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I don't know why these Sunday talking heads show anchors like David Gregory even bother asking politicians questions if they're not going to push them for some actual answers. On this Sunday's Meet the Press, first Gregory had to hide behind the now defunct deficit commission co-chairs to point out the fact that Mitt Romney's math on his economic plan doesn't add up.

And when he asked Romney surrogate Rob Portman to give him specifics to counter their arguments, he got exactly none. All the audience got instead from Portman was carping about how the plan had been mischaracterized, without any explanation as to how. But rest assured, Mitt Romney's going to talk about in the debates. Never mind that the economy was supposed to be the topic of the first debate and we weren't offered any specifics then.

Gregory also managed to feign ignorance about Mitt Romney's six non-existent "studies" that are supposed to support his fuzzy math and trickle down economics. Maybe he was too busy getting ready for his next speaking engagement or learning some more dance moves to take some time to, you know... read. I don't think anyone had any high expectations for Karl Rove's dance partner when he was offered this job. Gregory continues to do his best to keep them right where they belong week after week.

Transcript below the fold.

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Bill Maher took a few shots at those coveted "undecided voters" that politicians are still vying for and that the media constantly puts on a pedestal, and voiced his disdain for having been subjected to one too many of these so-called "focus groups" with a bunch of “nincompoops" who have trouble focusing.

As he noted, if he wanted to watch a bunch of “ignorant jackasses bullsh*tting about the election,” he'd just turn on Fox & Friends. He also got shots in on the Octomom, Kim Kardashian and Donald Trump along the way.

I agree with him on being tired of the media and their focus groups and asking these people what they think. They ought to be doing a better job actually educating voters on the issues, but that would distract from their time continually pushing their he said/she said fake balance spots where the "truth" doesn't seem to matter much.

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The Young Turks' Cenk Uygur weighs in on Romney's tax plan -- what would happen if we're unfortunate enough actually find ourselves with him as president after the upcoming election. It isn't pretty: Mitt Romney wants the middle class to pay $500 more in taxes so the rich can get richer:

President Obama has claimed that Mitt Romney’s tax plan would give benefits to the rich at the expense of the middle class. “Is it true?” Cenk asks. “Absolutely.” Under Mitt Romney’s plan, US citizens makes less that $200 thousand a year would pay about $500 more in income tax. Cenk says, “This is redistributing the wealth from the bottom to the top.”

Here's more from Think Progress: New Analysis Shows Romney Tax Plan Would Raise Taxes On Middle Class Families By More Than $2,000:

On the campaign trail, Mitt Romney has been promising that he will cut taxes “across the board,” while also instituting tax reform that will not add to the nation’s deficit. But a new report from the Tax Policy Center at the Brookings Institution shows that this is much easier said than done.

In fact, if Romney were to actually implement his plan to reduce tax rates by 20 percent while eliminating tax deductions in order to pay for it, taxpayers with more than $200,000 would certainly see a tax cut. But everyone else — 95 percent of Americans — will see their taxes increase. And this result occurs even assuming that Romney would eliminate tax deductions so as to make the tax as progressive as possible:

To estimate how average household tax burdens among different income groups would change as a result of this shift, we assume that the available tax expenditures are curtailed “from the top down” in order to make the tax plan as progressive as possible…Even after eliminating all available tax expenditures for households earning more than $200,000, this group still faces a net tax break. Americans making over $1 million would see an increase in after-tax income of 4.1 percent (an $87,000 tax cut), those making between $500,000 and $1 million would see an increase of 3.2 percent (a $17,000 tax cut), and those making between $200,000 and $500,000 would see an increase of 0.8 percent (a $1,800 tax cut).

Because taxpayers above $200,000 as a group have received a net tax cut, revenue neutrality requires that taxpayers below $200,000—about 95 percent of the population—experience a tax increase.

[...] Again, this analysis assumes that deductions are eliminated in a way that would make the tax code as progressive as possible, so its likely that, in practice, Romney’s plan would look even worse. To this point, Romney has refused to specify which deductions he would limit or eliminate.

