DOWNLOADS: (121)

PLAYS: (591)

Embed

Former Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank (D) on Tuesday warned that Monday's twin bombings in Boston were an example of why lawmakers should proceed with caution when considering cutting taxes and slashing the budget.

In an interview with on CNN, host John Berman posited to Frank that "in some ways, the recovery is based on the response."

"Let's be very grateful that we had a well-funded, functioning government," Frank agreed. "It is very fashionable in America and has been for some time to criticize government, belittle public employees, talk about their pensions, talk about what people think is their excessive health care, here we saw government in two ways perform very well."

The former congressman pointed out that both local and federal government had worked together in "seamless cooperation."

"You know, I never was as a member of Congress, one of the cheerleaders for less government, lower taxes," he explained. "No tax cut would have helped us deal with this -- or will help us recover. This is very expensive."

"We're not asking people, 'Do you have have private health insurance or not? Can you afford this or not?' Maybe the government is going to have to pay for it. And this is an example of why we need -- if we want to be a civilized people -- to put some of our resources into a common pool so we are able to deal with this. And to deal with it, you can't simply be responsive once it happens."

Frank added that that "this is a terrible day for our society, but a day when I hope people will understand the centrality of having a government in place with the resources."

"At a time like this, no one thinks about saving pennies. But going forward, I hope people aren't going to think, you spent these tens and tens of millions of dollars -- that would probably be a low estimate -- let's just take that out of everything we have going forward. This is an example of why we need to provide the resources for our common good."

(h/t: The Huffington Post)

DOWNLOADS: (154)

PLAYS: (1670)

Embed

I'm not sure what the producers of MSNBC's UP with Steve Kornacki felt that Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform's Mattie Duppler was going to add to the debate on this Sunday's show, but after watching her on there, apparently it was to keep the rest of the guests busy debunking the endless string of lies she told during her time on the panel.

During a discussion ranging from what percentage of GDP is needs to be taxed, to the size and scope of government, to whether Americans even know what the federal government spends money on, or how many people realize that President Obama has lowered their taxes, the conversation got a bit contentious when Duppler trotted out the old "because of Obama, government spending is out of control" canard.

After the Center for American Progress' Neera Tanden made the point that the central thesis of Republicans' economic strategy has been tax cuts, and that it has been proven that tax cuts don't produce economic growth, here's Duppler's response.

DUPPLER: That's not the central thesis of the Republican party. It is one of the tenets of the Republican party. (crosstalk) But you also have explosive government growth. You've got government spending that's out of control and that...

JOHNSTON: It's not out of control. […] The government is rapidly shrinking under Obama.

DUPPLER: After he exploded it. After he increased spending by eighty-four percent. I mean, seriously, this is laughable that you're telling me that are just (crosstalk).

JOHNSTON: This would put us into a depression. You want to put us into a depression. (crosstalk).

NADLER: This is the central lie...

DUPPLER: I'm challenging your assertion that the deficit and the size of government is shrinking after Obama and congressional Democrats took spending and the size of government to all time highs.

NADLER: This is the central lie... this is the central lie of our political debate right now... what you just said.

JOHNSTON: Absolutely.

NADLER: The fact is, what happened to our deficit is, after it was cut... after it went up because of the Bush tax cuts and the wars and everything, since Obama took office, remember, the CBO before Obama took office said the 2009 deficit was going to be $1.4 trillion and it was. Why? And it was hugely increased. Why? Because when you get a recession, you get a depression such as we were in, two things happen.

One, revenues plummet, taxes plummet. People aren't working. They don't pay taxes, number one. And so taxes plummeted. And number two, automatic spending on unemployment insurance and on food stamps goes up because more people don't have money to eat with...

JOHNSTON: And Jerry, if you don't have part two, that you did, that's when you get the great depression.

After Duppler continued to insist that from a "small government perspective" government spending is still too high, David Cay Johnston reminded her of just what that philosophy is going to cost us.

JOHNSTON: We are going to be poorer in the future because we are cutting spending on basic research. The cell phones that we all have have grown from government spending in the past. The jet airplanes we fly come from government spending, the computers we use, the math in them, all come from government spending. [...] We need to be spending money on government research, development and education and Republicans want to cut all that.

