Month: December 2010

Calling David Stockman

by digby

What a kidder …

He is joking, right?

Update: Maybe the old Dirty Trickster isn’t done quite yet …

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The Power of Strong Tea

by digby

If you want to understand the power of the Tea party, and more importantly, the power of winning primary battles, read this postmortem on the defeat of the DREAM Act.

They tried mightily to convert the many vulnerable 2012 Democrats with threats, but were only successful in a handful. But they converted nearly every 2012 Republican who had previously supported immigration reform.

I suspect one of the reason we did so much better with the smaller group of Republicans facing re-election was that they are more likely to believe that they might face Primary opposition from within their own Party if they support amnesty.

In fact, pro-enforcement Republican members of the Indiana state legislature are already exploring challening Sen. Lugar in 2012.

And they predict primary challenges for Democrats from the right. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this, by the way. Now I don’t know if it’s just wishful thinking, but in the age of Citizen’s United, it seems to me that shennanigans are possible with this sort of thing.

Compare and contrast the Democratic strategy:

Whenever Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and other immigrant-rights advocates asked President Obama how a Democratic administration could preside over the greatest number of deportations in any two-year period in the nation’s history, Obama’s answer was always the same.

Deporting almost 800,000 illegal immigrants might antagonize some Democrats and Latino voters, Obama’s skeptical supporters said the president told them, but stepped-up enforcement was the only way to buy credibility with Republicans and generate bipartisan support for an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws.

On Saturday, that strategy was in ruins after Senate Democrats could muster only 55 votes in support of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, a measure that would have created a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. Under Senate rules, Democrats needed 60 votes to overcome Republican opposition to the bill. The House of Representatives had passed the measure this month, 216 to 198. The irony of the DREAM Act’s failure is that it had strong bipartisan support at the start of the administration, and advocates thought it could generate momentum for more policy changes.

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Questions For Liberals

by digby

Jonathan Bernstein has a question for liberals:

Think back to what you were thinking in November 2008, and in January 2009. As the 111th Congress winds down, what’s your biggest disappointment of the things you expected to happen? Not your wish list, but the things you really expected to happen. What’s your biggest happy surprise?

It’s an interesting question. I suppose you need to start with what you expected to happen, which was obviously different for everyone. I knew he was going to govern more center than left and that the hippies would be required to be shrill and unpleasant to try to keep the conservatives from moving the goalposts even further, as usual. I expected him to escalate Afghanistan and I had a clue that he wasn’t going to be as good on civil liberties as many others assumed he would be because of the way he voted on FISA during the campaign.

But there are a couple of things I did expect that have disappointed me. The first is that I thought he would be a competent technocrat and seek to find the best solutions to complex problems. Instead, particularly on the economy, he seems to be floundering on policy. There were some good economic decisions early on (along with many bad ones), and there are obvious political constraints, but from what you can see from the outside, he seems to have decided that Republican economic policy is good enough — and that is not a competent, technocratic decision. Nor is it a good political decision since it simply won’t work and he will be the one to pay the political price.

The other thing that surprises me is that I thought he would understand that the Republicans mean him harm, regardless of whether he governs in a bipartisan manner.(Sadly, that means that I will not be surprised if he actually follows through on his Grand Bargain even after two years of obstructionism and the slash and burn politics of this last election.)

The good surprise? Well, I’m thrilled about the repeal of DADT and didn’t think it would happen. It was skillfully done. And on a grander scale, I’m surprised at how well he’s managed the press, which I didn’t believe was possible. For the most part I think he’s really figured out how to keep them happy and that’s no mean feat. Remember, Clinton offended them even when he was passing GOP policies, so it’s as much a matter of style as substance. I think they’ve skillfully managed to keep them where they want them and that’s very helpful in navigating public opinion in hard times.

Obama was dealt a rough hand, no doubt about it. But it’s the job and it’s important to remember that it’s not as rough a hand as those who are suffering in this economy or from the excesses of American foreign policy have been dealt. I think austerity is a political and policy train wreck that may very well usher in a Tea Party majority. I’m hoping against hope that they surprise me and reject it out of hand.

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Waiting For The State of The Union

by digby

Remember this?

