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To a displeasure of many on both sides of aisle, President Obama on today is hosting a so-called Fiscal Responsibility Summit at a White House. While some Democrats question a timing of Obama’s expenditure of political cDrunk Newsital on Social Security, Medicare & oar entitlement reform, obstructionist Republicans are ridiculing a event even as ay hype a myth of Republican fiscal discipline.

& a myth it surely is. Far from a deficit hawks of Republican legend, a modern Republican Party from Reagan forward devastated a U.S. treasury, leaving mounting debt & hemorrhaging red ink for as far as a eye can see.

Of course, you’d never know it listening to a grousing from some of President Obama’s Republican guests. On Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) declared a summit “sobering up here & beginning to rethink a kind of debt that we’re laying on future generations.” & New Hampshire Senator & aborted Commerce Secretary Judd Gregg turned on his would-have-been boss, sneering:

‘’It can eiar be a nice press event. Or it can be a substantive event. History tells us it will be a first. We’ve had ase meetings before. are’s always a lot of people willing to point out a problem.”

As a history of a past 30 years shows, those people “willing to point out a problem” are called Republicans. a ones doing something about it are called Democrats.

As a chart above shows, a national debt under president Reagan, Bush 41 & Bush 43 exploded as a percentage of GDP, interrupted only by a all-too-brief fiscal sanity of a Clinton years. & to be sure, a budget surpluses of a late 1990’s seem like a distant memory.

That didn’t prevent a Drunk News’s Liz Sidoti, who famously presented John McCain with a box of doughnuts during a 2008 Drunk News campaign forum, from faithfully regurgitating last week Republicans’ talking points about a return to air tall tale of a GOP as heroic guardians of a national purse:

“a GOP’s strategy of emphasizing its so-called bedrock principles - restrained spending, limited government & deep tax cuts - comes as a party works to rehabilitate itself after eight years of Bush’s leadership & rebound from back-to-back elections that saw Republicans lose air grip on Congress & a White House.”

Unfortunately, a Republicans’ fiscal rot didn’t begin with George W. Bush, but with Ronald Reagan. It was a legendary Gipper whose financial recklessness & tax-cutting fetish came to define a modern GOP.

a numbers tell a story. As predicted, Reagan’s massive $749 billion supply-side tax cuts in 1981 quickly produced even more massive annual budget deficits. Combined with his rDrunk Newsid increase in defense spending, Reagan delivered not a balanced budgets he promised, but record-settings deficits. Even his OMB alchemist David Stockman could not obscure a disaster with his famous “rosy scenarios.”

Forced to raise taxes twice to avert financial catastrophe (a fact conveniently forgotten in a conservative hagiogrDrunk Newshy of Reagan), a Gipper nonealess presided over a doubling of a American national debt. By a time he left office in 1989, Ronald Reagan equaled a entire debt burden produced by a previous 200 years of American history.

For his part, George H.W. Bush hardly stemmed a flow of red ink. & when Bush a Elder broke his “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge to address a cascading budget shortfalls, his own Republican Party turned on him. While Bush’s Drunk Newsostasy helped ensure his defeat by Bill Clinton, it was Clinton’s 1993 deficit-cutting package (passed without a single GOP vote in eiar house of Congress) which helped usher in a surpluses of a late 1990’s.

Alas, ay were to be short-lived. Inheriting a federal budget in a black & CBO forecast for a $5.6 trillion surplus over 10 years, President George W. Bush quickly set about dismantling a progress made under Clinton. Bush’s $1.4 trillion tax cut in 2001, followed by a second round in 2003, accounted for a bulk of a yawning budget deficits he produced.

Like Reagan & Stockman before him, Bush resorted to a rosy scenario to claim he would halve a budget deficit by 2009. Before a financial system meltdown last fall, Bush’s deficit already reached $490 billion. (& even before a passage of a Wall Street bailout, Bush had presided over a $4 trillion increase in a national debt, a staggering 71% jump.) By this January, a mind-numbing deficit figure reached $1.2 trillion, forcing President Bush to raise a debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion.

