Tag Archives: taxes

Tom Friedman: Tea Party is Wrong – Americans Want Higher Taxes and More Spending

Posted on November 28, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on Tom Friedman: Tea Party is Wrong – Americans Want Higher Taxes and More Spending

There are times when one has to think the Manhattan building that is the home of the New York Times doesn't have any windows, doesn't have any television sets, and doesn't have any doors that allow employees to venture out and actually see what's happening in America beyond the walls of 620 Eighth Avenue. Consider that after the impact the Tea Party has had on our nation's politics the past 20 months, and the historic elections that just took place on November 2, Times columnist Tom Friedman actually thinks Americans aren't interested in reducing the federal deficit but are instead yearning for higher taxes and greater government spending: read more

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Within 3 Days, AP’s Reported Unemployment Estimates Significantly Worsen

Posted on November 27, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on Within 3 Days, AP’s Reported Unemployment Estimates Significantly Worsen

In separate reports for the Associated Press during the past week, Christopher Rugaber and Jeannine Aversa, economics writers for the wire service, each dealt with estimates for next year's average unemployment rate. They came back with significantly different predictions for 2011 without recognizing how widely those estimates varied. On Tuesday , Rugaber dealt with the Federal Reserve's latest economic growth projections, in the process telling readers that the Fed expects that the unemployment rate “will be 8.9 percent to 9.1 percent in 2011.” On Friday , Aversa looked at three alternative proposals for handling next year's federal income tax rates, which will increase substantially for everyone unless Congress acts. The projected unemployment rates for next year under the three proposals are all either 9.9% or 10.0%. So the Fed thinks that unemployment will come down next year, while Aversa's consulted experts think it will go up slightly regardless of what Congress does or doesn't do about taxes. The one-point difference between the two sets of estimates represents about 1.5 million workers . That's not a small number. Did things suddenly get worse while the turkeys were cooking on Thursday? read more

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Within 3 Days, AP’s Reported Unemployment Estimates Significantly Worsen

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Flashback: In 2009, Time Saw GOP As ‘Endangered Species’ Unless Party Moved Left

Posted on November 25, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on Flashback: In 2009, Time Saw GOP As ‘Endangered Species’ Unless Party Moved Left

With all but one of the House races now resolved, Republicans have picked up at least 63 seats, the most in a midterm election since 1938. So, it might be fun on this Thanksgiving Day to recall how, just 18 months ago, Time's Michael Grunwald was arguing in a big cover story that demography and its “extremely conservative” philosophy meant the Republican Party could be on the verge of extinction. Back in May 2009, Newsbusters Brent Baker picked up on Grunwald's piece for the ridiculous way he painted the GOP as extremist: They are extremely conservative ideas tarred by association with the extremely unpopular George W. Bush, who helped downsize the party to its extremely conservative base. But re-reading the piece today, it's even more striking how Grunwald's “analysis” was based on liberal wishful thinking that small government conservative policies were like political arsenic, and how Republicans had to drop tax cuts and cultural conservatism if they ever hoped to come back from the wilderness. In other words, move left. But the GOP instead moved right, and was rewarded by voters. Which is why conservatives should probably not take strategic advice from their ideological adversaries in the media. read more

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Flashback: In 2009, Time Saw GOP As ‘Endangered Species’ Unless Party Moved Left

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George Stephanopoulos Chides Michele Bachmann: Why Is It ‘Okay’ to Extend Tax Cuts?

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on George Stephanopoulos Chides Michele Bachmann: Why Is It ‘Okay’ to Extend Tax Cuts?

For the second time in two days, Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday lobbied for tax increases, wondering why it's “okay” for the “wealthiest Americans” to continue to receive a tax cut. The GMA host pushed Congresswoman Michele Bachmann to accept a deal in exchange for extending the Bush tax cuts. After the conservative leader expressed skepticism about extending unemployment benefits, Stephanopoulos complained, ” But, why is it okay for the wealthiest Americans, earning over $250,000 a year– And remember, the President has called for extending all tax cuts for those under $250,000.” He continued, worrying about why it's acceptable for the wealthy to get “tax cuts extended, but for people who are out of a job and needing unemployment benefits not to have their benefits extended?” read more

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George Stephanopoulos Chides Michele Bachmann: Why Is It ‘Okay’ to Extend Tax Cuts?