Borger: … and we’ve just had a reality check. The deficit commission just came and said we have a huge problem we have now. Now I personally believe that Barack Obama can come out in the state of the union, call for a Deficit Summit call for reforming the tax codes, part of that perhaps being tax increases and calling the Republicans bluff but whether he does that or not …

Yellin: The problem he has is with the left flank of his own party who are basically stupefied that he has endorsed George W. Bush’s central economic policy.

King: And so the question is, has the president made the calculation that “the left might be mad at me, but they won’t desert me in 2012 and so I’m going to cut a deal with Republicans?” The question is, what’s the next step? As you said, does he say in the state of the union, “I’m going to embrace my deficit reduction commission and let’s raise the retirement age for social security and lets get some cuts in medicare and lets get cuts across the government? Is a Democratic president going to do that?

Borger: I think he might. Look, this is about leadership at this point. It’s not about his left flank. It’s about leading the country. And it’s about making sure that he’s not the one leading the country into the ditch he used to talk about in the last campaign. He’s got another ditch he’s got to dig out of. And I think that it requires him to actually lead.

I believe and he believes that the public will reward him for it in the long term and right now his Democrats are going to be angry about it because the Republicans are clever.

King: It is remarkable, I mean remarkable, the number of Democrats who use the word “spine” in that the Democrats say the president doesn’t have one. Now the president says he knows he was going to get criticised but he didn’t want working families to get a three or five thousand dollar tax increase next year.

Yellin: And as he said, that’s a real effect on real people. And the payroll tax holiday and the reduction in the payroll tax will be felt by millions of Americans and will make a real difference. The bottom line is that it’s still a long time for the re-elect and he can figure out how to shape a message and try to get people back on board.

Borger: This is a political deal.

King: I’m shocked that you would say that about Washington DC. [hearty laughter all around]

Borger: Everybody understands that this is a political deal that he had to make. But the next phase is one we really need to pay attention to, what he does in the state of the union.

AB Stoddard on CNN just told me that the President will be happy to meet the Republicans on their issues (free trade and “budget reform”) in the interests of getting things done. She doesn’t think he’ll be bringing up any more contentious items from his own agenda like immigration reform or energy. Then Matt Bai assured everyone that nonetheless the president has nothing to worry about from the left.

Perhaps Bai is right. But I think he will have a huge political problems if he goes through with what I and others have been afraid he’s going to do, and which Robert Kuttner spells out here:

The tax deal negotiated by President Barack Obama and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is just the first part of a multistage drama that is likely to further divide and weaken Democrats.

The second part, now being teed up by the White House and key Senate Democrats, is a scheme for the president to embrace much of the Bowles-Simpson plan — including cuts in Social Security. This is to be unveiled, according to well-placed sources, in the president’s State of the Union address.

The idea is to pre-empt an even more draconian set of budget cuts likely to be proposed by the incoming House Budget Committee chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), as a condition of extending the debt ceiling. This is expected to hit in April.

White House strategists believe this can also give Obama “credit” for getting serious about deficit reduction — now more urgent with the nearly $900 billion increase in the deficit via the tax cut deal.

That’s been telegraphed pretty strongly from a number of different directions. The new “bi-partisan baseline” achieved by the failed Catfood Commission is now seen as the moderate alternative to Paul Ryan’s roadmap.

Here’s the problem:

Beltway Washington — the editorial writers, columnists, centrist policy organizations, Blue Dogs and, of course, the Obama administration and its Wall Street advisers — has become an echo chamber of bad advice.

Slaying the deficit gets top billing — generating a strong economic recovery is offstage. A smaller deficit is said to promote recovery by increasing confidence — though nobody can give a plausible explanation of the economics.

Destroying government’s capacity for social investment seems now only a tertiary concern for the White House — though a prime Republican goal. In this weird inversion, being willing to sacrifice the Democrats’ best-loved programs is taken as a sign of Democratic resolve.

Obama is finally getting the bipartisanship he craved — but entirely on Republican terms.

(Yes, repeal of DADT is a great liberal achievement. But considering that the Military brass and the Republican civilian leader of the Pentagon endorsed it, it shouldn’t have been such a heavy lift and there is every reason to believe that it’s the last liberal achievement of Obama’s first term. We must now hope for gridlock.)

At the moment, the rank and file of the Democratic Party still supports him and the accolades he’s getting from the beltway are an indication that he’ll get a lot of support from the political establishment if he stays on this course. But Borger is right about one thing. This administration is doing the Republicans’ political dirty work for them and they will thank him for it by turning it back on him in the campaign. Just as they ran thousands of ads saying Obama was gutting medicare, I would bet money that there will be a flood of shadowy independent expenditure ads saying the same about Social Security. And this time, it will actually be true.

