Month: April 2010

Why The Sudden Burst Of Journalistic Conscience?

by digby

Last night I wrote about Fox News belatedly deciding that it was wrong for their stars to be promoting and hosting political events and broadcasting them. I speculated that they simply didn’t want anyone but professional GOP operatives to make money on such things, but I really have no idea what inspired them to put the kibosh on Hannity’s teabagging lovefest in Cincinnati yesterday.

And it turns out that Fox was fibbing when they claimed they were “furious” when they found out about the problem. The Cincinnati Tea party calls BS:

The CTP is firing back, claiming that Fox News is lying. They said that not only did they work with Fox News staff on logistics for the event, but executives told CTP organizers Hannity wouldn’t be able to tape his show in Cincinnati because of a “personal emergency”:

Shortly after the scheduled book signing (which was canceled) Fox News producers onsite informed the Cincinnati Tea Party senior leadership that Mr. Hannity had to rush home for a personal emergency. The Cincinnati Tea Party expressed a statement of support and concern to Hannity and family. The Cincinnati Tea Party received information from local media attributing concerns regarding ticketing to a executive vice president at the Fox News Network. The Cincinnati Tea Party has not been able to confirm the authenticity of this message via a source this statement to any @foxnews.com email or http://www.FoxNews.com website. Emails and phone calls to network went unanswered until 7:48 p.m. — more than four hours after the scheduled appearance; this source has not yet put it in writing despite our request.

Again, Fox has been promoting these events from the very beginning. Hannity, Beck etc have been featured as headliners all along. An event charging 5 bucks a head can hardly be considered the journalistic sin here. I wouldn’t put it past Fox to find that the only crime in all this but that tells a bigger story, no?

.

The Poor Rich

by digby

Here’s a very sad story of a financial planner in pain:

A Message from ‘Henry’

We’re high earners not yet rich, and now the government wants us to pay more?

I’m in the 32% federal and 10% state income tax brackets. I pay a 1.2% property tax on very expensive California real estate. I am subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax. I am self-employed and subject to a 15% payroll tax on the first $100,000 in income and an 8.75% state sales tax. If I have a gain from investing, I pay a minimum of 15% federal and 10% state tax but can only write off $3,000 per year if I lose.

And now the government wants me to pay more?

As a child I mowed lawns, shoveled snow, had a paper route, sold sandwiches at school, and cut up dead trees and split them for firewood to sell during spring break. I have worked every summer since I turned 14. I took out student loans for college and worked 35 hours a week, at night, to pay for the rest.

Since I graduated in 1983, I have been in straight commission sales and have had many 60- to 70-hour work weeks. No secure salary, no big promotions, no pension—just me profiting though helping others while being subject to the swings of the economic cycle. The first 20 years were tough, but it’s finally starting to pay off.

I drive a nicer car (bought used), live in a better neighborhood, have more retirement savings than many. But I am certainly not rich, and every month I find my ever increasing bills (and taxes) tend to match my income. I have more than most only because I’ve worked harder than most and because I am a saver. It was not easy.

Why then does the government feel so entitled to take my money and give it to others? Why should I have to carry so many people on my back? Call me cruel. I don’t care. I give to whom I choose—but since so much is confiscated (and wasted in the process) I have little left I wish to give.

This guy makes more that 250k a year and it’s not because he works so much harder than the rest of us, it’s because he’s lucky enough to be a member of a privileged class working in a job that pays him very well for the hours he works. I don’t begrudge him his success, but the fact that he thinks his success is solely due to his work ethic is very telling. The fact is that the vast majority of people in this country, many of whom don’t happen to be white males like him, don’t get the breaks this fellow got and work in equally valuable fields for far less money. (Like the teachers who taught him, for instance.) That assumed superiority is what gives him away as a Randian asshole.