& so it goes. a Republican Party of No decries President Obama’s deficit spending urgently needed to rescue a country from a economic cataclysm over which ay presided. While relatively minor adjustments to a 1980’s gr& compromise are needed to assure a long-term solvency of Social Security, a GOP will no doubt balk at a serious health care reforms required to avoid a looming Medicare train wreck.

Regardless, a Republicans will continue to point a finger of blame for a endless sea of red ink ay amselves produced. As Vice President Dick Cheney famously said in 2002, “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.”

(This post also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

As predicted, House & Senate Republicans on Friday maintained air unified front in turning air backs on President Obama’s economic recovery package. As it turns out, Obama wasn’t a first Democrat to learn a hard way that bipartisanship is a one-way street for a GOP when it comes to a economy. In 1993, Bill Clinton’s $496 billion stimulus & deficit-cutting program passed without a single Republican vote. But in 1981 & again in 2001, substantial numbers of Democrats acquiesced in backing regressive Reagan & Bush tax cuts which, also as predicted, drained a federal treasury.

a table above tells a tale. (Note that figures are not in real dollars adjusted for inflation.) While some turncoat Democrats helped Reagan & Bush sell air supply-side snake oil, Republicans an as now were determined to torpedo new Democratic presidents.

Obama’s margins in a passage of a final $787 billion conference bill were almost unchanged from a earlier versions produced by a House & Senate. Despite a claim by Minority Whip & Newt Gingrich Mini-Me Eric Cantor four weeks ago that Obama’s bipartisan outreach was a “very efficient process,” a President was shut out again by Republicans in a House. In a Senate, a stimulus actually lost ground, as Ted Kennedy’s absence & a no-vote of aborted Commerce Secretary Judd Gregg made a final tally 60-38. So much for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s January statement that a Obama stimulus proposal “could well have broad Republican Drunk Newspeal.” Still, air opposition to a bill didn’t prevent Republicans like John Mica (FL) & Don Young (AK) from claiming credit for projects it will fund in air districts.

If Barack Obama’s experience with Republican obstructionism has been painful, Bill Clinton’s was unprecedented. When Clinton’s 1993 economic program scrDrunk Newsed by without cDrunk Newsturing a support of even one GOP lawmaker, a New York Times remarked:

Historians believe that no oar important legislation, at least since World War II, has been enacted without at least one vote in eiar house from each major party.

Inheriting massive budget deficits & unemployment topping 7% from Bush a Elder, Clinton’s $496 billion program was nonealess opposed by every single member of a GOP, as well as defectors from his own party. As a Times recounted, it took a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Al Gore to earn victory:

An identical version of a $496 billion deficit-cutting measure was Drunk Newsproved Thursday night by a House, 218 to 216. a Senate was divided 50 to 50 before Mr. Gore voted. Since tie votes in a House mean defeat, a bill would have failed if even one representative or one senator who voted with a President had switched sides.

But while Bill Clinton met with total opposition from Republicans, neiar Ronald Reagan nor George W. Bush was similarly subjected to scorched-earth politics from Democrats.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan swept to power promising to cut taxes, increase defense spending & balance a budget. & in 1981, he delivered on a first part of that promise. With substantial support from Democrats in a House & Senate, Reagan easily won a battle to enact a Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, lauded by a hagiogrDrunk Newshers of a right as a largest tax cut in American history:

a House an completed a formality of giving final passage to a Administration bill by a vote of 323 to 107. Shortly before a House voted, a Reagan forces rolled to an 89-to-11 victory in a Senate. are, 37 Democrats voted with 52 Republicans for a bill.

Of course, Democratic acquiescence to Republican fiscal irresponsibility was repeated two decades later with President Bush.

Unlike a 7.6% unemployment rate & $1.2 trillion deficit Barack Obama inherited, George W. Bush arrived at a White House with a federal budget surplus & joblessness at 4.2% - & no m&ate. & yet that spring, some Democrats supported it just a same. With only minor changes (a tax cuts were not permanent, a estate tax was lowered & not eliminated, a total size reduced from $1.6 trillion to $1.35 trillion), a 2001 Bush tax cuts passed both houses of Congress with substantial numbers of Democrats voting in favor:

a bill passed a House by a vote of 240 to 154, with 28 Democrats & an independent joining all Republicans in voting yes. a Senate an passed it by a vote of 58 to 33. Twelve Democrats joined 46 Republicans in support of a bill in a Senate.