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NY Times Op-Ed Writer’s Muddled Logic: Money Not Paid in Taxes a Gift from Government

Posted on September 28, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on NY Times Op-Ed Writer’s Muddled Logic: Money Not Paid in Taxes a Gift from Government

It’s a really skewed view of the relationship between citizens and the government – that anything you earn and get to keep by not paying to the government in the form of taxes is a show of benevolence from the government. But that’s apparently the view of Richard H. Thaler, professor at the University of Chicago . In the Sept. 26 New York Times , Thaler, declares that tax cuts are a gift in his op-ed “What the Rich Don’t Need.” “WANT to give affluent households a present worth $700 billion over the next decade?” Thaler wrote. “In a period of high unemployment and fiscal austerity, this idea may seem laughable. Amazingly, though, it is getting traction in Washington . I am referring, of course, to the current debate about whether to extend all, or just some, of the tax cuts of President George W. Bush – cuts that are due to expire at year-end. They’re expiring because the only way they could be enacted initially was by pretending that they were temporary.” Video Below Fold This caught the eye of CNBC’s Joe Kernen, the co-host of “Squawk Box.” On the Sept. 27 broadcast of his show, Kernen pointed out the flaw in that logic. “Over the weekend, I was reading in The New York Times – it was one of their professors that writes. I forget the guy’s name. I always disagree with him,” Kernen said. “[H]e talks about it as a $700-billion gift to the rich. And I just have a problem when they look at – OK, so they’re using the Clinton tax levels as the standard of where we are. And anything diverges from that is a gift, even though it’s money you earned. It’s a gift back to you.” Kernen questioned why the talking point used by tax cut opponents is always based on what tax levels were during the Clinton presidency and why it is a view that a certain percentage of what taxpayers keep is gift to the them. “Let’s go back to pre-, before Reagan began was around, when it was 70 percent. Anything less than 70 percent, is it a gift to the taxpayer?” he continued. “[D]oes it start at ‘you pay 100 percent to us and anything we let you keep after that is a gift’ or does it start at ‘0 percent and anything you charge me prove that you need to spend that.’ Why don’t you do it that way? Prove that you need anything above zero percent. Show me you’re not going to waste it and then prove you can do it.” Fill-in co-host Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, author of the forthcoming book “You Know I’m Right: More Prosperity, Less Government” summed it up succinctly by explaining what the intended relationship of government and the citizens is. “They work for us,” Caruso-Cabrera said. “We don’t work for them.”

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Time’s Joe Klein Profiles Liberal Vineyard Owner Practically Pining for Days of Higher Taxes

Posted on September 28, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Comments Off on Time’s Joe Klein Profiles Liberal Vineyard Owner Practically Pining for Days of Higher Taxes

With its dwindling readership, Time magazine is fast becoming a museum piece.  What better way is there to celebrate than for the publication to bring to its few readers’ attention other strange curiosities? Three weeks into his cross-country Election Road Trip , Joe Klein filed a Swampland blog post  shortly after noon Eastern time today from Sebastopol, California, where he found a true rarity, a businessman practically pining for the days of heavier federal taxation (emphasis mine): Barry [Sterling, founding partner of Iron Horse Vineyards] said he was deeply worried about the country. “I was born on the day of the 1929 stock market crash, so I’ve lived from the Great Depression to the Great Recession,” he said, “and I must say I’m amazed by how little progress we’ve made. We stopped regulating. We dropped taxes to unsustainable levels. I spent a good part of my life in the 70% tax bracket. It didn’t discourage me from working,” he said, referring to the supply-side argument that lower tax rates spur enterprise. “It made me work harder. My father lived with 90% rates during World War II. I’m actually mystified by the greed now. I don’t understand families like Koch brothers,” he said referring to the Republican Tea Party bankrollers. “They have so much money. Why do they need more?” No wonder Joe Klein found Barry to be delightful dinner company.

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President Obama To Tea Party: ‘Identify, Specifically, What Would You Do?’