I happen to know financial planners and they are not all like this. One of my best friends is a financial planner and she feels an obligation as a decent human being to pay taxes and believes that giving back is a responsibility of those who do well. There are more like her. And believe me, you’d do much better trusting your nest egg to someone who has some empathy and a sense of social responsibility than to a greed head who considers himself poor because he has to pay a little more in taxes on what he earns over 250k. He’s a spoiled idiot with no imagination or integrity who doesn’t live in the real world and shouldn’t be trusted with other people’s money.

He’s like this student at Syracuse who said this to an MSNBC reporter today when asked what he thought about Chase CEO Jamie Dimond as commencement speaker:

“He’s one of the finest financial minds in the nation right now and especially, for the most part, that he’s really going to end up leading us out of this crisis with everything that he’s doing.”

These Baby Galts aren’t rugged individualistic entrepreneurs. They are idol worshipers shilling for their heroes. In fact, John Galt has another word for them.

.

Simple, Old Fashioned Fraud

by digby

I knew that Goldman Sachs had done some low-down things, but this takes the cake. It’s so bad that even the sluggish SEC couldn’t avoid taking action:

Goldman Sachs, which emerged relatively unscathed from the financial crisis, was accused of securities fraud in a civil suit filed Friday by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which claims the bank created and sold a mortgage investment that was secretly devised to fail. The move marks the first time that regulators have taken action against a Wall Street deal that helped investors capitalize on the collapse of the housing market. Goldman itself profited by betting against the very mortgage investments that it sold to its customers. The suit also named Fabrice Tourre, a vice president at Goldman who helped create and sell the investment. In a statement, Goldman called the S.E.C. accusations “completely unfounded in law and fact” and said the firm would “vigorously contest them and defend the firm and its reputation.” The instrument in the S.E.C. case, called Abacus 2007-AC1, was one of 25 deals that Goldman created so the bank and select clients could bet against the housing market. Those deals, which were the subject of an article in The New York Times in December, initially protected Goldman from losses when the mortgage market disintegrated and later yielded profits for the bank. As the Abacus deals plunged in value, Goldman and certain hedge funds made money on their negative bets, while the Goldman clients who bought the $10.9 billion in investments lost billions of dollars. According to the complaint, Goldman created Abacus 2007-AC1 in February 2007, at the request of John A. Paulson, a prominent hedge fund manager who earned an estimated $3.7 billion in 2007 by correctly wagering that the housing bubble would burst. Goldman let Mr. Paulson select mortgage bonds that he wanted to bet against — the ones he believed were most likely to lose value — and packaged those bonds into Abacus 2007-AC1, according to the S.E.C. complaint. Goldman then sold the Abacus deal to investors like foreign banks, pension funds, insurance companies and other hedge funds. But the deck was stacked against the Abacus investors, the complaint contends, because the investment was filled with bonds chosen by Mr. Paulson as likely to default. Goldman told investors in Abacus marketing materials reviewed by The Times that the bonds would be chosen by an independent manager. “The product was new and complex, but the deception and conflicts are old and simple,” Robert Khuzami, the director of the S.E.C.’s division of enforcement, said in a statement. “Goldman wrongly permitted a client that was betting against the mortgage market to heavily influence which mortgage securities to include in an investment portfolio, while telling other investors that the securities were selected by an independent, objective third party.”

This guy Paulson made 3.7 billion dollars from this scam.

.

Box Turtle Ben Emerges from His Shell

by digby

… and unsurprisingly says something stupid:

The White House ripped CBS News on Thursday for publishing an online column by a blogger who made assertions about the sexual orientation of Solicitor General Elena Kagan, widely viewed as a leading candidate for the Supreme Court. Ben Domenech, a former Bush administration aide and Republican Senate staffer, wrote that President Obama would “please” much of his base by picking the “first openly gay justice.” An administration official, who asked not to be identified discussing personal matters, said Kagan is not a lesbian. CBS initially refused to pull the posting, prompting Anita Dunn, a former White House communications director who is working with the administration on the high court vacancy, to say: “The fact that they’ve chosen to become enablers of people posting lies on their site tells us where the journalistic standards of CBS are in 2010.” She said the network was giving a platform to a blogger “with a history of plagiarism” who was “applying old stereotypes to single women with successful careers.” The network deleted the posting Thursday night after Domenech said he was merely repeating a rumor. The flare-up underscores how quickly the battle over a Supreme Court nominee — or even a potential nominee — can turn searingly personal. Most major news organizations have policies against “outing” gays or reporting on the sex lives of public officials unless they are related to their public duties.

