Jay Cost, arguing in Real Clear Politics that Obama was attacking straw men in his press conference:
Who’s arguing that “tax cuts alone” will solve this problem? Even if some are, is this the median position on the Republican side? Is this the position of the more moderate members of the GOP Senate caucus like Lugar, Voinovich, and Murkowski? How about moderate House Republicans like Kirk, LoBiondo, and Castle? We might count it as bipartisanship if Obama had picked up a few of them, but he didn’t.
Yeah. About that:
Thirty-six out of 41 Republican Senators voted for the proposed DeMint amendment to the stimulus bill — a massive package of permanent tax cuts that would create a huge hole in the budget, while doing very little to help the economy.
There isn’t much room for bipartisanship when 87.8% of the other party is totally irresponsible.
Any math men out there want to let me know if 87.8% counts as the “median position?” And it would be irresponsible not to remind everyone exactly what was in the Demint Amendment:
o Permanently repeal the alternative minimum tax once and for all;
o Permanently keep the capital gains and dividends taxes at 15 percent;
o Permanently kill the Death Tax for estates under $5 million, and cut the tax rate to 15 percent for those above;
o Permanently extend the $1,000-per-child tax credit;
o Permanently repeal the marriage tax penalty;
o Permanently simplify itemized deductions to include only home mortgage interest and charitable contributions.
o Lower top marginal income rates from 35 percent to 25 percent.
o Simplify the tax code to include only two other brackets, 15 and 10 percent.
o Lower corporate tax rate as well, from 35 percent to 25 percent.
The problem for the Republicans is not that President Obama is making things up about them or unfairly representing their position. The problem is that they are crazy, and Obama is pointing that out. Hell, the only thing Republicans are allowed to vote for are tax cuts, otherwise the Club For Growth or other fringe groups will come after them.
Math Man
87.8% would include the median by definition.
You’re welcome.
Zach
And Lugar and Murkowski voted yea on Demint.
headpan
Keep it up repubes! Cement that legacy! DeMint, way to go, Chinless Wonder.
Zach
And 3 of 4 Republicans who voted nay on Demint (the 4th being Voinovich) voted yea on stimulus; in fact, Obama did negotiate with the ones who were serious.
sgwhiteinfla
Its the premise thats wrong not just the facts. The premise of Jay Cost and other talking heads is that if the bill was reasonable, the "moderate" Republicans would have voted for it. But thats far from the truth. Murkowski, Lugar, Kirk et all did not show up to try to negotiate with Collins and Nelson and their gang of
assholesmoderates and similarly I don’t believe any of them introduced any amendments to try to make the bill any more palatable to them. Their leadership’s position was to vote against the bill, well before the final version was ever completed. So it mattered little what bill came out of the negotiations and amendment process, non of those other "moderates" were going to vote against their leadership.Thats the fallacy of the whole "bipartisan" argument. This is the same game plan they had with Clinton when not a single Republican in either house of Congress voted for his budget. And yet it worked and we had years of prosperity. So were the "moderate" Republicans right back then? But do you hear ANY MSM talking head or print pundit comparing the two almost identical situations? Of course not. Because today "bipartisanship" is all that matters, even if one side is determined to say no.
timb
Well, I think I figured out why Cost doesn’t allow comments. His entire essay is faulty. There are major Republican figures who want to do nothing: Limbaugh, Hannity, Pence, Cantor, Demint, Shelby. There are plenty who want tax cuts alone, including McCain.
Mr. Cost’s essay is just plain silly, but his bipartisan street cred is preserved!
Zzyzx
It’s too bad Hannity’s radio show doesn’t have transcripts because Demint was on yesterday and he was being crazy.
Then again, also good was Hannity’s comment Specter the day before along the lines of, "In 1980 Reagan solved the problems of high interest rates and inflation by tax cuts. Why can’t we do the same thing now?"
Maybe because interest rates are low and we’re worried about deflation moron.
John Cole
@Zzyzx: Here.
Napoleon
By the way John, I don’t have a link at my fingertips but he House also took a vote on a similar amendment and all but something like 5 Republicans voted on it. So Republicans in both houses of Congress have gone on record as being economic illiterates.
Napoleon
That is so economically illiterate I don’t even know where to begin. Of course we had high interest rates because Jimmy Carter’s appointee Paul Volker ran them up high to crush inflation. When inflation came down there was no longer a need to keep rates high so they also came down.
joe from Lowell
That is so economically illiterate I don’t even know where to begin.
Seriously, it’s like a kaleidoscope. Every time you turn it to look at it from another direction, you see a whole new pattern of stupid.
Let me begin: Reagan (Volcker, actually) solved the problem of inflation with high interest rates.
kay
I bet they’re worried about losing the Great Lakes region for a good long time.
I can’t come up with a map where Republicans win a national election without Indiana and Ohio. Ohio is bad enough. Losing Indiana must scare them to death. These are the same people who were crowing about a "Big Ten" strategy for John MCCain less than a year ago. That gave me great comfort.