After Duppler said she wanted to know how we were supposed to fund these things, Tanden pointed out the obvious... paying taxes. Duppler pretended that cutting taxes was not "the central tenet" of the Republican party, but thanks to her group, that's exactly what it's been.

DOWNLOADS: (96)

PLAYS: (706)

Embed

Former budget director David Stockman says that a "huge cultural problem" concerning defense cuts and higher taxes is linked to a massive alleged conspiracy to cheat on standardized tests in Atlanta Public Schools.

Last week, former Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Beverly Hall was among 35 educators who were indicted for conspiring to rig standardized test scores between 2005 and 2009.

During a Sunday panel on ABC News, conservative columnist George Will pointed to the No Child Left Behind law passed under President George W. Bush and said that it had been a mistake to tie teacher pay to student test scores.

"We've put in all kinds of perverse incentives all linked to standardized testing," Will explained.

"Cheating is symptomatic of a huge cultural problem we have," Stockman opined. "The cheating that's going on in Washington today, in terms of not being honest about the real choices: higher taxes for you, Social Security cuts for the affluent, big declines in defense not there. The cheating that's going on in terms of the financial system that's totally out of kilter and really needs to be fixed in Wall Street is not even being addressed."

"So, that is symptomatic of a huge national problem."

As Reagan's budget director from 1981 to 1985, Stockman helped pushed through massive tax cuts under the theory that wealth would "trickle down" from richer Americans.

DOWNLOADS: (112)

PLAYS: (453)

Embed

He just can't stop himself. It's only been a few weeks since Tom Brokaw was on Meet the Press, pushing for cuts to Social Security and Medicare and here he is back again this Sunday, this time using an new NBC/WSJ poll on the public's expectations going into President Obama's second term to push for cutting them again.

Chuck Todd showed the audience some of the results from the poll and a word cloud showing the answer to the question "What would you tell Pres. Obama as he begins his second term?" and here's what that looked like:

And here's how Brokaw interpreted it:

BROKAW: Yes, and I was looking at those top three priorities for the American people and they all fit into his single most difficult task, it seems to me, both conceptually and specifically. In the next couple of years -- and he only has a couple of years, second terms are not four year terms -- you're running right up to the mid-term election, frankly -- I think that there's a desperate need for the country, going forward, to do something about tax reform and entitlements, sitting under the umbrella of fixing the economy and creating more jobs and stop the spending. That's going to be tough.

We've been giving people things for a long time. Now they're going to have to start reeling them in and fine tuning them and that's going to take an exceptional hand in the White House to pull that off. So that's a daunting task. You know, this is like the Saturday before Superbowl Sunday, everybody's talking about what's going to happen. Then the kickoff comes and unexpected events begin to roll out across the political landscape and that's what he has to adapt to David.

You know what's not "unexpected" Tom? That millionaire pundits like yourself are going to continue to push to gut our social safety nets because you don't want your taxes raised.

When I read that Americans believe we need to create jobs, fix the economy and stop the spending, the first things to come into my mind are stop outsourcing, quit with the race to the bottom on wages, quit busting unions and stop wasting money on our bloated military industrial complex. Somehow cutting Social Security benefits instead of raising the cap and cutting Medicare benefits by raising the eligibility age and forcing seniors into private insurance -- instead of addressing the real problems with our rising health care costs -- never made it onto my list. Imagine that.

DOWNLOADS: (152)

PLAYS: (739)

Embed

If anyone is still suffering from the illusion that we get any better programming from public broadcasting than we do from the majority of our corporate media, that is determined to push our politicians into going after our social safety nets, you need look no further than their regular Friday evening series featuring The New York Times' overpaid op-ed columnist and Republican turd polisher David Brooks and their favorite faux liberal, Mark Shields.