Everything I’ve heard is that Kagan is not a lesbian. Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay, obviously, or anything shameful in being called that. But I know far too many straight, single women who are assumed to be gay simply because they aren’t married or don’t have an active dating life. It’s hurtful to them, and not because they have any prejudice against gay people but because it’s an assumption about them that isn’t true. Everyone deserves to be seen the way they really are, whether gay or straight.

Marc Ambinder, a blogger for the Atlantic, wrote Monday about what he called “a baffling whisper campaign” about Kagan “among both gay rights activists and social conservatives. . . .

“So pervasive are these rumors that two senior administration officials I spoke with this weekend acknowledged hearing about them and did not know whether they were true. . . . Why is she the subject of these rumors? Who’s behind them?”

Why? Because every woman who isn’t married after a certain age is assumed to be a lesbian by some people, even if she isn’t, especially if she doesn’t look like a fashion model. And social conservatives and gay rights activists (for different reasons) have a vested interest in her being seen as gay. It’s not an insult but it is a misconception and one that isn’t entirely benign to the person who is the subject of it. If she says anything publicly to deny it, it sounds as though she has a prejudice against gay people and if she doesn’t deny it, she becomes known as something she isn’t. It’s not fair.

Ben Domenech is right wing hit man and always has been. And he’s succeeded wildly here. The rumors are now “out there” and Cokie’s Law is in effect. How a known plagiarist came to be employed by CBS is the more interesting story, actually. Especially for a man who’s known to hire hookers to powder and diaper him and then sing him to sleep. Or at least that’s the rumor. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Update: I’m getting lots of emails on this. Some people are upset with me for failing to uphold the view that “it doesn’t matter” if you’re gay. Of course it doesn’t. If you’re gay you should be able to live openly and freely being who you are. But I believe that just as it’s been painful for gays to be in the closet or forced to live as if they are something they’re not, it’s also painful for some straight people to be assumed to be something they’re not. I maintain that people should be allowed to define themselves in the world honestly and live authentic lives, no matter whether they are gay or straight.

Anyway, yes, if it doesn’t matter to you whether other people label you as something you’re not then by all means simply say “whatever” if asked. But if your sexual identity is something that you think is intrinsic to who you are then you should be able say so regardless. I don’t think it makes you a bigot or a closet case. In fact, think it’s a fairly human thing that doesn’t denote political cowardice or homophobia.

I also got notes from several men who say that they too face this question — and are often assumed to be pedophiles to boot! Assumptions are bad.

Update II: Gay rights groups are not fools and know exactly what’s going on. And Ben Domenech is a lying scumbag. He knows what he did and he did it on purpose. Despite his unctuous, insincere defense of gay rights, he knows very well that this will hugely gin up the fundraising and activism against her from the far right and make it more difficult to confirm her. I hope he extracted a big payment from his wingnut benefactors. He earned it.

Update III: None of this is meant as an endorsement of Kagan. I’m hoping the administration picks someone far less amenable to executive power than she seems to be. But this campaign is designed to force the administration to pick someone more conservative than she is on a whole panoply of issues. I hope the White House just picks the most liberal person they can find and forces the Republicans to filibuster the nomination if they can’t wrap their minds around that.

.