My sense is that all this media love over the tax deal will solidify their view that this is a good template for going forward. But if they go after the safety net programs, I think they really will lose some of the base, which may still be supportive but is nervous about the economy like everyone else is, but sees the government role in fixing it quite differently than the Republicans do. Tearing a big hole in the safety net is very risky. The Democratic Big Tent depends on it just as much as the people do. Killing a few obsolete weapons systems in exchange and calling it a compromise isn’t going to work.

All the Villagers say that liberals have nowhere to go, so we need to sip our soy lattes and STFU. But again, there was an election just 10 short years ago when a few liberals went their own way and the results were devastating. It does happen I guess they not only assume that they will win by passing the Republican agenda, but that they will win big. It’s very optimistic.

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SNL Does Wikileaks

by digby

Point about the difference between Wikileaks revealing government information and Facebook revealing your personal information is well taken. There’s a difference between government secrecy and personal privacy.

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Saturday Night At the Movies

In a rit of fealous jage: R.I.P. Blake Edwards

By Dennis Hartley

When I heard that director Blake Edwards had died earlier this week, at the ripe old age of 88, I felt like I had lost an old friend. I grew up watching his films. He dabbled in many genres, and proved to be proficient in them all, but was especially adept at comedy. Specifically, he was one of a handful of filmmakers who could sell me on slapstick; he had a real knack for putting together imaginatively choreographed sequences of pratfalls (balletic in execution) that had a way of becoming ingratiatingly funnier and funnier the longer they went on. He was a superb screenwriter as well. Here are my top ten picks from the Blake Edwards oeuvre (37 feature films from 1955-1995), in alphabetical order:

Breakfast At Tiffany’s-Edwards turned Truman Capote’s novel about a farm girl who moves to the Big Apple and reinvents herself as a Manhattan socialite into a damn near perfect film (Mickey Rooney’s unfortunate, cringingly offensive racial stereotype aside). Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard (both at the peak of their attractiveness) are a stunning screen couple. A funny, sophisticated, bittersweet and poignant story, wonderfully directed, acted, written (George Axelrod adapted) and set to a fabulous Henry Mancini score (it wasn’t the first time Edwards collaborated with the composer, and certainly not the last-they worked together on close to 30 films over several decades).

Days of Wine & Roses-This shattering drama was quite jarring for its time (apparently prompting a rash of opening-week walkouts by Jack Lemmon fans expecting another “funny” role). The film still packs quite a wallop in its depiction of a couple (played by Lemmon and Lee Remick) and their descent into a co-dependent alcoholic hell. Lemmon and Remick (a curiously underrated actress) both deliver their finest performances. Everyone remembers the famous “greenhouse scene”, but I think the most intense moment comes in the “padded room” scene, with a sweating, screaming, strait-jacketed Lemmon writhing in withdrawal. Call it “sense memory”, “method” or whatever, but to this day it remains one of the most incredible examples of an actor being totally “in the moment” ever captured on film. Henry Mancini picked up an Oscar for the theme song.

The Great Race-After some readers took me to task a while back, for “overlooking” this epic 1965 Edwards comedy-adventure about a turn-of-the-century New York to Paris auto race on my list of top ten road movies, and then scolded me yet again (!) for not mentioning said film in my more recent tribute to Tony Curtis, I decided to revisit it (I literally hadn’t seen it since I was a kid). While I do think it starts to “overstay its welcome” about 2/3 of the way through (160 minutes can be a little exhausting for a comedy), I have to say that it was better than I remembered, and has held up pretty well in the laughs department. It was released at a time when overblown, big-budgeted comedies with huge international casts were very much in vogue (especially in the wake of the very successful It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World in 1963). And what a cast-Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Peter Falk and Keenan Wynn (to name but a few).