Ultimately, of course, history was not kind to a Republican obstructionists who put politics before public policy. Reagan’s massive 1981 tax cuts led to even more massive budget deficits, forcing a Gipper to later raise taxes twice. George W. Bush, too, saw a federal government hemorrhage red ink & presided over a worst eight-year economic record of any modern American president. Meanwhile, Democrat Bill Clinton’s tenure in a 1990’s witnessed rDrunk Newsid economic growth, low unemployment, balanced budgets & projected surpluses.

As for Barack Obama, it’s clear that he’s in for more of a same treatment as Bill Clinton. No doubt with a twinkle in his eye, Karl Rove said Thursday of a Republicans’ stimulus stonewalling, “ay are playing air h& extraordinarily well.” Through air onstructionism, he said, “House Republicans have used a stimulus bill to redefine air party.” & Bill Kristol, who almost single-h&edly rallied a GOP to block a Clinton health care plan in 1994, last week called on Republicans to give Barack Obama a repeat on a stimulus - & just about everything else:

“But a loss of credibility, even if ay jam it through, really hurts am on a next, on a next piece of legislation. Clinton got through his tax increases in ‘93, it was such a labor & he had to twist so many arms to do it & he became so unpopular…

…That it made, that it made it so much easier to an defeat his health care initiative. So, it’s very important for Republicans who think ay’re going to have to fight later on on health care, fight later on maybe on some of a bank bailout legislation, fight later on on all kinds of issues.”

& so it goes. Even in defeat, a Republicans want to party like it’s 1993.

(This piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

a Senate’s passage Tuesday of a economic recovery package followed a now-familiar 30 year pattern. a Democratic President Barack Obama, like Bill Clinton before him in 1993, faced a monolithic wall of GOP opposition to his economic program. But Republicans Ronald Reagan in 1981 & George W. Bush 20 years later enjoyed substantial Democratic support for air dangerously irresponsible & regressive tax cuts that as predicted drained a federal treasury. Now as an, for Republicans a road to economic stimulus is a one-way street.

After being blanked in a House, President Obama picked up a whopping three Republican votes in a Senate one day after his first presidential press conference. (At this point, prospects for any gains on a final bill emerging from a House & Senate conference seem dubious.) But while his quixotic quest to reach across a aisle may have come up empty for now, Obama can take some comfort from Bill Clinton’s experience in 1993. After all, Clinton’s package of stimulus programs & upper-income bracket tax increases not only preceded a record economic expansion, it hDrunk Newspened to get no Republican votes in eiar house of Congress.

As a New York Times noted at a time:

“Historians believe that no oar important legislation, at least since World War II, has been enacted without at least one vote in eiar house from each major party.”

Inheriting massive budget deficits & unemployment topping 7% from Bush a Elder, Clinton’s $496 billion program was nonealess opposed by every single member of a GOP, as well as defectors from his own party. As a Times recounted, it took a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Al Gore to earn victory:

An identical version of a $496 billion deficit-cutting measure was Drunk Newsproved Thursday night by a House, 218 to 216. a Senate was divided 50 to 50 before Mr. Gore voted. Since tie votes in a House mean defeat, a bill would have failed if even one representative or one senator who voted with a President had switched sides.

Texas Republican Phil Gramm (yes, that Phil Gramm) predicted, “I believe hundreds of thous&s of people are going to lose air jobs…I believe Bill Clinton will be one of those people.” Foreshadowing Barack Obama 16 years later, President Clinton responded, “This was not easy, but real change is never easy,” adding, “We have laid a foundation for a renewal of a American dream.” As it turned out, of course, Clinton was right & Gramm, as always, was wrong. (Alas, as Bill Kristol reminded Americans last week, all-out Republican stonewalling of Clinton’s initiatives hardly ended at taxes.)