Overt Racism In The Tea Party. And Beyond.

by tristero

We need to make this very clear: the self-styled “Tea Party” is white, elitist, and racist:

Demonstrators began gathering early Thursday for speeches at Freedom Plaza. Among them was Jerry Johnson, 58, a lawyer from Berryville, Va…

Johnson expressed opposition to Obama. “It’s not just because he’s black,” he said. “I wish I could tell you that I loved this guy, that he was a great president, that I had faith in him. But I have none. Zero.”

“Just.”

I’m sure Mr. Johnson will protest that he simply misspoke, totally unintentional. Uh huh. Lawyers are many things: inarticulate is not one of them. This is a a guy whose entire professional training – and let’s not forget, he’s way more educated than the average American – goes towards using words with an obsessive precision most of us can’t even begin to approach.

But before we begin to think that teabaggers and only teabaggers are racists, here’s one that I’ll bet hardly anyone will notice. And yet it’s just as ugly an expression of racism and bigotry as Jerry Johnson’s: Author Simon Winchester writes about the Iceland volcano and compares it to the Krakatoa explosion of 1883:

The last time the world was so mightily affected in this way was in 1883, when a similarly tiny vent in the earth’s surface opened up on the island of Krakatoa, between Java and Sumatra, in what is now Indonesia. Some 40,000 people died because of that eruption — it was a much more fierce event, and in a much more populated place. But the clouds of dust that cascaded upward into the stratosphere affected the entire planet for the rest of the year on the same scale — except that the effects themselves were of a profoundly different kind.

Where Iceland’s volcano has set off a wave of high-technology panic, Java’s event set off something benign and really quite lovely: worldwide displays of light and color that reduced mankind to a state of stunned amazement. Where Iceland has caused shock, Java resulted in awe. And where Eyjafjalla’s ashes seem to have cost millions in lost business, Krakatoa’s dust left the world not just a remarkable legacy of unforgettable art but also spurred a vital discovery in atmospheric science.

There are many ways I would describe a volcanic eruption that killed 40,000 people, and I have a very vivid imagination, but this way? No, I can’t imagine it. The level of bigoted callousness on display here is something I can’t begin to conceive.

The most profound effects of the Krakatoa volcano on the entire planet were neither “benign” nor “lovely.” They were horribly tragic. And while surely Krakatoa’s eruption inspired awe, there is also no question that it sent hundreds of thousands of human beings into deep shock. As for the financial cost, Winchester’s comparison assigns virtually no economic consequence to the deaths of 40,000 people and the destruction of their ecosystem.

This is jaw-droppingly blatant Eurocentrism. Winchester minimizes the significance of a dreadful tragedy in order to make specious comparisons with Eyjafjalla. Thus, Krakatoa’s importance becomes its impact, not on the world, but only on the most refined aesthetic and intellectual palates in Europe. White Europe. This is racism.

Don’t get me wrong. There are many ways to discuss the multifarious impacts of Krakatoa’s eruption and my recollection of Winchester’s book is that he did a pretty good job (he also got a few minor facts wrong, but that’s another story). But this op-ed is simply disgusting. Unintentional? Well, possibly unconscious. Nevertheless, a professional writer, like a lawyer, has no excuse. It is an indication of how far Western culture has to go in order to understand what racism is that Winchester, not a stupid man, felt comfortable writing such self-centered trash, and that the New York Times apparently had no problems publishing it.

We’ll see if they print any letters that notice this. I certainly hope so.

Fox On The Run

by digby

Matt Gertz from Media Matters wrote about the Tea Party scammers and the relationship with Fox News yesterday:

