Tax Cut Lies: The Day The News Died

[FORD]

Published on Sunday, December 5, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
Tax Cut Lies: The Day The News Died

by Thom Hartmann

The New York Times today jumped on board with a classic Frank Luntz "Big Lie."

Democrats in the House and Senate put forth a bill that would reduce taxes on the first quarter-million, and then, when that failed, the first million dollars of income for every single American.

Somebody earning $100,000 a year would get a tax cut on all of their income.

Somebody earning $250,000 a year would get a tax cut on all of their income with the Democrats first proposal.

Somebody earning $1,000,000 a year would get a tax cut on all of their income with the Democrats' second proposal.

And a billionaire who pulls down $5 million or $50 million a year would get a tax cut on the first $250,000 or $1,000,000 of that income. They just wouldn't get a tax cut on any income they earned OVER the first quarter-million or million (proposals one and two).

Now read the first paragraph of The New York Times' reporting (by David M. Herzenhorn) on this:

WASHINGTON - The Senate on Saturday rejected President Obama's proposal to end the Bush-era tax breaks on income above $250,000 for couples and $200,000 for individuals, a triumph for Republicans who have long called for continuing the income tax cuts for everyone.

What? "Republicans who have long called for continuing the income tax cuts for everyone"??

EVERYONE would have gotten a tax cut under the Democrats' proposal. Every single taxpayer in America, from the street-sweeper to Bill Gates. Everyone!

While it's egregious that The New York Times would adopt this sort of deceptive language, suggesting that Democrats don't want to give "everyone" a tax cut, it's even more disastrous that the President hasn't been pointing this out.

Or simply saying, "We just want to go back to the Clinton tax rates for everybody. Remember? The ones that produce 20 million jobs and a surplus budget? That's all we're asking for."

But the President isn't saying it - or offering much by way of leadership on anything these days - and the Democrats who are saying it are being systematically ignored by the media.

Michael Copps, the Commissioner of the FCC, recently told Katty Kay of the BBC that we're not producing "news" the way we were decades ago, but instead our media have a "substance abuse" problem, cranking out only infotainment designed to generate profits. Copps said it's putting our very democracy at risk.

There are no more in-your-face examples of the death of real news than the distorted coverage of the Democrats' attempt to give a tax break on the first million dollars of income earned to every single American, regardless of how much they earn.

Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored Award-winning New York Times best-selling author, and host of a nationally syndicated daily progressive talk program The Thom Hartmann Show. His most recent book is Rebooting the American Dream: 11 Ways to Rebuild Our Country. Previous books include: Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights, We The People: A Call To Take Back America, What Would Jefferson Do?, Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class and What We Can Do About It, and Cracking The Code: The Art and Science of Political Persuasion.



Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org
URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/05-0

[Nitro Express]

I hate income tax. We got that with the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. The megga rich billionares get their loop holes and always have. I would love to see it replaced with a national sales tax. It's visiable. Everyone pays. The rich pay more because they purchase more. We could make certain things like food exempt from it to help the poor. The problem is income tax preparation is a multi-billion dollar business and their lobby would fight this tooth and nail.

[FORD]

Income tax would be fine if they would lose the loopholes.

And anyone who doubts the need for the estate tax, just watch the current season of Celebrity Rehab, and explain to me how you can justify the continued existence of a useless piece of shit like Jason Davis, who makes his fellow estate tax recipients Paris Hilton and Chimpy Bush look useful by comparison.

[knuckleboner]

it's not really a lie. anybody earning more than $250,000 is looking at paying more taxes for 2010 than they did for 2009. now, if you want to say, "yeah, but your taxes with this action are lower than they'd have been if we didn't extend any of the tax cuts," then so be it. but at the end of the day, if they're still paying more taxes this year, it's hard to tell them to enjoy their tax cut.

mind you, i'm not weeping for the over $250,000 crowd. i just weep for the spin that both sides employ...

[kwame k]

The point that most people are missing is that we are broke and owe Trillions of dollars to other countries...........2 failed occupations, spending like a drunken sailor on shore leave, and an infrastructure that's falling apart. People are staying on unemployment for 2 years with no end in sight! We're spending 60% + or - of our GDP on military spending and creating no new jobs for the 8 or 9 million people who can't or won't find work.

Tough times call for tough solutions and raising taxes is going to have to happen at some point to pay for all this shit!!!!!! No one wants to hear that or even talk about it but what other choice will we have? At some point we have to pay. Both the Demos and Repukes refuse to acknowledge this simple fact of life.

[FORD]

We needed the new FDR, and we got Reagan with a tan.

DEAN/FEINGOLD 2012

[FORD]

December 5, 2010
Let’s NOT Make a Deal
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Back in 2001, former President George W. Bush pulled a fast one. He wanted to enact an irresponsible tax cut, largely for the benefit of the wealthiest Americans. But there were Senate rules in place designed to prevent that kind of irresponsibility. So Mr. Bush evaded the rules by making the tax cut temporary, with the whole thing scheduled to expire on the last day of 2010.