The Party-Director Edwards and mercurial acting genius Peter Sellers paired up many times, but I think this 1968 gem is not only the best film they ever collaborated on (yes, including the “Panther” series, which I realize approaches heresy in some quarters), but taken frame-for-frame, is one of the all-time great screen comedies, period. Sellers is Hrundi V. Bakshi, an Indian actor with a small part in a Hollywood war epic who single-handedly blows a prohibitively expensive day of shooting by (literally) overplaying his role as a bugler who is (supposed to be) shot “dead” after sounding the charge. The exasperated director calls for the actor’s head, and Bakshi’s name ends up on a studio exec’s hurriedly scribbled “to do” list. Through a comedy of errors, Bakshi’s name is instead added to a guest list for a party being organized by the executive’s wife. The bumbling (if well-meaning) Bakshi proceeds to make a riotous shambles of the event. Sellers’ physical timing is right up there with the best of Chaplin and Keaton. A guitar-wielding Claudine Longet is on hand as the love interest, and purrs a jazzy little number.

S.O.B..-Whereas The Party was a relatively gentle satirical jab at Tinseltown, this 1981 mid-life crisis dramedy offers a decidedly more uncompromising and jaundiced view of the Hollywood machine, which has chewed up and spit out its embittered protagonist-a producer (Robert Mulligan) who flips out after his latest film, a high-budget, G-rated musical extravaganza starring his singer-actress wife (Julie Andrews) tanks with critics and flops at the box office, reversing his previously successful career trajectory. Desperate to salvage the project, he comes up with an idea to buy the film back from the studio, and “sex it up” by convincing his wife to reshoot her part, including some nude scenes, which would completely turn her “wholesome” screen image on its head. Edwards’ screenplay is supposedly laced with numerous autobiographical touches (as you may well already know, Edwards was in fact married to a certain singer-actress whose name rhymes with “Julie Andrews”). Edwards’ most cynical film, but also quite funny. Great supporting work from William Holden (sadly, his last film), Robert Vaughn, Robert Webber, Larry Hagman, Loretta Swit, Shelly Winters, and Robert Preston is priceless as a “Dr. Feelgood” to the stars. It’s worth the price of admission just to hear a ‘luded-up Andrews utter her immortal line: “Oh…Hi, Polly! Come to see my boobies?”

A Shot in the Dark-This was the second outing in the “Pink Panther” series, and I think it’s hands down the best entry in the franchise. Now, the fact that Elke Sommer is in this film has absolutely no bearing on this appraisal. I just wanted to make that perfectly clear. (Awkward silence) Okay, maybe a little bit. Alright, it has more than a little bearing. Sommer is Maria Gambrelli, the maid who might have “dunnit”. That is, shot her rich employer’s limo driver. Or did she? It’s up to Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers) to figure that out, as more victims start dropping like flies. There are so many great gags and classic exchanges in this one, including a memorable sequence in a nudist colony. Herbert Lom (who had previously co-starred with Sellers in several classic Ealing Studios comedies) introduces the character of Chief Inspector Dreyfus, who would become a fixture in subsequent sequels. I think I like this one best because it strikes a perfect middle ground between the first film (which actually played it more sophisticated and fairly straight, as did Sellers) and the later films, which, while quite entertaining, became more and more far-fetched and cartoonish as the franchise grew in its popularity.

Tamarind Seed-A largely forgotten, but quite absorbing and worthwhile Edwards film from 1974, this was his nod to cold war spy thrillers like From Russia with Love, Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The Deadly Affair and Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain (the latter film which, interestingly, featured Julie Andrews). Andrews co-stars here with Omar Sharif. She is a British civil servant, he is a Russian spy, and, well, you can bloody well guess what happens next. And yes, it does create certain “conflicts of interest” for the lovers, which makes for some involving intrigue and suspense, with a sultry Caribbean backdrop. Edwards adapted the screenplay from the novel by Evelyn Anthony. Unfortunately, there is no Region 1 DVD release; perhaps there will be now?

10 – Talk about a “perfect” storm-Blake Edwards’ writing and directing skills, Dudley Moore’s impeccable comic timing, and Bo Derek’s, erm, well…Bo Derek-ness. Moore is a 40-something L.A. songwriter with a devoted girlfriend (Julie Andrews) and a long time friend/songwriting partner (Robert Webber) who are both dutifully attempting to warn him that they can see signs of a mid-life crisis looming on his horizon. While driving around one day, he spots a breathtakingly beautiful young woman (Derek) and immediately becomes obsessed with the idea of possessing her (mid-life crisis mode now fully engaged, thank you). Temporarily insane with unrequited lust, he decides on a whim to follow her (and her boyfriend) to Mexico, where they are headed for a holiday. Much hilarity, mostly fueled by middle aged craziness, ensues. Moore is so dead-on funny that you don’t really stop to consider that he’s sort of playing a creepy stalker. The film does actually does an interesting about-face about 2/3 of the way through, and turns into an introspective and melancholic morality tale. It is vastly entertaining, however, with excellent performances by all. Brian Dennehy is a standout as a philosophical bartender.