I noted a few months back TPM Media’s report that the PAC that organized the Tea Party Express, a series of right-wing nationwide bus tours and rallies, had sent nearly two thirds of its spending during a recent reporting period right back to the GOP consulting firm that spawned it. Today, Politico‘s Ken Vogel provides more details of the Tea Party Express’ operations, including the original memo from a consultant with the firm, Russo Marsh + Rogers, proposing its creation. Vogel also reports that a substantial percentage of spending from the PAC, Our Country Deserves Better PAC, continues to flow directly into the coffers of Russo Marsh + Rogers. That appears to have been the intent from the beginning; Vogel reports that the firm’s operative, Joe Wierzbicki, stated in proposing the Express that it could “give a boost to our PAC and position us as a growing force/leading force as the 2010 elections come into focus.”
[…] This seems as good a time as any to point out Fox News’ consistent, full-throated support for the Tea Party Express since its creation. The network even embedded correspondent Griff Jenkins with the Express’ first tour; his hard-hitting reporting included declaring its riders “the America that Washington forgot.” Our Country Deserves Better PAC repeatedly used Fox’s coverage to flog its own fundraising efforts. And notwithstanding the plethora of free media the Express got from the network, the PAC ran ads on Fox urging viewers to “Join the Tea Party Express” on its tours. Most recently, Fox News provided all-day coverage of last month’s kick-off rally for the Express’ third national bus tour. Correspondent Casey Stegall provided reports from the rally in Searchlight, Nevada, which highlighted the “real energy you feel from” the protestors; back in the studio, Neil Cavuto declared, “God bless these folks.” And of course, Fox News contributor Sarah Palin was on hand to provide the event’s keynote address, which was carried live by the network.

All that was just fine with Fox. They have never minded helping fill the coffers of professional GOP con artists. (It’s their own version of egalitarianism.) But then some of the little people started getting in on the action and they went ballistic:

Angry Fox News executives ordered host Sean Hannity to abandon plans to broadcast his nightly show as part of a Tea Party rally in Cincinnati on Thursday after top executives learned that he was set to headline the event, proceeds from which would benefit the local Tea Party organization.

Rally organizers had listed Hannity, who is on a book tour, as the headliner of the four-hour Tax Day event at the University of Cincinnati. The rally, expected to draw as many as 13,000 people, was set feature speakers such as “Liberal Facism” author Jonah Goldberg and local Tea Party leaders. Participants were being charged a minimum of $5, with seats near Hannity’s set going for $20, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer, which reported that any profits would go to future Tea Party events. Media Matters for America noted that Hannity’s personal website directed supporters to a link to buy tickets for the Cincinnati rally.

But senior Fox News executives said they were not aware Hannity was being billed as the centerpiece of the event or that Tea Party organizers were charging for admission to Hannity’s show as part of the rally. They first learned of it Thursday morning from John Finley, Hannity’s executive producer, who was in Cincinnati to produce Hannity’s show.

Furious, top officials recalled Hannity back to New York to do his show in his regular studio. The network plans to do an extensive post-mortem about the incident with Finley and Hannity’s staff.

“Fox News never agreed to allow the Cincinnati Tea Party organizers to use Sean Hannity’s television program to profit from broadcasting his show from the event,” said Bill Shine, the network’s executive vice president of programming. “When senior executives in New York were made aware of this, we changed our plans for tonight’s show.”

There’s no limit to how far Fox hosts can go to hustle the rubes for ratings and to help the Republican party. But they get “furious” when the rubes try to cash in for themselves. All they have to do is find a way to blame the liberals and they’re home free.

.

Secrets Of The Infiltrators

by digby

Michelle Malkin has some tips for the baggers to spot “infiltrators”:

1. Ask them what the 10th amendment says.

2. Two letters: B.O. (and I’m not talking about the president’s initials).

3. Glaringly obvious lack of subtlety.

4. Upside-down flags.

5. From reader Amy, a free “Infiltrator” sign (click here to download large size):

6. And from Temple of Mut, another downloadable sign:

Right now I’m watching John King interview Dick Armey at the rally and there’s a guy behind him with a sign that says “Imagine having B.O. for 4 years.” Real Americans are always babbling about how their unAmerican adversaries stink. It’s their way of calling them unclean animals. And it’s very, very classy.

(The woman standing next to him is holding a sign that says “You cannot help the people by destroying the rich.” Man, they sure have them trained.)

The signs Malkin provides above, well they say much more than these people realize.