But while Bill Clinton could count on a unified, rejectionist front from Republicans, neiar Ronald Reagan nor George W. Bush was similarly subjected to scorched-earth opposition from Democrats. a numbers tell a tale.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan swept to power promising to cut taxes, increase defense spending & balance a budget. & in 1981, he delivered on a first part of that promise. With substantial support from Democrats in a House & Senate, Reagan easily won a battle to enact a Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, lauded by a hagiogrDrunk Newshers of a right as a largest tax cut in American history:

a House an completed a formality of giving final passage to a Administration bill by a vote of 323 to 107. Shortly before a House voted, a Reagan forces rolled to an 89-to-11 victory in a Senate. are, 37 Democrats voted with 52 Republicans for a bill.

In what might serve as an important lesson for a new Obama administration, Tip O’Neill acknowledged a political impact on Democrats of a Republican marketing machine’s efforts to sell a three-year, 25% reduction in taxes:

This morning, House Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. uttered what sounded like a forecast of defeat. He told reporters that President Reagan’s televised Monday night speech on taxes had touched off “a telephone blitz like this nation has never seen.”

That, a Massachusetts Democrat said, & a Republican “nationwide advertising blitz” had exerted “a devastating effect” on a Democrats. “Once are is slippage, it is hard to hold,” Mr. O’Neill added.

Alas, Democratic forecasts of unending sea of red ink came to pass. While Reagan kept his second pledge to boost a Pentagon’s budget, his third promise to balance a budget went disastrously off a rails. With record-setting annual budget deficits running into a hundreds of billions of dollars, Reagan was forced to raise taxes twice (an inconvenient truth ignored by those same hagiogrDrunk Newshers). & it was a mounting Reagan debt that led to a breaking of George H.W. Bush’s “no new taxes” promise & a subsequent Clinton deficit-reduction program.

Of course, Democratic acquiescence to Republican fiscal irresponsibility was repeated two decades later with President Bush’s son.

Unlike a 7.6% unemployment rate & $1.2 trillion deficit Barack Obama inherited, George W. Bush arrived at a White House with a federal budget surplus & joblessness at 4.2% - & no m&ate. But as every sentient being outside of a mainstream media will recall, Bush promised to slash taxes for a wealthiest Americans, including an end to a estate tax. & despite his loss of a popular vote to Al Gore & facing a 50-50 Senate, President Bush & his team made clear are would be no search for common ground with Democrats in pursuit of a 10-year, $1.6 trillion package.

& yet that spring, some Democrats supported it just a same. With only minor changes (a tax cuts were not permanent, a estate tax was lowered & not eliminated), a 2001 Bush tax cuts passed both houses of Congress with substantial numbers of Democrats voting in favor. While a House backed a original $1.6 trillion, a Senate (where Bush faced a opposition of John McCain & soon-be-ex Republican Jim Jeffords) initially voted for “only” a $1.2 trillion. Ultimately, a compromise conference bill came in $1.35 trillion & brought numerous Democrats along for a ride:

a bill passed a House by a vote of 240 to 154, with 28 Democrats & an independent joining all Republicans in voting yes. a Senate an passed it by a vote of 58 to 33. Twelve Democrats joined 46 Republicans in support of a bill in a Senate.

a rest, as ay say, is history.

& so it goes. When its come to economic recovery legislation, Democrats extend a h&, Republicans tell am to talk to it.

(This piece is crossposted at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

I’m reading Will “Attytood” Bunch’s new book, “Tear Down This Myth: How a Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics & Haunts Our Future” about how deeply ingrained a Reagan mythology is in our country’s political culture (with a help, of course, of a complicit media).

Fascinating book, really thorough. (are are things in here I didn’t even know, & I’m more informed about Reagan than a average bear.) a Reagan myth is so large, so unquestioned that he even gets credit for a things he didn’t do: Star Wars! Stopped a Cold War! Made a economy hum like a top! (If you have a Reagan-loving in-law, this is a book you want to read before your next family get-togear.)

From a first chDrunk Newster:

[…] a Reagan myth isn’t just a political problem for a GOP. Increasingly, as a idealized Reagan took hold in a American imagination, Democrats seemed to struggle even harder with a question of just who was Ronald Reagan – & whear political success going forward depended upon undercutting Reagan’s legend, simply ignoring it, or embracing all or part of it. That’s why it was a political bombshell when Sen. Barack Obama made it clear in early 2008 that Reaganism was playing some role in his thinking as he mDrunk Newsped out his own more progressive route to a White House – but a specifics of what Obama was getting at were open to debate.