The plan, of course, was to come back later and make the thing permanent, never mind the impact on the deficit. But that never happened. And so here we are, with 2010 almost over and nothing resolved.

Democrats have tried to push a compromise: let tax cuts for the wealthy expire, but extend tax cuts for the middle class. Republicans, however, are having none of it. They have been filibustering Democratic attempts to separate tax cuts that mainly benefit a tiny group of wealthy Americans from those that mainly help the middle class. It’s all or nothing, they say: all the Bush tax cuts must be extended. What should Democrats do?

The answer is that they should just say no. If G.O.P. intransigence means that taxes rise at the end of this month, so be it.

Think about the logic of the situation. Right now, the Republicans see themselves as successful blackmailers, holding a clear upper hand. President Obama, they believe, wouldn’t dare preside over a broad tax increase while the economy is depressed. And they therefore believe that he will give in to their demands.

But while raising taxes when unemployment is high is a bad thing, there are worse things. And a cold, hard look at the consequences of giving in to the G.O.P. now suggests that saying no, and letting the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule, is the lesser of two evils.

Bear in mind that Republicans want to make those tax cuts permanent. They might agree to a two- or three-year extension — but only because they believe that this would set up the conditions for a permanent extension later. And they may well be right: if tax-cut blackmail works now, why shouldn’t it work again later?

America, however, cannot afford to make those cuts permanent. We’re talking about almost $4 trillion in lost revenue just over the next decade; over the next 75 years, the revenue loss would be more than three times the entire projected Social Security shortfall. So giving in to Republican demands would mean risking a major fiscal crisis — a crisis that could be resolved only by making savage cuts in federal spending.

And we’re not talking about government programs nobody cares about: the only way to cut spending enough to pay for the Bush tax cuts in the long run would be to dismantle large parts of Social Security and Medicare.

So the potential cost of giving in to Republican demands is high. What about the costs of letting the tax cuts expire? To be sure, letting taxes rise in a depressed economy would do damage — but not as much as many people seem to think.

A few months ago, the Congressional Budget Office released a report on the impact of various tax options. A two-year extension of the Bush tax cuts, it estimated, would lower the unemployment rate next year by between 0.1 and 0.3 percentage points compared with what it would be if the tax cuts were allowed to expire; the effect would be about twice as large in 2012. Those are significant numbers, but not huge — certainly not enough to justify the apocalyptic rhetoric one often hears about what will happen if the tax cuts are allowed to end on schedule.

Oh, and what about confidence? I’ve been skeptical about claims that budget deficits hurt the economy even in the short run, because they undermine confidence in the government’s long-run solvency. Advanced countries, I’ve argued, have a lot of fiscal leeway. But anything that makes permanent extension of obviously irresponsible tax cuts more likely also sends a strong signal to investors: it says, “Hey, we aren’t really an advanced country; we’re a banana republic!” And that can’t be good for the economy.

Last but not least: if Democrats give in to the blackmailers now, they’ll just face more demands in the future. As long as Republicans believe that Mr. Obama will do anything to avoid short-term pain, they’ll have every incentive to keep taking hostages. If the president will endanger America’s fiscal future to avoid a tax increase, what will he give to avoid a government shutdown?

So Mr. Obama should draw a line in the sand, right here, right now. If Republicans hold out, and taxes go up, he should tell the nation the truth, and denounce the blackmail attempt for what it is.

Yes, letting taxes go up would be politically risky. But giving in would be risky, too — especially for a president whom voters are starting to write off as a man too timid to take a stand. Now is the time for him to prove them wrong.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/opinion/06krugman.html

[FORD]

I say let them go up. It's not like most of us got anything from Chimp's tax "cut" except for a single $300 check anyway. And some of us never even got that. Obama already lowered taxes on the working class more than that anyway. Time for the rich leeches to pay up.

[Guitar Shark]

The democrats need to grow some balls. Seriously. This is beyond pathetic.

[Jesus Christ]

Verily, Matthew.

[Nitro Express]

Finally. Now I can do some business planning because I know what our taxes are going to be. Obama did the right thing. Now he just needs to cut more government spending while he's at it.

In fact, I'm sending a Thank You letter off to the White House.

[Jesus Christ]

I suggest ye buyeth a camel, and teach him how to walk through the eye of a needle.

[Nitro Express]

If our taxes went up we would be firing some people.

[Nitro Express]

Obama was in bed with the rich from the get go. Why don't people get it. Obama is a multi-millionare himself. It kind of sucks when you see the little man behind the curtain or find out Santa Clause isn't real. Time to grow up kids.

[kwame k]

At some point we'll have to raise taxes............