Malkin ends her post with flourish saying:

Turning the tables on the Tea Party smear merchants:

I’m sure all 18% of Americans who identify as teabaggers are moved beyond words. The rest of the country is crying with laughter.

Update: Benjamin Sarlin reports that talk of “infiltration” was common at today’s DC event. There was also some concern that the African Americans selling flags and pins were ACORN, apparently. But I thought this observation was particularly telling:

One topic that wasn’t addressed on a single sign: anything having to do with financial reform. Despite the frequent anti-Wall Street and anti-bailout rhetoric, the bill making its way through the Senate seemed to elicit no response from protesters.

“You can’t help the people by destroying the rich,” but the rich are always allowed to destroy the people. That’s called freedom.

.

Volcano Monitoring

by digby

What with earthquakes all over the place and now this, you kind o0f get the feeling the earth is angry. (And can you blame it?)

Civil aviation authorities closed airspace and shut down airports in Britain, France, Scandinavia and other parts of Europe on Thursday as a high-altitude cloud of ash drifted south and east from an erupting volcano in Iceland.

The shutdown, among the most sweeping ever ordered in peacetime, forced the cancellation of thousands of flights and left airplanes stranded on the tarmac at some of the world’s busiest airports as the rolling cloud — made up of minute particles of silicate that can severely damage airplane engines — spread over Britain and toward continental Europe.

The volcano erupted Wednesday for the second time in a month, forcing evacuations and causing flooding about 75 miles east of Reykjavik. Matthew Watson, a specialist in the study of volcanic ash clouds from Bristol University in England, said the plume was “likely to end up over Belgium, Germany, the Lowlands — a good portion over Europe” — and was unlikely to disperse for 24 hours.

British aviation officials said the country’s airspace would remain closed at least until 7 a.m. local time Friday, meaning that only authorized emergency flights would be permitted. All of the roughly 6,000 scheduled flights that use British airspace each day would be affected, aviation experts said.

Deborah Seymour, a spokeswoman for Britain’s National Air Traffic Service, said the closure of the country’s airspace was the most extensive in recent memory. “It’s an extremely rare occurrence,” she said, noting that British airspace remained open even after the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, with the exception of a no-fly zone over central London. She said there had been some brief airspace closings because of technical system failures in the past, but “nothing of this magnitude.”

Seven British Airways flights that departed Wednesday evening to Britain had to turn back after flying less than halfway, according to John Lampl, a British Airways spokesman in New York. They had departed from Chicago, San Francisco, Denver, Mexico City, Calgary, Vancouver and Las Vegas, Mr. Lampl said.

What a bunch of wimps. John Galt would bravely fly through the ash and parachute out of the plane if its engines stopped working. Typical Europeans.

.

Second Verse Same As The First

by digby

Yesterday Mitch McConnell and John Kyl came out swinging with a classic Luntzian bizarroworld ploy, declaring that the financial reform bill institutionalizes Too Big To Fail and therefore the Republicans have no choice but to vote against it. It was a bold move, pretty much guaranteeing sputtering and shock on the other side as Senate Democrats reeled from the cognitive dissonance.

Here’s the smarmy Judd Gregg laying out the parameters of the debate on MSNBC this morning:

Judd Gregg: There really isn’t a lot of partisanship in this bill, it’s just an issue of trying to get it right, making sure Too Big To Fail doesn’t exist, making sure we have good derivatives language on the issue of consumer protection, language on how we move around the regulatory regimes here.And I honestly thought we were going to reach a consensus bill her. For reasons which I’m not entirely clear about it’s blown up into one of these political debates where the substance of the debate is sort of overwhelmed by the language, which is very hyperbolized.[He’s talking about Chris Dodd here, not Mitch mcConnell — ed.]

MSNBC anchor: Well there’s also huge disparity between that which Senator Dodd is saying and that which Senator McConnell is saying because the latter is saying that this bill will lead to endless bailouts of Wall Street. Is that true? This wouldn’t end it?