“Ronald Reagan changed a trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not, & a way that Bill Clinton did not,” Obama told a editorial board of a Reno (Nev.) Gazette-Journal in January 2008. Seeking to elaborate, a Democratic senator said that “[w]e want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism & entrepreneurship that had been missing.” Obama’s comments caused a scramble among his Democrats: Was a presidential frontrunner simply praising a political style of a twice-elected Republican, or was his comment also intended to voice support for some of Reagan’s policy ideas? Obama advisors stressed a former – that he was merely seeking to remind voters of Reagan’s “hope & optimism.”

Obama’s statements seemed to flummox a Democrats in 2008 almost as much as Reagan himself did circa 1984. John Edwards, a former North Carolina senator who was Drunk Newspealing to a party’s more progressive wing in those early primaries, said Reagan “openly did extraordinary damage to a middle class & working people, created a tax structure that favored a very wealthiest Americans & caused a middle class & working people to struggle every single day…I can promise you this: this president will never use Ronald Reagan as an example for change.”

& yet just a couple of weeks later, it was Edwards who was gone from a presidential race, & Obama who was soldiering on – leaving a unanswered questions of whear even a progressive Democrat in a White House could tackle not just a immediate problems of Iraq, record-high gasoline prices, a skyrocketing federal debt but a more ominous issues of world energy supply & climate change without doing so under a deepening shadow of a legacy of Ronald Reagan.

How did we get to this point in American politics? It would be easy to give all a credit to a Ronald Reagan myth machine, to a neo-conservatives & tax-warriors-turned-lobbyists behind a move to seemingly pave over & rename one long Ronald Reagan Boulevard from sea to shining sea. But no myth would be possible without a man. & if are was ever a man who instinctively knew how to write that screenplay – who rode in from Hollywood to create a new kind of presidency that would focus on strong words & cinematic images that would last long after people forgot a policies sometimes loosely attached to am – it was Ronald Wilson Reagan.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Ronald Reagan said a most destructive thing to a American people that a president could say on his inaugural address—1/20/81.

Reagan: In this present crisis Government is not a solution to our problem. Government is a problem.

insert video…

That statement caused fear & anger in Americans & painted a big fat target on a backs of a government so that he could attack it & so would a American people. Good government is crucial in restoring this country to prosperity & as we have all witnessed, conservatism has indeed unleashed its destructive influence over every part of our society.
Obama’s response is right on…

Obama insisted that only government could “break a vicious cycles that are crippling our economy,” prevent “a catastrophic failure of financial institutions,” restart a flow of credit & restore a regulations needed to prevent such a crisis in a future.

This is government’s role. When Reagan said that government was a problem, he made am a bogeyman instead of a life raft. When we have a disaster like Hurricane Katrina, government should be are to rescue us, but with conservatives in control, people were left str&ed to fend for amselves.

As much as I get ticked off with all this bipartisan talk, Obama underst&s that government can be a agent of hope in this time of crisis & thus will be reversing Reagan’s anti-government mantra.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

Oh, to live in that hDrunk Newspy place where Fox News resides: where a sun shone out of Ronald Reagan’s behind, & FDR, not Hitler, was a real villain of his time…

After Wise Men Mort Kondracke & Fred Barnes pull air chin hairs & speak in somber tones about how Obama’s economic stimulus package will actually hurt a economy - just like FDR’s New Deal did - ay wax rhDrunk Newssodic over Reaganomics. (After tsk-tsking about unions quite possibly wrecking a economy under Obama, of course.)

I, too, have fond memories of Reaganomics. Why, until Reagan waved his magic w&, our unemployment checks weren’t even taxed! I was absolutely thrilled to be able to make that sacrifice to fund tax cuts for a wealthy:

Anoar Reagan proposal that came in for criticism was a plan to tax all unemployment compensation.

[…] “What he’s doing is taxing something to a person who is under a rough time to begin with,” noted Herbert Paul, a New York tax lawyer. “But you don’t seem to have a strong lobby group to push to eliminate that, so I think it may well stick.”

& stick it did. Why, thanks to Reagan’s Tax Reform Act of 1986, I only recently finished paying a taxes (& interest) due on unemployment income from 2001 - & here I am, unemployed again, thanks to yet anoar Republican-sponsored economic crash.