Posted on September 20, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

From the Huffington Post: White House advisers on Monday pushed back hard against a New York Times report that the administration is ready to launch a full-frontal assault on the Tea Party movement as the November elections approach. No such plans are being made, insisted senior advisers. And, sure enough, the Times quickly modified its story into something a bit duller. In a town hall meeting broadcast live by CNBC on Monday, however, President Obama seemed to be reading off the initial script. Pressed by an audience member to weigh in on what exactly drives the Tea Party, Obama, in no uncertain terms, accused the movement's members of refusing to talk in specifics. If there is anger over the economic or political landscape, he added, it is being misdirected in his direction. “The problem that I've seen in the debate that's been taking place and in some of these Tea Party events is, I think they're misidentifying sort of who the culprits are here,” said Obama. “As I said before, we had to take some emergency steps last year. But the majority of economists will tell you that the emergency steps we take are not the problem long-term. The problems long-term are the problems that I talked about earlier. We had two tax cuts that weren't paid for, two wars that weren't paid for. We've got a population that's getting older. We're all demanding services, but our taxes have actually substantially gone down.” “So the challenge, I think, for the Tea Party movement is to identify, specifically, what would you do?” he added. “It's not enough just to say get control of spending. I think it's important for you to say, I'm willing to cut veterans' benefits or I'm willing to cut Medicare or Social Security benefits or I'm willing to see these taxes go up. What you can't do, which is what I've been hearing a lot from the other side, is we're going to control government spending, we're going to propose $4 trillion of additional tax cuts, and that magically somehow things are going to work. Now, some of these are very difficult choices.” Obama does seem to operate at his best when facing inherently adversarial questions (recall the positive coverage he received for going to a Republican conference in Baltimore during the height of the health care debate). And while several questioners at the CNBC event were sympathetic to the president, the answers that seemed to resonate best came when the pro-business or anti-government questioners were pressing him. His direct questioning of the Tea Party's motives came just moments before he acknowledged that being “healthfully skeptical about government” is in “our DNA.” added by: BRAVATRAVELS

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Dems Will Love Morning Joe’s Odd Manifesto Against ‘Angry Voices’

Posted on September 20, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Not sayin’ Rahm wrote it, but . . . In a strange departure from Morning Joe’s typical spontaneity, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski issued what was clearly a scripted, teleprompted, manifesto this morning.  The statement purported to be non-partisan condemnation of “angry voices” and a call, citing a WWII poster, to “keep calm and carry on.”  But even a cursory analysis reveals that the manifesto’s message suits Dem themes to a ‘T’ , and carries clear echoes of a recent partisan speech by Pres. Obama at a political event. The manifesto amounted to a condemnation of the “angry voices” and the “political extremists” who, claimed Scarborough, “are dominating the airwaves and dominating the national debate.” But at this juncture in American political history, the anger is understandably more present on the right. The Dems, after all, control both houses of Congress and the White House, and have used their power to promote a big-government agenda on everything from health care to trillion dollar spending schemes to higher taxes.  You’re darn right we’re angry!  In instructing us to calm down, Joe and Mika are really seeking to sap the vitality from the political movement that threatens to sweep Dems from office. Scarborough approvingly cited recent comments by NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg that “anger is not a government strategy . . . It’s not a way to govern.”  But Bloomberg was in turn echoing comments by PBO at a recent political fundraiser . . . CNN reported PBO’s words in an article entitled “Obama: GOP relying on fear, frustration instead of offering new ideas,” and quoted him as saying: “In a political campaign, the easiest thing the other side can do is ride that anger all the way to Election Day . . . people are hurting and they are understandably frustrated. A lot of them are scared and a lot of them are angry . That dynamic makes it easier to run on a slogan of “cast the bums out . . . but it’s not a vision for the future .” Let’s recapitulate: Obama says anger bad, not a vision for the future.  Scarborough says anger bad, not a way to govern. I’m sure the folks at the White House and the DNC will be delighted by Morning Joe’s manifesto.  They couldn’t have said it better themselves.

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Schieffer Bashes White House’s ‘Snarky’ Response to Boehner’s Tax Cut Comment