On several occasions, Romney has denied that his tax plan would provide a big tax break to the wealthy. But as this analysis shows, even giving him all of the benefit of the doubt when it comes to eliminating deductions, the plan is still a massive tax break for the rich.

And here's more from TPM on Romney trying to pretend that the study was biased and just ignoring how wonderfully those trickle-down economics he's advocating for are going to work if recent history is any guide: Romney Aide: ‘Biased’ Tax Study Ignores The Coming Romney Boom.

Thom Hartmann responds to a caller's question about Supply Side Economics and why St. Ronnie's theories on what stimulates job growth are completely upside down. As Hartmann explained, the middle class spending is what drives the economy and when you lower taxes on the rich as Reagan did, all they do is gamble with it causing booms and busts, leave it to their kids or put it in offshore tax havens like Mitt Romney.

As Hartmann noted, all lowering taxes on the rich has led to is record income disparity and the richest in the country having their incomes increase 275 percent since Reagan's time, with the rest of us essentially gaining nothing or losing income.

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Charlie Rose actually broke from his standard fare which is generally populated by the likes of David Brooks and Tom Friedman and their cohorts in the corporate media and had a conversation with authors Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer about their new book, The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government.

After watching this interview, I don't think Mitt Romney will be recommending this particular edition of Rose's show as required viewing any time soon. Both men discussed the fact that if we truly want to get our economy moving, those "job creators" are middle class consumers and the fact that when all of us are doing better and there is shared prosperity. That is something that is still completely lost on our political class these days, with way too many of them still pushing the idea that austerity and tackling our debt without putting Americans back to work is going to solve our problems with our sluggish economy.

If anyone has any doubts about why austerity measures like those pushed by the conservatives both here and in the U.K. are not a model we want to follow, just go look at the chart and read Steve Benen's post here -- Why the U.K. recession matters in U.S. politics.

They cited Henry Ford's theory that it was better to overpay his workers so that they could afford the product they were producing and advocated for taxes going up on the rich and for the taxes on investments to be raised, even if they're kept just slightly lower on those on wages and labor, so not to stifle the incentive for investments in America.

Whether anyone agrees or disagrees with all of the authors' points made during this interview, I think it was a whole lot more healthy discussion than what we're typically treated to from our corporate media. I don't think Rose made up for the countless hours he's allowed of Brooks and Friedman and their ilk to be spouting nonsense on his show unchallenged with this interview, but he certainly took a step in the right direction with having them on and with allowing a conversation where what we've been hearing over and over from Republican politicians on how jobs are created in our economy is challenged.

They both thoroughly debunked trickle-down economics and why it does not work and why Mitt Romney is full of crap with his talking points about being a “job creator” while he was at Bain during this interview.

Here's a short description of their book from Amazon:

American democracy is informed by the 18th century’s most cutting edge thinking on society, economics, and government. We’ve learned some things in the intervening 230 years about self interest, social behaviors, and how the world works. Now, authors Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer argue that some fundamental assumptions about citizenship, society, economics, and government need updating. For many years the dominant metaphor for understanding markets and government has been the machine. Liu and Hanauer view democracy not as a machine, but as a garden. A successful garden functions according to the inexorable tendencies of nature, but it also requires goals, regular tending, and an understanding of connected ecosystems. The latest ideas from science, social science, and economics—the cutting-edge ideas of today--generate these simple but revolutionary ideas:

True self interest is mutual interest. (Society, it turns out, is an ecosystem that is healthiest when we take care of the whole.)

More of their interview below the fold.

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Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney who had previously been avoiding doing any interviews with the media before it started looking like his frontrunner status in the GOP primary race was in jeopardy with Newt Gingrich rising in the polls, sat down with PBS's Charlie Rose and did his best to punt when asked what he thought about the shrinking middle class in America and the income disparity that has so many Americans upset these days.

Rose asked him straight up, twice, if he was concerned about the middle class disappearing and the class divisions we see growing deeper in the United States and in both instances, his response was to basically punt and make arguments about how we'd better not be too hard on that upper 1 percent, to trash unions, pretend that we're "punishing" those at the top if we would like to see them pay their fair share in taxes, and try to claim that if leave our economy to the "free markets" that everyone in society is going to end up being better off.