Victor/Victoria-A fluffy, but still highly entertaining gender-bending rom-com starring (wait for it) Julie Andrews, who plays an underemployed, classically-trained soprano scraping by in 1930s Paris. She befriends another unemployed singer (the irrepressible Robert Preston), who was recently booted from his gig at a cabaret. He cooks up a scheme that he is convinced will get them both out of the poorhouse: He will be her manager, and she will pose as a “he”, who impersonates a “she” onstage. Get it? Who better to pull off a killer female impersonator shtick, than (forgive me) a chick? Genius! Are there complications? Of course there are-and that’s when the fun starts. Like I said at the outset, lightweight fare, but an enjoyable romp nonetheless. James Garner and Lesley Ann Warren are wonderful. Henry Mancini is on board again with a great musical score. Andrews sings and dances with her usual aplomb (and she looks pretty hot in boy drag!).

Wild Rovers-Blake Edwards made a western? Yes, he did, and not a half-bad one at that. A world-weary cowhand (William Holden) convinces a younger (and somewhat dim) co-worker (Ryan O’Neal) that since it’s obvious that they’ll never really get ahead in their present profession, they should give bank robbery a shot. They “get away with it”, but then find themselves on the run, oddly, not so much from “the law”, but from their former employer (Karl Malden), who is mightily offended that anyone who worked for him would do such a thing. Episodic and leisurely paced, but ambles along quite agreeably, thanks to the charms of the two leads, and the beautiful, expansive photography by Philip Lathrop. An underappreciated film, now ready for a reappraisal.

10 more to explore: Operation Petticoat, Experiment in Terror, The Pink Panther, What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?, The Carey Treatment, The Return of the Pink Panther, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, Micki and Maude, Blind Date, Switch.

…and one more thing

If you have cable, take note. It looks like TCM will be featuring a five-film tribute to Edwards on December 27th, beginning at 8pm Eastern, 5pm Pacific. Warm up that DVR!

Suck Ups And Lies

by digby

So one of the Wikileaks cables said that Michael Moore’s movie “Sicko” was banned in Cuba — and it wasn’t:

Michael Moore was as surprised as anyone when WikiLeaks revealed a US cable asserting that Cuban officials banned his Sicko documentary because it depicted a “mythical” view of health care there. He was even more surprised when the media picked up on the cable and reported it as gospel truth. (See the Guardian, whose report in turn got widely disseminated.) The problem is that the documentary—a damning assessment of the American health care system—was not banned in Cuba, he writes at the Huffington Post.

Not only had the film been playing in Cuban theaters before the State Department cable of Jan. 31, 2008, it was shown on national television there in April of that year, writes Moore, who references news articles of the time to prove his point. So why would a US official write such a bogus cable? Mainly, the Bushies in power at the time didn’t like him and wanted to discredit his movie, which had just been nominated for an Oscar, writes Moore. “It is a stunning look at the Orwellian nature of how bureaucrats for the State spin their lies and try to recreate reality Michael Moore was as surprised as anyone when WikiLeaks revealed a US cable asserting that Cuban officials banned his Sicko documentary because it depicted a “mythical” view of health care there. He was even more surprised when the media picked up on the cable and reported it as gospel truth. (See the Guardian, whose report in turn got widely disseminated.) The problem is that the documentary—a damning assessment of the American health care system—was not banned in Cuba, he writes at the Huffington Post.

Not only had the film been playing in Cuban theaters before the State Department cable of Jan. 31, 2008, it was shown on national television there in April of that year, writes Moore, who references news articles of the time to prove his point. So why would a US official write such a bogus cable? Mainly, the Bushies in power at the time didn’t like him and wanted to discredit his movie, which had just been nominated for an Oscar, writes Moore. “It is a stunning look at the Orwellian nature of how bureaucrats for the State spin their lies and try to recreate reality (I assume to placate their bosses and tell them what they want to hear).”

This raises an interesting question, doesn’t it? How many of these cables, rather than being the unvarnished facts which reveal the public lies are actually another layer of lies from bureaucrats trying to appease their bosses? It’s funny how transparency can reveal all sorts of unexpected things isn’t it?