Gregg: Well the Dodd bill does have some problems on the issue of Too Big To fail in that it sets up a process where the treasury or the FDIC could keep alive a bank or a finacial institution which had gotten into significant financial trouble.Whereas the agreed to language which was supported by Republicans and a lot of Democrats, the Corker/Warner agreement, which wasn’t included in the Dodd bill essentially required that any financial institution that got into trouble would have to go into a process of what amounted to bankruptcy and would not survive. And that’s the course we should take, of course. We’ve got to end TBTF as a concept because it perverts the marketplace. It means that capital is not flowing pursuant to what they see as a risk, but what they see as a taxpayers coming in to support and that’s not healthy for the economy.

This is utter nonsense and Gregg knows it. But he is playing an important role in the kabuki dance: “the broker:”

MSNBC anchor: So do you think there’s room for compromise in the Senate on this?

Absolutely there is. The question is how do we get back to the table. I think Senator McConnell is absolutely right. He’s saying, hey talk to us on this issue. If you’re not going to talk to us then we’re not going to support taking the bill across the floor and we’ll use our capacity to stop the bill, but what we really want to do is sit down and reach agreement because these agreements should be very doable.

Yeah sure. As Ezra reported this morning:

[I]f you’re looking for help predicting the ultimate amount of bipartisan cooperation on this bill, the fact that Cornyn and McConnell are basing their fundraising strategy around their opposition to financial regulation should offer a clue.

Judd’s job is to ensure that the bill is watered down to something that Wall Street is happy with, but which Republicans can still vote against in the end, this time saying “it doesn’t go far enough.” It worked with health care.

The difference this time is that liberals are not nearly as invested in this bill as they were in health care. There could easily be defections on the left if they water this thing down any more than it already is. Nobody’s life is literally at stake and Obama can’t keep going to the “my legacy depends on it” well.

The Dems would do better politically to tell the Republicans to go to hell, pass a tough bill and take it to the people. Conservatives voting against financial system reform are in a much more difficult political position than liberals because everyone knows that Republicans are the party of big business and have been for a century. They’ll try to muddy it up with cries of socialism, but only the veriest teabagger will be able to absorb the dissonance in all this without their heads exploding. If the Democrats allow the GOP to water down their bill even further so they can then vote against it in a faux populist hissy fit, they get what they deserve. They’d be better off walking away and running the fall campaign on the GOP’s obsequious obeisance to Wall Street bankers.

.

Taxing Numbers

by digby

For those of you who might find yourself arguing with a teabagger today, Campaign For America’s Future has put together a nice little primer on what Tax Day really means for average Americans.

$604:
The average tax cut the working poor got in 2009 under President Obama.

$22:
The average tax cut the working poor got under President Bush’s tax cuts.

10 percent:
The increase in the average tax return that most working families are receiving this year due to tax cuts enacted under President Obama.

66.7 percent:
The percentage of U.S.-owned corporations that paid no income tax in 2005, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The average American is receiving a refund of nearly $3,000—up more than 10 percent over last year—thanks to the Obama tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans [The White House]. Tax reductions that benefit working families include the Making Work Pay tax cut ($400 for individuals, $800 for couples) and changes in the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit that made more people eligible to take those deductions.

Families in the bottom 20 percent of income (up to $19,792 in 2009) received an average tax cut of $604 under the 2009 tax cuts [Citizens for Tax Justice]. The 2001 and 2006 tax cuts under President Bush resulted in an average tax cut for the bottom 20 percent of income earners of just $22 [Tax Policy Center]. The next 20 percent of earners (making up to $38,000 in 2009) got an average tax cut of $628 under the 2009 tax cut. The same group only got an average reduction of $360 under the Bush tax cuts.

read on

These numbers will only upset them, of course, because no matter how much you do for the middle class, as long as the poor are also benefiting, teabaggers are unhappy. They really don’t like poor people.

.