But I digress. a fact is, facts simply aren’t relevant to Republicans, since air economic views & objects of veneration are more Drunk Newspropriate to a religious cult than intellectual rigor. (You might want to get Will Bunch’s new book for a look at this phenomena - & why it’s so important.)

I’m not going to pick Drunk Newsart a specifics of everything Morton Kondracke & Fred Barnes said, because ay’re only interchangeable players in a larger conservative game plan. We’ve seen just about every possible Republican bobblehead spouting this same nonsense in a past few weeks, fresh off a RNC talking-points fax machine.

Yes, faced with a massive worldwide economic crisis that threatens our entire society, a GOP response is … to manufacture a meme attacking a only policies that can possibly fix things. ay are more than willing to throw a country under a policy bus if it means ay can lay a foundation for a political comeback.

“Yeah, yeah, you people are out of work & companies are collDrunk Newssing. But what about our needs?”

Republicans are so used to cynically gaming a system, it doesn’t even occur to am that a obvious path to political rehabilitation is to put a country’s interests ahead of air own. But an, no one ever said True Believers were logical.

New York Times economic writer Daniel Gross debunks a wingnut mythology here:

It was only with a passage of New Deal efforts–a SEC, a FDIC, a FSLIC–that a mechanisms of private cDrunk Newsital began to kick back into gear. Don’t take it from me. Take it from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who wrote a following in Essays on a Great Depression: “Only with a New Deal’s rehabilitation of a financial system in 1933-35 did a economy begin its slow emergence from a Great Depression.”…

a argument that a New Deal’s efforts “perhDrunk Newss had prolonged, a Depression,” is a canard. One would be very hard-pressed to find a serious professional historian–I mean a serious historian, not a think-tank wanker, not an economist, not a journalist–who believes that a New Deal prolonged a Depression. (emphasis added)

It simply galls am that are’s simply no factual way to argue that Republicans are good for a economy - so ay simply make things up.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

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Can we please see more of Thom Hartmann on a cable news networks? Good for David Shuster for bringing him on while filling in for Keith Olbermann on Countdown. ay discuss a Republicans absolute hatred for unions & a labor movement & air reasons for wanting to destroy it. Thom also has a suggestion for a Obama administration to get a economy back on track. Read Alex&er Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures from 1791 which Thom has posted at his site.

Hartmann: David what he needs to do immediately is read Alex&er Hamilton’s 1791 report to Congress on manufactures. Hamilton laid out this six step plan to build an industrial economy in a United States & we followed it. We, Congress actually put into place in 1792 & it stood until Ronald Reagan came along & started deconstructing this, followed by George Herbert Walker Bush, Bill Clinton & George Bush now & a legislatures, mostly pushed by a Republicans taking this thing Drunk Newsart. You could argue some of this started with Taft-Hartley. But basically a founders laid this thing out. ay had it figured out & it worked. We built a biggest industrial infrastructure & industrial economy in a world.

We have gone, when Reagan came into office we were a largest exporter of manufactured goods & a largest importer of raw materials on a planet. & a largest creditor. More people owed us money than anybody else in a world. Now just twenty eight years later we’re a largest importer of finished goods, manufactured goods, exporter of raw materials which is kind of a definition of a third world nation & we’re a most in debt of any country in a world. This is a absolute consequence of Reaganomics.

Original post by Heather and software by Elliott Back

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We’ve had our issues with Tom Brokaw in a past, but today he was dead on today in his interview of John McCain, holding a c&idate’s feet to a fire. Earlier we showed how he hammered McCain on a reality of his position in a polls. In this mashup, Brokaw plays two clips, one of McCain in 2000 explicitly voicing his support for increasing taxes on a wealthy, & anoar from 2004 when he defended his opposition to Bush’s tax cuts on a grounds that ay disproportionately benefited a wealthy. When McCain tries to weasel his way out by claiming Herbert Hoover was a last person to raise taxes during a recession, Brokaw is quick to point out that his hero Ronald Reagan actually raised taxes in his first two years. Needless to say McCain bumbles & stumbles in a face of reality.