This week, Brooks was still carping about how the so-called "fiscal cliff" deal went over and that we didn't get any meaningful deficit reduction from the debacle, or in other words, he's mad that President Obama didn't give away the store and gut our social safety net programs. And for "balance" the viewers got treated to Shields repeating every right-wing trope in the book about how those who would like to see our New Deal programs remain in place are expecting a "free lunch" or being selfish because they don't want to cut Social Security benefits and "don't want to pay" for the benefits they receive from government.

Who needs right-wing Republicans when you've got the likes of Shields out there repeating their talking points for them? And as I've written here along with a ton of others, no mention about what's really needed to solve our deficit problems without balancing budgets on the backs of the poor, working class and elderly. No mention about getting us back to full employment and what policies should be fixed to bring jobs back to the United States that pay a living wage. No mention of the enormous income disparity and concentration of wealth at the top. No mention of the fact that Social Security not adding to our deficit and that there are some fairly simple ways to keep it solvent for decades to come.

Instead it's more talk of who is acting like an "adult" by doing their best to make those gaps between the rich and the poor even worse. What irritates the hell out of me about shows like this is that there are people out there, like my dad, who watch this stuff and think it's unbiased programming because it's PBS.

It's really disheartening to see just how much the Pete Petersons of the world have managed to dominate this conversation, where instead of talking about what is driving up our health care costs, what to do to contain them and whether The Affordable Care Act is going to address those costs once the law is fully implemented, we're seeing discussions on every network from PBS to Fox to you name it in between, pretending as though all of those things exist in a vacuum and the only solutions are for the working class to make some more sacrifices. It's actually beyond disheartening. It's really disgusting and inexcusable.

Transcript via PBS below the fold.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (358)

PLAYS: (7547)

Embed

I have to give CNN's Ali Velshi kudos here, because he did something we don't see often enough on our corporate media. He fact checked someone right on the air and called them out for not telling the truth during an interview. Then he followed up during the same program so the viewers who watched the interview would see it. I was glad to see that happen during his New Year's Ever interview with Rep. Tim Huelskamp.

He actually went a long way in making up for the terrible interview with Huelskamp's fellow wingnut Rep. Marsha Blackburn the previous evening, where he allowed her to filibuster him and rattle off way too many of her talking points unchecked. I still don't think it makes up for him having the Wall Street Journal hack Stephen Moore just about every stinking week on his weekend show, Your Money, without some liberal economists for balance.

Velshi laid into Huelskamp for pretending that raising taxes on those making over $250,000 a year is going to harm a large number of the small businesses out there and those so-called "job creators," and gave him some grief for the stats he was quoting as well.

Ali Velshi Tears Into GOP Congressman Over ‘Misleading Statistic’: ‘You’re On CNN Right Now’:

Huelskamp disputed Velshi’s claim and said that he had “seen research” that raising taxes would impact “41% of business income.” Velshi called him out on his language, saying “41% of business income is not 41% of business, that’s a very, very different and somewhat misleading statistic.” Again Velshi asked, “You understand the distinction, right?”

Velshi then proceeded to silence Huelskamp from speaking any further, saying, “Sir, you put out information to our viewers, you’re on CNN right now. I would like the information to be accurate.” Huelskamp fought to answer, and when he was asked by Velshi whether he wanted to stand by his information, he said, “That’s our best guess. We’re still working on that.”

“I think that’s a guess,” Velshi retorted.

According to Huelskamp, part of the difficulty in obtaining accurate information is that the Obama administration won’t tell his team anything. Velshi slammed him for this misstatement, saying, “We actually don’t have any difficulty getting that information, sir. We don’t need it from the administration, that information is public.”

The post at Mediaite did not take note of the fact that he followed up during the same hour and fact checked Huelskamp for the viewers who had just watched the interview. I say good for him for doing this. It's too bad that this is the exception and not the norm on every channel with any politician who comes on the air and lies to the viewers.

DOWNLOADS: (238)

PLAYS: (4164)

Embed

VELSHI: Wolf, I just want to... I've been doing some research as I promised I would do in the conversation that we had with Congressman Tim Huelskamp, quoting what he said was a study by Montana State University. We're working our way through that study, but I'll tell you the facts that we have right now.

