self-defeating message in the primary.

People want to win. They don’t want somebody who goes so far to the extremes of either party that they lack a chance to carry a victory off in November.

Karl Rove, old turd blossom hisself, opining on the GOP Presidential primary field.
Sorry to be the one to tell you this, Karl, but the “sensibility” ship has sailed, been round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition’s flames, and subsequently was no-bid auctioned into a second career as a part-time riverboat gambling operation for KBR executives.
John Huntsman even put his hand up on the “10:1 cuts/revenue is a non-starter deal” question and he’s only running for 2016 positioning. There is no one in the field even trying to be the slightly more sensible, slightly more center-far-right candidate of today’s GOP. Mittmentum, the man made to take up that role abandoned it in 2008. His strong showing then has sensibly pushed him even further to the right now. That ought to fix his issues. If the GOP can’t win the general election from a far right stance, they almost can’t win in 2012. And if the economic headwinds were a bit more predictable, we could drop the “almost” qualifier right now.
But the last thing The Democrat would want to do is start making the GOP take stands against job creation. People just don’t want to hear about that stuff right now. Shrill. Better take a “non-confrontational approach,” get into the defensive crouch, and hope for the best. And this is why they fail.

If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don’t know what y’all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous, or treasonous, in my opinion.

Rick Perry, governor or Texas and candidate for the GOP nomination for President, apparently accusing Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke of treason.
He really is going to invigorate the GOP primary. What a strong field they have.
Source: Washington Post

Number Two

LA Times: “Investors are looking past the budget situation and realizing this is an austerity plan,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank in Chicago. “We have an economy that’s struggling to stay afloat and we don’t have the ammunition to keep prodding it forward.”
Kevin Drum: Oh really? Now you tell us? There are really only two options here. (1) The Times is wrong. (2) The Times is right and America has the stupidest goddamn investors on the planet. For months they sat around cheering on the tea partiers and declaring solemnly that the federal budget was just like a household budget and we needed “real action” on the debt in order to build confidence in the economy. Then, suddenly, when they got it, they realized that what they really wanted wasn’t dumb slogans but actual policies that would help spur the recovery. And that means looser monetary policy and fiscal stimulus.
Lemkin: I’ll take #2 for $1000, Alex. Tea Klan nonsense works because it feels good. It’s fun to rage away and tilt at grand conspiratorial windmills. Never you mind that actions have consequences, many of which will have direct and painful consequences in your lives. FOXnews and its political wing, the GOP, have a President to defeat. Nothing else matters. Pure electoral nihilism.