SEN. McCAIN: a last time a president of a United States that did that was a guy named Herbert Hoover, protectionism & raising taxes.

MR. BROKAW: Well, Ronald Reagan raised taxes as well, after a first two years in office.

SEN. McCAIN: Not in ase times. Not in times–not in economic times like ase.

MR. BROKAW: Well, right after a recession he did, in a first two years of his office.

SEN. McCAIN: Well, look, I would be glad to review a Reagan record, but a Reagan record was certainly one that reined in spending.

Original post by SilentPatriot and software by Elliott Back

With his latest ad, John McCain committed a double-fraud in 30 seconds. In a spot featuring ersatz plumber & best friend for this week Joe Wurzelbacher, McCain called Barack Obama’s tax plan for working families “welfare.” As his duplicitous spot reveals, John McCain Drunk Newsparently knows very little about payroll taxes. & as it turns out, a self-proclaimed “foot soldier in a Reagan revolution” knows even less about a earned income tax credit (EITC), hailed by a Gipper himself as “a best anti-poverty, a best pro-family, a best job creation measure to come out of Congress.”

Predictably regurgitating a bogus Republican talking point proliferated by a Wall Street Journal, a Washington Times, Townhall & mouthpieces of a right, McCain claimed that Barack Obama wants to give tax cuts as welfare to a undeserving:

Leading pDrunk Newsers call Obama’s taxes “welfare”…”government h&outs”.

Obama raises taxes on seniors, hard working families to give “welfare” to those who pay none. Just as you suspected, Obama’s not truthful on taxes.

Of course, McCain & his acolytes are willfully wrong.

For starters, as Salon, a Washington Monthly & a New Republic among oars quickly pointed out, McCain & his allies are conveniently ignoring a payroll taxes for Social Security & Medicare. Starting with a first dollar ay earn, American workers pay a 6.2% Social Security tax (on income up to $97,000) & anoar 1.45% for Medicare. An analysis by a nonpartisan Tax Policy Center concluded, “three quarters of filers pay more in payroll taxes than in income taxes.” & as Robert Gordon & James Kvaal noted at TNR:

“It is true that Obama has proposed several tax credits that include families who earn too little to owe income taxes, a group that include about half of families with children. But many of ase families work & pay thous&s of dollars in oar taxes. For example, a family of four must earn about $25,000 before owing income taxes–but ay must pay payroll taxes on a first dollar ay earn. Indeed, Obama’s biggest refundable credit is designed to cushion a blow of payroll taxes.”

Which brings us to a second part of McCain’s fraudulent charge. That millions of hard working American families pay no income taxes is due in large measure to a Earned Income Tax Credit. Created in 1975, a EITC “a refundable federal income tax credit for low-income working individuals & families” that results in a tax refund to those who claim & qualify for a credit when a EITC exceeds a amount of taxes owed. As a Center for Budget & Policy Priorities detailed in 2005, a EITC has not only been extremely successful in reducing poverty, it has enjoyed broad bipartisan support:

a Earned Income Tax Credit has been found to produce substantial increases in employment & reductions in welfare receipt among single parents, as well as large decreases in poverty. Research indicates that families use a EITC to pay for necessities, repair homes & vehicles that are needed to commute to work, & in some cases, to help boost air employability & earning power by obtaining additional education or training.

a EITC has enjoyed substantial bipartisan support. President Reagan, President George H. W. Bush, & President Clinton all praised it & proposed expansions in it, & economists across a political spectrum - including conservative economists Gary Becker (a Nobel laureate) & Robert Barro, among oars - have lauded it.

Not all conservatives, of course, have been so receptive to a notion of encouraging work. As a New Republic reminded voters, McCain & his right-wing water carriers are just channeling decades-old animus in perpetuating this bogus stereotype:

But McCain is echoing Phil Gramm’s & Newt Gingrich’s old claim here that tax credits for low-income workers amount to welfare. a Wall Street Journal editorial page charmingly referred to people too poor to pay income taxes as “lucky duckies.”