They probably have to rewrite and pretend that Voinovich and Lugar didn’t fall in line with the Limbaugh wing. But the truth is, they did.
matt
You folks are killing me this morning.
satby
That would be the current Repug party’s motto:
"Proud to be economically illiterate".
kay
It’s amazingly dishonest. That Obama didn’t attract "moderate Republicans" does not go to the idea that the "moderate Republicans" are not all that moderate. but instead automatically means that Obama isn’t a centrist.
He can never win that set-up. It’s carte blanche for moderate Republicans to go hard Right. Wherever they’re standing is newly defined as the center.
sarah
I know Obama hasn’t been president for even a month yet, but how long is it going to take the media to get over teh stupid? Am I too hopelessly optimistic that the 4th estate and village will sometime soon decide that intellectual integrity and an honest assessment of policy on it’s merits are better than politics for politics sake? Is that crazy?
Comrade Scrutinizer
@sarah:
Yes. SATSQ.
Litlebritdifrnt
I cannot see anyone on the right actually supporting many of those items, particularly the bit about limiting deductions to charitable contributions and mortgage interest. Most of their pals are obviously working folks, you know, big business types who incur alot of expenses related to their jobs which currently are deductible (mileage, meals, motels etc., etc.,) Also alot of middle class peeps (teachers for instance like my husband) incur a great deal of expenses over and above the $250.00 teacher credit, particularly coaches and band directors. I can’t see the rationale in that idea at all, other than it would be a massive tax hike for alot of folks and I thought the republicans were all about tax cuts.
Conservatively Liberal
I would say that the Rushublicans have adopted Rube Goldberg Economics but Rube Goldberg contraptions actually worked.
Maybe we should call it Perpetual Motion Economics. TAX CUTS TODAY!! TAX CUTS TOMORROW!! TAX CUTS FOREVER!!
bootlegger
@Math Man: Technically just because 87% are in one category it doesn’t necessarily include the median. A median can only be computed for interval and ratio level variables and this is a nominal level variable (all tax cuts, some tax cuts). You could argue it is ordinal (all tax cuts to no tax cuts) but even then you can’t find a median without converting the variable to the interval level.
I know, I know, nitpicking and pedantic, and JC’s point is essentially correct that the R’s are making shit up. But you can’t find a median for this variable.
Gotta run, I teach stats in 20 minutes in another building on campus and this week we’re learning….central tendency.
Edit: You can find the mode, and "all tax cuts" is the modal R response.
demimondian
@bootlegger: I agree that the question, as posed, requires the variable be ordinated, and that this variable is not. However, I also argue that for any ordination of the variable — and there are several — an 87+% majority would necessarily include the median.
Gotta run. Need to go prep a lecture on statistical inference of nominal properties…
bootlegger
@demimondian: Then we both agree that Jay Cost is a moron.
Ordinate it all you want, even at the ordinal level you can’t legitimately find a median.
(now I’m late)
Realist
Anyone who isn’t proposing a permanent spending reduction of $800 billion or more is out to lunch. They’re all insane and have no grasp of basic math and compound interest.
Shinobi
To Jay Cost Re: Median
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means
Also, here is a visual representation of the republicans on economic policy.
Stuck
Jim Demint, with Joe the Plumber riding shotgun and Sarah Palin for spiritual guidance. Dream team of The Great Wingnut Breakout Election of 2010. Popcorn included.
Calouste
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Republicans are all about tax cuts. Real, effective tax cuts for the rich, and fake, ineffective tax cuts for the rubes.
Rick Taylor
@sarah:
It will only happen when they and their friends start loosing their jobs, houses, and health care.
PaminBB
Sounds as though he is arguing with himself.
timb
Jay Cost, I found your meatloaf rather shallow and pedantic
TenguPhule
Hey ChurchLady!
Where’s that apology and groveling?
MikeJ
Cue Harry Truman. "I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell."
TenguPhule
Left out was Reagan and Bush Sr. then had to raise taxes to fix the problems caused by the first tax cuts.
Hannity, too stupid to live or stupidest person to live ever?
Wilson Heath
The litany of bad tax policy!
I’ll focus on the obvious one that’s a pet peeve for me — how many rate brackets is appropriate? If you believe in progressivity, the sensible answer is actually that you want something that functions kind of like a continuously variable transmission on a car. Rather than having a sweet spot that is right in each bracket, with some under- and some overtaxed on some dollars on that bracket, you have more of a smooth curve. So you want more brackets to make this work optimally. Theoretically even varying by dollar of income.
More brackets do not add complexity. No one has a problem with the number of brackets. People have difficulty understanding what tax brackets mean and how they work, but they just turn to the instructions to tell them the tax or to give them a simple calculation to determine the tax.
So can the taxitistas just drop this one? And can the rest of you back me up on this? It shouldn’t even have to be discussed anymore, but it won’t die. It’s like Dick Clark that way.