It really astounds me that after watching what forty years plus of what Reaganonomics have done to us that anyone in American politics could be so tone deaf to the fact that trickle down economics don't work and that without government intervening to make sure we protect American workers, we're going to continue to see America's economy go down the tank other than for the richest among us, like Mitt Romney, but that's exactly what we got from him during this interview.

If this is the best the GOP has to offer for the upcoming presidential election, and if these are the arguments Romney wants to make if he's hoping to be elected president, I actually look forward to watching him trying to repeat his performance with President Obama sitting across a podium from him, rather than Rose lobbing softballs with little follow up.

Romney's got all of his talking points down for the media as long as they allow him to change the subject and not actually answer their questions as he did here. He never really addressed the problem of income disparity other than to pretend that putting more money into the hands of the rich is going to solve it. I sincerely hope he doesn't get the kind of pass he did here if he wins the nomination once the debates start for the general election.

The other candidates may have their problems, but they truly don't have a better representative other than maybe Newt Gingrich of any of them that's more out of touch with the working class and what most average Americans are going through right now than Mitt Romney.

Some rough transcript of the beginning of the interview below the fold.

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Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote a terrific column today on how completely irresponsible Newt Gingrich's new tax plan he just released is, so naturally CNN apparently wouldn't put him on the air unless he was forced to argue with The Wall Street Journal's resident hack, Stephen Moore.

Here's Reich's column -- Newt’s Tax Plan, and Why His Polls Rise the More Outrageous He Becomes:

Newt Gingrich has done it again. With his new tax plan he has raised the bar from irresponsibility to recklessness.

Every dollar estimate I’m about to share with you comes from the independent, non-partisan Tax Policy Center – a group whose estimates are used by almost everyone in Washington regardless of political persuasion.

First off, Newt’s plan increases the federal budget deficit by about $850 billion – in a single year!

To put this in perspective, most forecasts of the budget deficit cover ten years. The elusive goal of the White House and many on both sides of the aisle in Congress is to reduce that ten-year deficit by 3 to 4 trillion dollars.

Newt goes in the other direction, with gusto. Increasing the deficit by $850 billion in a single year is beyond the wildest imaginings of the least responsible budget mavens within a radius of three thousand miles from Washington.

Imagine what Standard & Poor’s or Moody’s or Fitch would do if it became law. We’d go directly from a triple-A credit rating to triple X – the veritable porn star of fiscal mayhem. Interest on our debt would become larger than most of the rest of the budget.

Most of this explosion of debt in Newt’s plan occurs because he slashes taxes. But not just anyone’s taxes. The lion’s share of Newt’s tax cuts benefit the very, very rich. Read on...

So of course, Moore just loved the plan since it benefits the interest of the 1 percent he's always looking out for. Transcript below the fold with Moore's hackery, touting the tired old lines about how trickle-down economics works and claiming that slashing taxes on the richest among us is going to create jobs and with Reich calling him out for how utterly ridiculous his arguments were. Blitzer wrapped it up, calling it a "great debate." Sorry Wolf, but there's nothing "great" about letting one of your guests come on and spew lies aimed at making the income disparity we've got in the United States worse.

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Karoli and Murshed already wrote about this speech given by the Republicans new golden boy, Sen. Marco Rubio, at the Reagan Library this Tuesday, but I wanted to share a bit more of it. They may be pretending like this is some fresh face for the GOP, but his ideas and his speech here are their same old tired talking points and policies they've been advocating for for years. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Deregulate everything and let the free market prevail. Dismantle and privatize our social safety nets.

Add in some stereotypical rah, rah rah "We're the greatest country in the world" cheer leading and that about sums up Rubio's speech here. Nothing new to see but wrapped up in their latest shiny new package for them to fawn over for the next month or so.

And at a time when there is practically no upward mobility in America and if you're born poor, chances are you're going to be stuck there, how cynical are his remarks on what causes poverty? And I love that we should make sure we protest our social safety nets for someone like his mom, but the rest of us who have been paying into these programs for a lifetime as well shouldn't be given the same regard.