If only there were professional people who gather facts and research issues and interview subjects who could be called upon to investigate such things. I recall that there used to be an organization called The New York Times which was interested in sorting out various secrets and lies but they seem to have gone into another business. (Some strange foreigners still practice this old fashioned craft but here in the US not so much.) Too bad. It could be useful.

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Is This A Great Country (For Rich People)Or What?

by digby

Gay people aren’t the only ones celebrating today:

If the tax cuts become law, the next two years will be the best in living memory for many wealthy Americans to shield their income and fortunes

A bonanza of new and extended tax benefits could make it as easy as ever for the rich to stay that way.

Under legislation approved by the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, Dec. 15, and now moving on to the House, savvy wealthy Americans would be able to capitalize on an environment in which their tax rates on income and investments remain at historic lows. Also, new rules would make it possible to pass on fortunes to heirs with less fuss and lower taxes than all but a brief period of the past 80 years. It’s a far cry from the 70 percent bite the federal government took out of the largest incomes and estates as recently as 1980.

“The climate we’ll have after this legislation is extremely favorable for wealthy families,” says Jeffrey Cooper, a professor at Quinnipiac University School of Law and a former estate planner who has studied the history of U.S. tax law.

The good news for the rich starts with income tax rates, which for top income groups would remain 35 percent, a rate enacted by former President George W. Bush in 2003. Except for a period from 1988 to 1992, the top tax rate has never been this low since 1931.

“Top rates are incredibly low from a historical perspective,” says Indiana University law professor Ajay Mehrotra. The most surprising thing, he says, is that rates have remained at this level even as the U.S. has been fighting two wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Historically, income taxes on the wealthy have spiked during wartime: The first income tax was initiated during the Civil War and then later repealed. The top rate on income hit 77 percent in 1918, during World War I, and 94 percent from 1944 to 1945, during World War II…

This is one I hadn’t heard of:

The extension of all tax cuts provides an unexpected, one-time benefit to many wealthy taxpayers, says Stephen Baxley, director of tax and financial planning at Bessemer Trust. Starting in 2010, all taxpayers, including those in high income brackets, could convert traditional, tax-deferred individual retirement accounts, or IRAs, to tax-free Roth IRAs. Importantly, in 2010 only, the law allows taxpayers to spread the tax payments required by such conversions over 2011 and 2012. When it looked like tax rates would rise in 2011 and 2012, this looked like a bad deal, Baxley says. Now, with rates remaining the same over the next two years, a Roth conversion can be a lucrative move.

I guess it’ll create some banking clerical jobs? Otherwise, I’m not sure what the “stimulative” effect of this is.

But there’s more!

For the country’s wealthiest families, income from wages can be far less important than income from investments. According to a Tax Policy Center analysis of 2006 returns, 18.1 percent of all Americans’ cash income comes from business ownership or capital investments, compared with 64.5 percent from labor. For those in the top 1 percent of earners, however, business and capital income make up 53.6 percent of income and labor accounts for 35.3 percent.

Thus, Cooper notes, taxes on capital gains and dividends can be far more important to the rich than income tax rates. The tax compromise extends a 15 percent top tax rate on long-term capital gains and dividends enacted in 2003, which is the lowest rate since 1933. The top capital-gains rate was 77 percent in 1918 and, since 1921, its highest point was 39.9 percent in 1976 and 1977—though certain gains could be excluded from taxation.

That’s a big relief. All those investors will finally be able to hire another servant now.

But there’s more:

Estate planning experts say their wealthy clients could be entering an unprecedented period when tax rules—along with low interest rates and previously existing loopholes—make it easier than ever to transfer large sums to children and grandchildren. The estate tax rate would be set at 35 percent in 2011 and 2012. Except for 2010, when the estate tax was replaced by a complex capital-gains tax on inherited assets, the rate has not been lower since 1931.

[…]

The number of people who must worry about estate taxes, already tiny, would shrink to less than 0.2 percent of the population, estimates Richard Behrendt, senior estate planner at Robert W. Baird & Co. In 2009, when the exemption was $3.5 million, 14,713 people had fortunes large enough to file taxable estate returns, according to the IRS. Just 4,296 of those people had estates of $5 million or larger. Compare that with the 2.47 million Americans who died in 2008, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

If Congress does nothing, the exemption would be just $1 million and the tax rate 55 percent in 2011. From 1942 to 1976, the estate tax rate was 77 percent for estates over $10 million, and only estates under $60,000 were exempt from the tax entirely.