If businesses... if everybody who earned more than $250 thousand saw an increase in the top tax rate from 36 percent to 39.6 percent, that would be 3.5 percent of all small businesses. That would be 940,000 businesses. That's I think a number that the Congressman was quoting. So at $450,000, it is nowhere near the number that the Congressman was quoting.

But let's just be generous and say that it was that. Of that number, only a very small proportion are not hedge funds, partnerships, law firms, companies that don't employ a whole lot of other people. So the Congressman's facts are just incorrect on this. There is nowhere near a million businesses that will be affected by this increase of taxing people above $450,000.

DOWNLOADS: (235)

PLAYS: (2449)

Embed

Given he's from New York and has done more than his share to make sure our government policies are friendly to Wall Street, the big banks and the hedge fund managers, I was pleasantly surprised to hear Chuck Schumer take his fellow Senator, Jon Kyl to task for trying to pretend that you're going to hurt a lot of small businesses if you raise taxes on those making over $250,000 a year.

I've heard this argument so many times from Republicans, it's ridiculous and ABC This Week host Jonathan Karl wasn't much better than Kyl here with trying to pretend like you're going to damage the economy if the wealthiest among us have their taxes go up a few percentage points for their income over a quarter of a million dollars.

KARL:  But I've got to ask you about this question about -- because this is one of the big sticking points left, is whose taxes go up?  Is it people making over $250,000, as the president wants, or Republicans suggested nobody, or people making over a $1 million?
 
But you, Senator Schumer, had proposed raising taxes only on those making over $1 million.  And I want to take a look at what you said about this proposal, going at $250,000.  This was last year.  You said, "In the eyes of many, it is hard to ask households making $250,000 or $300,000 a year -- in large parts of the country, that kind of income does not get you a big home or lots of vacations or anything else that is associated with wealth.  It also would affect too many small businesses." 
 
Weren't you right back then, when you said it was wrong to raise taxes on those...
 
(CROSSTALK) 
 
SCHUMER:  Well, look, we offered that to our Republican colleagues two years ago, when the political landscape was different.  They rejected it.  And then the president, sticking to $250,000, campaigned on it openly, overtly.  He won the election on it overwhelmingly on that issue; 60 percent of the public was with him. 
 
So that is our position.  It's a position that brings in more revenues.  And what we have learned, as the fiscal situation deteriorated, if you go much higher than $250,000, to raise the rest of the revenues you need, you're going to hurt the middle class as you take away their tax deductions.  So it's the right place...
 
KARL:  But you said back then...
 
SCHUMER:  ... to be.
 
KARL:  But you said back then it would affect too many small businesses.  Frankly, you sounded a little like Senator Kyl. 
 
SCHUMER:  Well, the bottom line is very, very simple, and that is that if you do -- if you go much above $250,000, you're going to hurt the middle class even worse and small businesses even worse by having to take away tax deductions.  That's not the place we were at two years ago.  It is the place we're at now, because the situation is deteriorating. 
 
KYL:  Jonathan, it's exactly the opposite.  The higher you set that level, the less small business you're going to hit.  And you're exactly right, and Chuck was right back when he talked about a million, because the increase in the tax rates for individual taxpayers sweeps in about a million small-business owners.  Remember, about half of small businesses are women-owned.  And it sweeps them up because they don't pay corporate tax rates; they pay as individuals. 
 
KARL:  But -- but...
 
SCHUMER:  Wait a second.  That's counting big hedge funds as small businesses, big Hollywood productions, like Oprah Winfrey, as small businesses.  It affects very few.  We all know mom-and-pop small businesses, the dry cleaner down the street and others, don't make millions and millions of dollars.

DOWNLOADS: (198)

PLAYS: (1498)

Embed

You've got to hand it to David Brooks. No matter how badly the Republicans are behaving, he always finds a way to blame it on President Obama. He says the president just wasn't willing to reach out them quite enough in these so-called "fiscal cliff" negotiations, and he dismisses the fact that the only thing they really care about is looking out for their wealthiest base.