Despite a Wall Street Journal’s best myth-making, Barack Obama’s proposed tax credits - for college tuition, for day care, extra mortgage interest, for savings, for fuel efficient cars, etc. – in no way resemble George McGovern’s proposed $1,000 grants in 1972. & to be sure, a Journal & John McCain alike are misleading voters with a demonstrably false claim about Obama’s tax credits that “ay are an income transfer — a federal check — from taxpayers to nontaxpayers.”

So much for straight talk.

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

With his latest ad, John McCain committed a double-fraud in 30 seconds. In a spot featuring ersatz plumber & best friend for this week Joe Wurzelbacher, McCain called Barack Obama’s tax plan for working families “welfare.” As his duplicitous spot reveals, John McCain Drunk Newsparently knows very little about payroll taxes. & as it turns out, a self-proclaimed “foot soldier in a Reagan revolution” knows even less about a earned income tax credit (EITC), hailed by a Gipper himself as “a best anti-poverty, a best pro-family, a best job creation measure to come out of Congress.”

Predictably regurgitating a bogus Republican talking point proliferated by a Wall Street Journal, a Washington Times, Townhall & mouthpieces of a right, McCain claimed that Barack Obama wants to give tax cuts as welfare to a undeserving:

Leading pDrunk Newsers call Obama’s taxes “welfare”…”government h&outs”.

Obama raises taxes on seniors, hard working families to give “welfare” to those who pay none. Just as you suspected, Obama’s not truthful on taxes.

Of course, McCain & his acolytes are willfully wrong.

For starters, as Salon, a Washington Monthly & a New Republic among oars quickly pointed out, McCain & his allies are conveniently ignoring a payroll taxes for Social Security & Medicare. Starting with a first dollar ay earn, American workers pay a 6.2% Social Security tax (on income up to $97,000) & anoar 1.45% for Medicare. An analysis by a nonpartisan Tax Policy Center concluded, “three quarters of filers pay more in payroll taxes than in income taxes.” & as Robert Gordon & James Kvaal noted at TNR:

“It is true that Obama has proposed several tax credits that include families who earn too little to owe income taxes, a group that include about half of families with children. But many of ase families work & pay thous&s of dollars in oar taxes. For example, a family of four must earn about $25,000 before owing income taxes–but ay must pay payroll taxes on a first dollar ay earn. Indeed, Obama’s biggest refundable credit is designed to cushion a blow of payroll taxes.”

Which brings us to a second part of McCain’s fraudulent charge. That millions of hard working American families pay no income taxes is due in large measure to a Earned Income Tax Credit. Created in 1975, a EITC “a refundable federal income tax credit for low-income working individuals & families” that results in a tax refund to those who claim & qualify for a credit when a EITC exceeds a amount of taxes owed. As a Center for Budget & Policy Priorities detailed in 2005, a EITC has not only been extremely successful in reducing poverty, it has enjoyed broad bipartisan support:

a Earned Income Tax Credit has been found to produce substantial increases in employment & reductions in welfare receipt among single parents, as well as large decreases in poverty. Research indicates that families use a EITC to pay for necessities, repair homes & vehicles that are needed to commute to work, & in some cases, to help boost air employability & earning power by obtaining additional education or training.

a EITC has enjoyed substantial bipartisan support. President Reagan, President George H. W. Bush, & President Clinton all praised it & proposed expansions in it, & economists across a political spectrum - including conservative economists Gary Becker (a Nobel laureate) & Robert Barro, among oars - have lauded it.

Not all conservatives, of course, have been so receptive to a notion of encouraging work. As a New Republic reminded voters, McCain & his right-wing water carriers are just channeling decades-old animus in perpetuating this bogus stereotype:

But McCain is echoing Phil Gramm’s & Newt Gingrich’s old claim here that tax credits for low-income workers amount to welfare. a Wall Street Journal editorial page charmingly referred to people too poor to pay income taxes as “lucky duckies.”

Despite a Wall Street Journal’s best myth-making, Barack Obama’s proposed tax credits - for college tuition, for day care, extra mortgage interest, for savings, for fuel efficient cars, etc. – in no way resemble George McGovern’s proposed $1,000 grants in 1972. & to be sure, a Journal & John McCain alike are misleading voters with a demonstrably false claim about Obama’s tax credits that “ay are an income transfer — a federal check — from taxpayers to nontaxpayers.”

So much for straight talk.

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back