For those wealthy enough to still need to worry about estate taxes, the new tax legislation is written to make it much easier to manage their fortunes. For example, individuals can easily pass their remaining tax exemptions on to their spouses after death, without creating complex trusts. Also, new rules treat gifts to children during a donor’s lifetime the same as those made after death, making it easier to pass on estates before assets appreciate and incur extra taxes.

Low interest rates make this the perfect time for many clients to set up trusts like Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts, known as GRATs. In a GRAT, parents loan assets like stocks or even an interest in a private business to the trust at the lowest interest rate possible under the law, which is set each month by the IRS. If the value of those assets increases over time, the GRATs’ beneficiaries reap any benefit above that interest rate. Luckily for those who set up GRATs now, interest rates are at record lows—the IRS set the December rate at 1.8 percent.

Obama and other Democrats had sought to limit the use of GRATs, but failed. “That’s a wonderful technique for parents looking to pass assets on to children at nearly zero [tax rates],” says Jennifer Immel, senior wealth planner at PNC Wealth Management.

I guess we have to hope all these heirs and heiresses kill their parents quickly so they can start creating all those jobs we’ve been promised.

In the midst of the most difficult economy we’ve had in years, rapacious, billionaire greedheads insisted on grasping every last penny while millions of people suffer the loss of their jobs, their investments and their futures. it really says it all.

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Right Wing Primal Scream

by digby

Right wing watch reports:

Judging by the early statements from the likes of Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, this vote is literally going to mean the end of America:

We are now stuck with sexual deviants serving openly in the U.S. military because of turncoat Republican senators … Had the cloture vote failed, we would still have sane moral and sexual standards governing military personnel policy. But sadly those days are gone, perhaps forever. … The armies of other nations have allowed gays to serve openly in the military. The reason they could afford to do this is simple: they could allow homosexuals to serve in their military because we didn’t allow them to serve in ours. They knew they could count on the strength, might, power, and cohesion of the U.S. military to intervene whenever and wherever necessary to pull their fannies out of the fire and squash the forces of tyranny wherever they raised their ugly heads around the world. Those days are now gone. We will no longer be able to bail out these other emasculated armies because ours will now be feminized and neutered beyond repair, and there is no one left to bail us out. We have been permanently weakened as a military and as a nation by these misguided and treasonous Republican senators, and the world is now a more dangerous place for us all. It’s past time for a litmus test for Republican candidates. This debacle shows what happens when party leaders are careless about the allegiance of candidates to the fundamental conservative principles expressed in the party’s own platform. Character-driven officers and chaplains will eventually be forced out of the military en masse, potential recruits will stay away in droves, and re-enlistments will eventually drop like a rock. The draft will return with a vengeance and out of necessity. What young man wants to voluntarily join an outfit that will force him to shower naked with males who have a sexual interest in him and just might molest him while he sleeps in his bunk? This isn’t a game, and the military should never be used, as is now being done, for massive social re-engineering. The new Marine motto: “The Few, the Proud, the Sexually Twisted.” Good luck selling that to strong young males who would otherwise love to defend their country. What virile young man wants to serve in a military like that? If the president and the Democrats wanted to purposely weaken and eventually destroy the United States of America, they could not have picked a more efficient strategy to make it happen. Rarely can you point to a moment in time when a nation consigned itself to the scrap heap of history. Today, when the Senate normalized sexual perversion in the military, was that moment for the United States. If historians want a fixed marker pointing to the instant the United States sealed its own demise, they just found it.

I have to assume that if this dire prediction of plummeting enlistment doesn’t come true that Fischer will be forced to surmise that the entire military is gay.

I think we might have us a wedge issue!

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Promises Kept

by digby

It was a hell of a promise:

We liberals hard on politicians and mostly justifiably. And we talk a lot about how to leverage our power, “making them do it” and hitting them when they betray us, yadda, yadda, yadda. But it’s important not to forget that they are human beings and for most of us doing the right thing feels good.

Reid was startled by that confrontation with Dan Choi and he made a promise I’m sure he didn’t know if he could keep. But he did keep it and it wasn’t easy. And I’m sure it feels good. It would be smart to figure out how to leverage that a little bit more.

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