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From this Wednesday's The Last Word, Lawrence O'Donnell took apart "tea party" Rep. John Fleming for his remarks about irresponsible Republicans in the House never voting to increase taxes in the last 100 years -- and reminded everyone why they would be better off not quoting President Lincoln on taxes if they're not in the mood to make fools of themselves.

It seems Fleming repeated during a press conference, the same thing he wrote in an op-ed this week: FLEMING: GOP-controlled House has never raised taxes:

If some Republicans have their way, the party soon will make history for all the wrong reasons.

In the past 100 years, since the authority of Congress to tax income was enumerated in the 16th Amendment, marginal income tax rates have never been raised when Republicans have held the majority in the House of Representatives. For nearly a century, Republican-controlled Houses held the line on tax rates, a Republican coup de pointe to Democratic tax-increase parries. Here’s the question for my fellow Republicans: Do we want to be the first-ever GOP House majority to raise federal marginal income tax rates? [...]

If Republicans really believe in the principles of smaller government and economic liberty — as we have over the past 100 years, and as many of us still do — we should be far more concerned about getting principle right instead of worrying about polls and re-election.

Abraham Lincoln reminded us to “adhere to your purpose, and you will soon feel as well as you ever did. On the contrary, if you falter, and give up, you will lose the power of keeping any resolution, and will regret it all your life.”

Here's more on O'Donnell's response from his site: O’Donnell on why Republicans shouldn’t quote Lincoln on taxes:

He failed to mention what the Republican-controlled House of Representatives during Lincoln’s presidency did with taxes. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell set the record straight on Wednesday’s show:

“That Republican-controlled House actually passed our first income tax which Lincoln signed into law to pay for the Civil War. It was a progressive income tax–3% on annual incomes over $600 and 5% on annual incomes over $10,000. The Supreme Court ruled those taxes constitutional, but decades later in 1895 the Supreme Court reversed the earlier decision and declared federal income taxes unconstitutional–which is why in 1913 it took a Constitutional amendment to re-establish federal income taxation.

O’Donnell also pointed out that Republicans constantly bring up Lincoln any chance they can get “because 21st century Republicans know that Abraham Lincoln is the only Republican that many Americans admire.”

“Abraham Lincoln is also the only Republican president, indeed the only president, who has ever gotten a Republican House of Representatives to raise income taxes. Republicans didn’t just establish the very first income tax as I just described. Two years later, they raised the rates. They doubled the top tax rate from 5% to 10%. That’s back when Republicans were responsible: 150 years ago.”

O'Donnell also reminded his audience that their stance on taxation may be one of the reasons that Americans have not given them control of the House of Representatives for all that many years over the last century.

Sadly, they wouldn't have it now were it not for cheating and gerrymandering.

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Looks like someone's having a little trouble keeping their talking points straight. RNC Chairman Contradicts Romney Camp, Says Mandate Is A Tax:

The Romney campaign has been taking pains to emphasize they believe the individual mandate is not a tax. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus didn’t get that memo.

On CNN’s “Starting Point” Tuesday morning, Priebus said that the position of both the RNC and the Romney campaign is that the mandate is, in fact, a tax.

“Our position is the same as Mitt Romney’s position,” Priebus said. “It’s a tax.”

Priebus said that while he disagreed with the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the health care law, the decision defined the provision requiring people to either purchase insurance or pay a fine as a tax. “It’s a tax, and the reason why it’s a tax is because the Supreme Court, No. 1, ruled it was a tax and No. 2, it’s what Barack Obama’s lawyer argued before the Supreme Court,” Priebus said.

The only problem: Priebus’s assessment, though he framed it as the joint belief of the RNC and the Romney campaign, is directly at odds with Romney’s recent statements.

In a rare agreement between the two campaigns, the Romney camp has shied from calling the mandate a tax because doing so would imply that Romney, too, created a tax in Massachusetts under his health care reform plan. “The governor believes what we put in place in Massachusetts was a penalty and he disagrees with the court’s ruling that it was a tax,” senior Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said Monday on MSNBC. Fehrnstrom said it was “correct” that Romney and President Obama agree on the issue.

Here's more from our regular commenter Mugsy on why the Republicans are so desperate to call it a tax and why it's not: Sorry Right Wingers, the Health Care Penalty is NOT a “Tax”. Roberts says so. (Updated with video)

Transcript of Priebus' exchange on CNN below the fold.

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From this Monday evening's The Rachel Maddow Show, guest host Ezra Klein does a recap of the column he wrote earlier that same day, debunking the right wing's latest talking point that the Affordable Care Act is “the largest tax increase in the history of the world.”

No, ‘Obamacare’ isn’t ‘the largest tax increase in the history of the world’ (in one chart):

Since the Supreme Court decision, Republicans have been calling the Affordable Care Act “the largest tax increase in the history of the world.” Politifact rates this false. Kevin Drum’s got a table of the 15 significant tax increases since 1950, and the Affordable Care Act, which amounts to a tax increase of 0.49 percent of GDP, comes in 10th. Austin Frakt took Drum’s table and made a chart: [...]

So no, the Affordable Care Act isn’t the “biggest tax hike in history.” It’s not even the biggest tax hike in the past 60 years. Or 50 years. Or 30 years. Or 20 years.

But it does include a number of tax hikes. The individual mandate, however, isn’t one of the big ones. It’s only expected to raise $27 billion during the next decade. The largest tax increase in the law is on high earners, who will see their Medicare payroll taxes increase by 0.9 percentage point and who will also pay a slightly higher rate on investment income. That raises more than $200 billion. There’s also the tax on unusually expensive health insurance plans, which raises $30 billion in the first decade, and much more in the second. There’s a $60 billion tax on insurance companies. You can find the whole list here.

And as Derek Thompson at The Atlantic rightfully pointed out: 2 of the Last 3 GOP Presidents Signed Larger Tax Increases Than Obamacare.

And as Klein noted in the clip above, President Obama has also cut taxes as he did in the stimulus, by extending the Bush tax cuts for two years and as he's promising to do with extending most of the Bush tax cuts for the lower and middle class permanently. None of those facts seem to matter to Republicans much, who are just desperate to paint Democrats as tax and spend liberals and make paying taxes of any sort a dirty word rather than all of our duty to make sure our government functions and that we protect the most vulnerable in our society and our society and democracy as a whole.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm really just exhausted from watching and listening to this Libertarian wing and bunch of extremists that have taken over the Republican Party and the media's unwillingness to call them out as the dangerous ideologues that they are. Klein did a good job of calling out their lies and the fact that they want to demagogue the issue of paying taxes here. Sadly segments like this one have been the exception when it comes to Republicans and their reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling on the Affordable Care Act. For the most part they've been aided and abetted by our corporate media, and not just Fox.