Transcript via the LA Times:

RUBIO: What we have now is not sustainable. The role of government and the role that government plays now in America cannot be sustained the way it is. Now some are worried about how it has to change, we have to change it. The good news is it is going to change. It has to change. That’s not the issue.

The issue is not whether the role that government now plays in America will change. The question is how will it change. Will it change because we make the changes necessary? Or, will it change because our creditors force us to make these changes?

And over the next few moments I hope to advocate to you –- I don’t think that I have to given the make up of the crowd –- but I hope to advocate to you that, in fact, what we have before us is a golden opportunity afforded to few Americans.

We have the opportunity –- within our lifetime –- to actually craft a proper role for government in our nation that will allow us to come closer than any Americans have ever come to our collective vision of a nation where both prosperity and compassion exist side-by-side.

To do that, we must begin by embracing certain principles that are absolutely true. Number one: the free enterprise system does not create poverty. The free enterprise system does not leave people behind.

People are poor and people are left behind because they do not have access to the free enterprise system because something in their lives or in their community has denied them access to the free enterprise system. All over the world this truism is expressing itself every single day. Every nation on the Earth that embraces market economics and the free enterprise system is pulling millions of its people out of poverty. The free enterprise system creates prosperity, not denies it.

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In the Republican Weekly Address, Sen. Jon Kyl continued with more of the GOP's latest excuse for why no one can ever dare to take tax rates back to where they were when Bill Clinton was in office. Heaven forbid we can't raise taxes on the "job creators." Republicans care about job creation, alright ... just not in the United States.

Maybe once they've destroyed our economy entirely where people here will work for a few dollars an hour, those "job creators" will decide to start blessing us again and creating more jobs here at home. Kyl also seems to have a bad case of amnesia if he's not going to acknowledge just who did that "runaway spending" he's talking about here.

Kyl's part of the problem with his votes for the Bush tax cuts, the illegal invasions of countries that were not a threat to us and the giveaways to the pharmaceutical industry -- not to mention he and his fellow Republicans' aversion to any type of regulation that might have prevented the financial meltdown and subsequent bailouts that have done terrible harm to our economy.

Kyl claims that raising the debt ceiling without significant spending cuts would be irresponsible. Sorry Jon, but your reckless spending that you refused to pay for or even put on the books that caused us to go from a surplus to a deficit in the first place is what's irresponsible. Now your party just continues to prove that you're completely incapable of governing as well. Slash, pillage, burn and destroy is all these people understand.

Weekly remarks by Sen. Jon Kyl, as provided by Republican Party leadership

Good morning. I am Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona.

By now, most Americans know that lawmakers in Washington are engaged in a difficult debate about the nation’s ‘debt ceiling,’ the legal limit to the amount of money the federal government can borrow.

The debt ceiling is currently set at a little more than 14 trillion dollars, and if Congress and the president don’t reach an agreement to raise it by this coming Tuesday, the Treasury secretary tells us America will no longer be able to pay all its bills.

The consequences of missing this deadline could be severe, precisely because Washington....
...borrows so much money -- more than 40 cents out of every dollar it spends. So, spending would have to shrink by 40% very quickly.

What’s more, markets would likely respond, dropping in value and hurting the retirement savings of millions of Americans.

Republicans have tried to work with Democrats to avoid this result and put our country on a better path, but we need them to work with us.

We start from the understanding that the reason the debt ceiling is a problem is because of runaway Washington spending. So, Republicans have been united in the belief that raising the debt ceiling without making significant spending reductions would be irresponsible.

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The Rev. Al Sharpton filling in for Cenk Uygur today did a pretty good job of making Rep. Jack Kingston tie himself into knots trying to explain his support for keeping things like tax loopholes for hedge fund managers in place and for defending tax cuts for the wealthy as supposedly creating jobs.

He let him get away with a few things, like pretending that some "fair tax" or flat tax would do nothing but benefit the wealthy, but all in all he did a better job of holding his feet to the fire on some of their tired and nonsensical talking points than you normally see from most of the hosts on MSNBC or anywhere else for that matter.