Posted on September 19, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

CBS’s Bob Schieffer on Sunday bashed the White House for how it responded to House Minority Leader John Boehner’s (R-Oh.) tax cut comment uttered on “Face the Nation” a week ago. As readers are likely aware, Boehner made news – if not friends amongst conservatives! – by telling Schieffer that if the only thing that came out of the House was an extension of the Bush tax cuts for all but folks that make $250,000 or more per year, he would grudgingly support it.  After reading the White House’s official response to Boehner during this Sunday’s final segment – “Time will tell if his actions will be anything but continued support for the failed policies that got us into this mess” – Schieffer scolded, “I can remember when the first move by a president like Lyndon Johnson or maybe a smart aide in the Eisenhower White House would not have been a snarky press release.” “I`m guessing LBJ would have been on the phone to Boehner in five minutes after seeing him on TV saying something like, if you`re serious, why don`t you come over here quietly and we`ll try to work out something good for both of us and the folks out there,” continued Schieffer. “As we saw, no chance it could happen today. And we`re right back to the partisan war” (video follows with transcript and commentary):  BOB SCHIEFFER, HOST: Finally, House Republican Leader John Boehner did a rare thing on this broadcast last week. He got off the talking points. I asked him about extending the Bush tax cuts that expire this year. Boehner gave me the GOP line: We should extend those cuts for all Americans, rich and poor, Democrats want to extend the cuts only to those making less than $250,000 a year. And when I pressed Boehner, he carefully said that was just bad policy, but if it came down to tax cuts only for the lower and middle income groups or no tax cuts at all, he said, he would reluctantly vote for just the lower and middle income cuts. That was big news all across the country. And it set off a thunder bolt of reaction in both parties. By mid-afternoon the White House acknowledged Boehner`s change in position but added in a written press release: “Time will tell if his actions will be anything but continued support for the failed policies that got us into this mess.” Blame it on a long memory, but I can remember when the first move by a president like Lyndon Johnson or maybe a smart aide in the Eisenhower White House would not have been a snarky press release. I`m guessing LBJ would have been on the phone to Boehner in five minutes after seeing him on TV saying something like, if you`re serious, why don`t you come over here quietly and we`ll try to work out something good for both of us and the folks out there. Call me a romantic, but I believe that might have happened. As we saw, no chance it could happen today. And we`re right back to the partisan war. Too bad really. Nicely done, Bob, but isn’t this possibly another instance of you not being as aware of things going on in Washington, D.C., as you should be? After all, it was only two months ago that Schieffer interviewed Attorney General Eric Holder and not only didn’t ask him about the New Black Panther Party controversy at the Department of Justice, but also admitted to CNN’s Howard Kurtz that he hadn’t heard anything about it.   Regardless of the media’s pathetic echoing of the Democrat talking point that Republicans are the Party of No, GOP members in the House and the Senate have been offering legislative ideas since Obama was inaugurated. Problem is the Party currently controlling Congress and the White House has wanted to implement its policies without any input from Republicans relying instead on their majorities in both chambers. As such, it’s by no means surprising the Obama administration didn’t immediately jump on Boehner’s comments from last Sunday to try to use them as a means of coming to a resolution on this matter. That’s not been this White House’s modus operandi since January 20, 2009, and Schieffer would have known this if he wasn’t accepting the administration’s talking points as the Gospel truth. Why he didn’t this time is anybody’s guess unless like so many folks on the Left he’s beginning to come out from under the Hope and Change ether. Stay tuned. 

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Time Magazine Annoyed at Limited Reach of Class Warfare on Views on Tax Cuts

Posted on September 16, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

“Good News, Rich People: Poor People Don’t Want to Raise Your Taxes” That’s the snarky headline for Kayla Webley’s 5-paragraph NewsFeed item filed earlier today at Time.com. “Nearly half of the lowest earners among us want the rich to stay rich,” complained Webley, adding: As Congress debates whether to extend the Bush-era tax cuts, a new Associated Press-GfK poll shows the country is as divided as Washington when it comes to increasing taxes for the wealthiest Americans. According to the poll, 54% support raising taxes on the rich, while 44% are opposed. Meaning that while the tax increases proposed by President Obama would affect only a minority of Americans (Obama says just 2%), nearly half of Americans — despite being completely unaffected by the proposed increases — don’t want to see anyone’s taxes increased. To accompany the story, Time editors included a stock photo by Getty Images of a man wearing a gray blazer with crisp $20 bills tucked in his breast pocket (see screencap above, click image for full size). In her rush to complain about nearly half of “poor” Americans favoring tax cuts for the “rich,” Webley neglected to pass along an interesting quote from a Democrat featured in the AP story to which she linked. Noted reporter Alan Fram: While about three-fourths of Democrats favor raising taxes on the rich, about half of independents and nearly two-thirds of Republicans oppose the idea. Support for cutting everyone’s taxes exceeds four in 10 people in every region of the U.S. except the Midwest, where one-third back the proposal. Even among people earning under $50,000 a year — mainstays of the Democratic Party — 43 percent want to continue the tax cuts for all. “You shouldn’t be penalized for making a good living,” said Charles Ricotta, 55, a Democrat from Dunkirk, N.Y. “If you feel the government is cutting your throat, you might feel hesitant about hiring people.” Watching the government soak the rich may temporarily make you feel good by proxy, but in the long run it kills economic growth and the jobs that come from that.  That’s the sentiment some 43% of “poor” taxpayers seem to subscribe to. It’s a shame that Time magazine doesn’t, or worse, refuses to, get it.

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