Here he was on this Friday's PBS Newshour, doing exactly that and sounding a lot like Fox's Sean Hannity, mocking President Obama for coming back from his vacation in Hawaii and pretending that the President hasn't already offered Republicans so much that he's angered the Democratic base.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, developing fiscal cliff, walking, walking, walking, David.

A short time ago, the president came out of the meeting with the congressional leaders, and he said he was modestly optimistic. Are you?

DAVID BROOKS: No. No. No.

I think everyone is trying to look busy, so when we go over, they can say, well, we tried. He came back from Hawaii. He had to do something. And so they had a meeting.

If you don't have new offers, you are not really making progress. You could have a nice frank exchange, but they are in the business of making a deal.

And there is really, as far as we know, no real evidence that they moved. So I remain convinced, as I have been, that we are probably going to go over. And then, once that happens, then all sort of things start aligning. Speaker Boehner gets reelected as speaker. He doesn't have to worry about that.

It's a lot easier to pass a tax cut for the middle class than to try to do it beforehand. Everyone goes crazy outside. And so there is a little more pressure. So I still think it's much more likely that not much is happening.

Yeah, that's it. "Not much is happening," so just disregard the meetings that took place that same day. And we're going to go over that cliff, but in Brooks' world, we wouldn't dream of blaming the Republicans. And never mind that Boehner is angling to protect his speakership. The real problem is that President Obama wasn't willing to give them their pound of flesh from the working class for them to make a deal. And how dare Obama call them out for being obstructionists? He's the leader, after all.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (60)

PLAYS: (171)

Embed

Looks like Rep. Tom Cole is still out there taking the hit for Speaker John Boehner and giving him some cover from the "tea party" wingnuts in the House that think compromise of any sort is akin to treason: Key Republican Says Middle Class Tax Cuts Would Pass The House:

Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) said Sunday that middle income tax cuts would pass the House if brought up.

Asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” if he sees growing Republican support for the bill that GOP leaders oppose, he said, “Yeah, honestly I think if it got to the floor, it would carry.”

“I think it would,” said Cole, a deputy majority whip. “Look, that’s my judgment, but I spend a lot of time counting votes and looking around. But this doesn’t say we’re going to raise taxes on anybody, it says OK this group for sure, your taxes aren’t going up. Get that done with, get it over with.”

The remarks seem to undermine Speaker John Boehner’s hand in fiscal cliff negotiations with President Obama. The Speaker’s call for Obama to make concessions in the talks is built on the premise that the president’s plan for avoiding the cliff cannot pass both chambers of Congress.

I don't think he's doing any of this without Boehner's full approval. They want those social safety nets slashed and are backed into a corner on the tax increases and in a bad negotiating position right now. And as Think Progress noted:

Despite their rhetorical support, however, Republican members have yet to sign the discharge petition filed by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) that would force the House to vote on the middle-income tax cut extension.

So talk is cheap. They're going to give an inch when they're forced to or when they start hearing from enough of their donors and/or constituents that have finally had a belly full of them.

Transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (101)

PLAYS: (626)

Embed

From this Wednesday's Starting Point, Republicans aren't doing a very good job defending themselves for wanting to keep most Americans and our economy hostage to retain those tax cuts for the richest among us: GOP Rep. Has No Answer For Why Republicans Won’t Vote For Middle-Class Tax Cuts:

Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), the incoming chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, could not explain during an interview on Wednesday why House Republicans are holding middle- and low-income tax cuts hostage to the cuts for the wealthiest Americans in the fiscal cliff showdown. When pressed by CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, Hensarling first cited complaints about spending, but when O’Brien asked why he couldn’t set spending levels aside and compromise on taxes first, he had nothing but unrelated talking points: [...]

Hensarling’s invocation of Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) proposal is not only not an answer to O’Brien’s question — as it doesn’t explain what’s wrong with the simple solution O’Brien poses — but it’s also not anything close to balanced. While Boehner’s plan contains an array of draconian spending cuts, it doesn’t propose any actual increased revenue, relying instead on the same voodoo as the Romney tax plan.

As Zack noted, his analysis on the electoral math is also wrong and irrelevant.

Full transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »