One of the great victories of conservatism was framing every debate as the real, Tebow-fearing Murkins versus the dirty hippies who spit on soldiers. Is there anyway the left could try to do the same with banskters and bankster fanboys? A few months ago, I would have scoffed at this idea, but after the nosedive Romney’s favorables have taken, I’m beginning to wonder. Some of the stuff the bankster fanbois produce is awfully low-hanging fruit:
Last week Republican apparatchik James Pethokoukis wrote a column arguing that (in the words of the title) “Actually, Mitt Romney’s tax rate is too high”.
Yes, he really did.
Part of me wants to say, hey, if you wanna try that line, knock yerselves out. Let us know how it works out for ya.
There are many on the right who are just dumb enough to trot out this bullshit. I know there are those who find this bullshit bracing and courageous. But there aren’t many of those among the American voting public.
Probably, in a way, everything I’m saying here is obvious: the Obama administration is sure to shove the Ryan plan up Romney’s ass this fall.
John Cole
I disagree. There is nothing useful about Pethokoukis.
Schlemizel
@John Cole:
but you do agree with the idiot part, right?
Martin
We’ll see. I don’t fully discount the ability of bank-blowing Democrats to fuck this up. Nancy Smash will keep her group in line, but that Senate…
Xecky Gilchrist
There are many on the right who are just dumb enough to trot out this bullshit.
And have been for at least 30 years!
dmsilev
Well, apparently Mitt Romney thinks his tax rate is 50 percent, and that’s really sad for him, right?
Martin
Thin skinned? The dude who’s been called a Muslim Kenyan soçialist manchurian candidate that hates America? Seriously? I can’t think of a thicker skinned person anywhere.
Schlemizel
I think we can all agree that every Republican deserves to have the Ryan plan shoved so far up their colon that its inks stains their molars. But as long as our masters control the media I am not convinced it is the winner it should be.
Remember Ryan is a serious guy with a serious solution to a real conundrum according to the media whores. They can blithely ignore the 2-3 trillion dollars prepaid into SS that would keep it solvent for years to come & pretend it is broke this year. They conflate the problem healthcare costs are going to be for Medicare with the cost of SS. They agree that raising taxes on the 1% or using the massive government buying power to reduce costs are off the table. Whats left but putting a couple of handrails on the ice flow when we toss granny out on it?
Fluke bucket
As long as he twists it I don’t care whose ass he shoves it up
gbear
Why stop with just his plan?
Villago Delenda Est
The futures market for tumbrels keeps getting brighter and brighter.
Schlemizel
@Martin:
Agreed – you have to ask why the hell would anyone want to put up with the abuse he has dealt with
dmsilev
@Martin: Like many wingnuts, Gov. Brewer apparently excels at projection.
Martin
@dmsilev: Ooh. They’re going to get some bullshit traction on that. Mitt was really claiming that cap gains is double taxation – that after the corporations pay up to 35% on profits (Apple’s unbelievably huge profits announced yesterday were taxed at 26%, so 35% is at best theoretical) then he pays 15% on the gains that he makes.
That’s utter bullshit because while stock prices are typically driven by profits, the increase in value doesn’t actually come from the corporation. But watch them spin that like the death tax double taxation bullshit.
Baud
What’s striking to me is that the Republican strategy had been to make the 2012 election about a referendum on Obama. Instead, it’s shaping up to be the type of election Obama would like — a choice between two different visions of the country — and it’s the Republicans who are leading the way with their vigorous defense of the prerogatives of the wealth. It’s really amazing. I blame a virulent form of ODS.
dead existentialist
Well they’ve been shoving sochulism down the teabaggers throats, so it only seems fair.
jimbo123
The way I have seen this specious argument presented tends to be about “double taxation”. Typically the wingnut will say corporate income is taxed “at the highest rate in the world”, and then the after tax profits are paid out in dividends to shareholders, who are then taxed on this income “even though the shareholder ARE the corporation and have already paid tax.” Conveniently forgetting that the distinction we draw between shareholders and the corporation is one the business class has insisted on as part of the legal fiction of corporate personhood.
‘Cuz otherwise, it’s apples and oranges.
MikeJ
@Schlemizel:
The fun part here is that as the social security trust fund gets smaller it has the efect of making the national debt *smaller*. Every dollar that is “saved” by prepaying into the trust fund counts against the national debt.
Davis X. Machina
@Schlemizel: The Onion got there, early.
Maude
@Villago Delenda Est:
And we get a tax break if we make them here. Obama said so during the SOTU.
Mark S.
Everyone should really follow that link. Pethokoukis spouts a huge amount of bullshit and Tom Hilton does a great job of tearing it apart.
Baud
@dmsilev: That’s stupid. Capital gains doesn’t even have to involve a corporation. If you buy land and sell it for a profit later on, that’s also capital gains. (And now I’ll sit back and wait for a tax expert to tell me I’m wrong.)
JPL
@Martin: According to the NYTimes…
A White House official, pressed to explain the encounter, had this to say: “The governor handed the president a letter and said she was inviting him to meet with her. The president said he’d be glad to meet with her again, but did note that after their last meeting, a cordial discussion in the Oval Office, the governor inaccurately described the meeting in her book. The president looks forward to continuing taking steps to help Arizona’s economy grow.”
btw..how come every one knows how to block quote but me…
I am thin skinned…
KG
@Martin: by that logic, then I’m taxed at like 70% because my employer pays tax on the money I make for them and then I pay taxes on the money I make.
I tend to be fairly libertarian in my leanings, and the double taxation line. If your corporate entity is a distinct person (legal fiction, be damned!), then one person is taxed, and then another person is taxed. That’s not double taxation unless the corporation is not a different person…
Schlemizel
@Davis X. Machina:
Yup, saw that – this mornings was great too Obama Begins State Of The Union By Asking Congress To Imagine Newt Gingrich Standing Before Them
@Martin:
Obama pimped a Republican ‘almost true lie’ last night (gad I hate when Dems do that) saying America has the highest tax rate in the industrialized world (I’m paraphrasing but thats the gist of it) while thats true its also true and much more relevant that American companies pay a smaller percentage in taxes than any other industrial nation.
Keith G
Obama has created some of the framing that you suggest:
Chuck Butcher
@Baud:
You will write off against the cap gains any costs associated with owning the land… Your actual profit is cap gains, in general regarding what the public has as a concern when it actually exists the number taxed is small.
Think how many layers of taxes you pay to begin with and then try to buy into Mitt’s bullshit double taxation. You have to be brain dead, especially if you pay sales tax, to go along. Well that or a GOPer… (somehow maybe that it inclusive)
*As though I don’t pay state income tax, fed tax, SS/FICA, etc…
KG
@Baud: I’m not a tax attorney, so I’m not going to tell you that you are wrong. Because you’re mostly right. But then there’s issues like short term and long term capital gains, and exemptions for selling a residence, and all sort of other stuff. There’s different types of capital gains and it’s one of a billion reasons why I want nothing ever to do with tax law.
dmsilev
@Baud: Of course it’s stupid. Stupidity and/or mendacity is a requirement for any GOP talking point these days.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JPL: apparently, Governor Brainfreeze is touting something called “the Arizona Comeback”.
Google says the AZ unemployment rate is 8.7, so right at the national level, no? and google (yup, that’s what I’m basing this on) also suggests that AZ foreclosure rates are among the highest in the country, and one article says they’re expected to continue so through 2016. A google of “Arizona comeback” leads to articles about college sports and a resurgence in use of smokeless tobacco, which we used to call “chew”.
dmsilev
Shorter conservatives: “Soylent Green is Corporations!”
Schlemizel
@JPL:
See that b-quote above the text block? press it and you will see the code “blockquote” paste your quote then press that b-quote button again & you will see the code “/blockquote” meaning you are back to normal.
You can type the code itself too if you want you have to encase the code in those pointy brackets made from greater than and lesser than.
JPL
@Schlemizel: no..i have a abc check box for spelling errors and a square box that if i click on appears to be just someplace to type a comment on.
edit…it’s on chrome..but not on the firefox that I normally use.
burnspbesq
@Martin:
“Apple’s unbelievably huge profits announced yesterday were taxed at 26%, so 35% is at best theoretical”
In fairness, Apple actually does earn billions of dollars of real economic income from real economic activity in countries that have lower tax rates than the United States. If that income isn’t Subpart F income, it’s not subject to US tax until it’s repatriated, and when it’s repatriated Apple gets a credit against its US taxes roughly equal to the foreign tax paid.
JPL
OT…The Bryan’s are playing in the semi’s in the Aussie open for those who are interested.
Hill Dweller
@JPL: That half-wit was looking for a public fight. She hands the President an envelope in front of cameras(an obvious provocation),and literally points her finger at him during their exchange. She then runs to the local talk radio show to call the President “thin-skinned”.
I guarantee the teatards will consider her a hero.
Schlemizel
@JPL:
OK, thats odd. so, type a greater than “<" follwed by the word blockquote and then a less than paste in the quote followed by the same string except put a back slash / before the blockquote.
Does that make sense?
burnspbesq
@Baud:
Depends on what you do with the land. If you get it rezoned, subdivide it, get utilities run to every little lot, and sell the lots off piecemeal, you might be in the trade or business of real estate, and the gain from sales to customers in the ordinary course of business would be ordinary income. There is a mind-boggling volume of case law on this issue.
JPL
@Schlemizel: I doubt that I’m the only one on firefox that lost those functions. Either it will be fixed or chrome and google will watch my posts..
Schlemizel
@JPL:
I’m on firefox & see them OK
JPL
@Schlemizel: now that’s spooky.
MikeJ
@JPL: The buttons had been gone for me for a eek or two. Yesterday I created a new firefox profile and everything was fine. What was weird was that I then exited ffox, restarted with my old profile, and everything was hunky dory. So maybe try that.
Martin
@burnspbesq: Actually, Apple pays US corporate tax on about half of their foreign profits. I don’t know why they do that yet, but about $30B of that offshore money can be repatriated. It might be related to where they invest most of that money – about $60B or so is in US Treasuries, so it’s possible they need to have paid the US tax on that money before they make that investment. But even if Apple paid fully, they’d still be eligible for various deductions against that 35%, so like all marginal tax rates, the top rate is at best the ‘asymptotic’ value – one you can approach but never reach.
@Schlemizel: True, but Obama has always taken the position that there are too many loopholes in the tax policy. Nobody cared when he said it. The populace can’t focus for the 15 seconds needed to understand the issue, so you have to play it both ways – promise to lower the top marginal rate to 25% and simultaneously close the loopholes to keep the effective rate about where it is now for the highest paying companies and raise it for the ones scamming the tax code. He wasn’t wrong in saying we have the highest rate. We do, it’s just nobody actually pays it.
I agree that’s it’s frustrating that Dems need to resort to this shit, but sometime it’s just easier to explain that Fido went to live on a farm in the country.
Ooh! I can edit! What a nice surprise after being sick.
rea
@Martin:
The corporatists want to have it both ways. They want corporations to be their own “persons” with their own rights. They want shareholders to have limited liability for corporate acts, on the basis that the corporation is a separate entity from the shareholders. But, when it comes to paying taxes, they want this all important distinction between the shareholders and the corporation suddenly to disappear.
Raven
@MikeJ: EEK A MOUSE!
scav
@Raven: EEK EEK EEK EEK A MONTH!
mark
need a new open thread!! i have an idea to discuss!!
also, the site is still doing that thing it did last year where once you open it, you have to click the header image txt link to see the most resent posts. i know you were working on it yesterday, but… still some kinks.
using firefox, god i have no idea anymore. 6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17 one of those versions
MikeJ
@Raven: I would have used the newly returned edit function but it takes 3.5 minutes to bring up an empty edit window.
FlipYrWhig
You know how Mittens had that line about how corporations are people, meaning, presumably, that if you move to rein in corporations all you end up doing is punishing their hard-working employees? So, like, how come that’s not also true of government? Government is people. “Cut government” and you hurt people who work for governments. I mean, I know that’s not the way conservatives like to see it, but it’s certainly at least as true as their line.
The Dangerman
@dmsilev:
Yo, Mitt, when you are
ina hole, quit digging.mark
@FlipYrWhig:
too smart, makes too much sense, too easy to understand, therefore dems wouldn’t think of it or use it, not to mention it validates romney’s claim that corporations are people and therefore should be taxed very low, flat tax, etc. etc. stuff.
FlipYrWhig — yo, be sure to meet me in the next open thread
burnspbesq
@Martin:
“Apple pays US corporate tax on about half of their foreign profits. I don’t know why they do that yet”
For book purposes, unless you can represent that profits are going to be permanently reinvested outside the United States, you have to provide for US tax. For purposes of what goes on a return, the most likely answer is Subpart F.
Baud
@The Dangerman: Disagree. Mitt should keep digging.
lamh35
so the twitter is all ablaze over Gov Jan Brewer and something she greeted Obama when he arrived in Arizona.
Anywone know exactly what’s going on?
Schlemizel
@mark:
lately I have seen a lot of cases where I come to the site & see a thread that says there are x number of posts but when I click in there are many more posts. Then many time if I click around a little multiple posts will appear newer than what I first saw as the newest and they all have tons of comments so they are not really new just not shown when I got there.
JGabriel
TPM:
Shorter Romney I:
Shorter Romney II:
.
JPL
@MikeJ: thanks…
Cacti
Since Mitt now tells us that he and Bain are one and the same, rather than separate legal entities…
Then surely he would be fine with being personally liable for any corporate malfeasance or negligence by Bain, right?
jonas
@lamh35: She asked Obama if he had read her piece of shit book in which she offered up a bunch of bullshit about him. He said yes, and that he thought it was a bunch of bullshit. She has a sad.
vector56
There is an old expression that asks us to “follow the money”. In the case of “Citizens United” if one were to follow the lion’s share of the untraceable, funds being dumped on our political system most if not all roads would lead to the Corporate Media.
Television (broadcast and Cable), Radio, Newspaper and Internet ads are the abyss into which “millions” of citizens and Corporate dollars flow. While the Corporate media modestly pretends to be neutral; in reality, they are the true “King makers!” Back during the last presidential debate MSNBC decided that Dennis Kucinich would no longer be allowed to participate in the debates. Kucinich took them to court, got an injunction; a judge imposed a fine on MSNBC (if they would not allow Kucinich back in the debates). MSNBC paid the fine, but did not let Kucinich back into the debates.
The above is only the tip of the iceberg; countless viable candidates have been rendered “invisible” by the mighty Corporate Media. They decide what voice we will hear; what questions and topics will see the light of day! Most politicians fear them; while filling their coffers with millions.
OTCM (Occupy The Corporate Media); instead of waiting for them to come to us with their cameras to make us relevant, we should show up at their door steps and not leave until our public airways are back into the hands of the public. At the same time we should Occupy the FCC! Keith Olbermann thinks that OWS’s “mic-checks” went too far; I say “to hell with Olberman! Anything that works fake liberals like Oberman, want to remove. They are being pay good money to “talk the talk” of liberalism; but usually discourage us from “walking the walk!” MSNBC, Current TV, Progressive Radio and most establishment Liberal blogs (Kos, FDL, ..) spend 90% of their air time and blog space misdirecting us with GOP gossip. What did “Newt, Mitt, Rick,… say today!”
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
I had a relative on facebook go on a pompous rant about how Romney was right to say what he said, in which he specifically lectured about how sad it is that people don’t understand that corporations are jobs which are wages. Then specifically made a distinction with “government bureaucrats paid by mah tax dollars!” What that distinction was, he never got to. But there was a distinction, and it was important that we unenlightened ones realize it!
(He also used to be in the military. But these guys, for some reason or another, are not leeches, despite working for the government).
Martin
@burnspbesq: Ah, that helps clear that up. They’ve got about $30B or so that they haven’t paid taxes on. They’re building out a ton of retail outside of the US, plus their direct investments in plants, equipment, and so on. Even so, $30B is a tall stack to spend through.
Hill Dweller
@lamh35: Brewer made a production of handing the President an envelope containing a request to meet with her. Obama said he would, but reminded her that the last time they met, she completely lied about it in her “book”. She got snippy, even putting her finger in the President’s face. The President reportedly walked away while she was in mid-sentence.
Brewer subsequently ran to a local talk radio show to call the President “thin skinned”.
She was looking for a public fight. I bet her approval ratings were flagging, so she decided to pull this stunt.
JCT
@jonas: My governor, folks. FACEPALM.
Oh Jan, you complete and utter moron — you think that the president just might take exception to you blatantly LYING about a previous encounter in PRINT? Actually, I’m having a hard time imagining her writing anything – maybe it was in crayon.
The truth is probably she stood so close to him that he could feel his IQ points being sucked into the vacuum between her ears. Probably freaked him out.
Ruckus
@JCT:
The truth is probably she stood so close to him that he could feel his IQ points being sucked into the vacuum between her ears. Probably freaked him out.
Now I know why I feel ill every time I stand next to a conservative. It’s my IQ(limited as it is so not a lot to lose) being sucked right out of my head.
El Cid
If we weren’t robbing so much money from a producer like Mitt Romney, why, we’d have a lot more jobs than we have now.
Those of us failing our obligation to succeed should pay our penalty for our own lack of success by paying more taxes out of our lower incomes, so that we may realize that by keeping our incomes low from our laziness and lack of greatness, we hurt America.
brewmn
@Chris: He also used to be in the military. But these guys, for some reason or another, are not leeches, despite working for the government.
This is a very common phenomenon. A relative and his wife were both in the military and now both work for a military contractor, yet are staunch, government-hating Republicans.
brewmn
Aren’t we close to the point where Democrats can say, “Look, we’ve been cutting taxes and regulations , and letting the market decide for the last thirty years. And the end result is a bunch of greedy bluebloods got a whole bunch richer, and you’ve lost your job (from which you hadn’t seen a raise over 3% in decades) and are on the verge of losing your home. So, while conservatives can keep trying to fool you into thinking that this tax cut for the wealthy will finally trickle down, isn’t time to realize that they have been blowing smoke up your ass this whole time?”
Chuck Butcher
@brewmn:
Such a thing would involve harshing the mellow of the amorphous maybe exists vastly important “middle” and that just cannot be done. If you actually persuaded the general populace of just how screwed over they are for the benefit of a literal handful of people they’d get a sad… maybe they’d start feeling underpaid and overworked and that would be … bad?
Cap'n Swag
Is anyone surprised a turd sandwich like Pethokoukis that once asked “dude, where’s my recession?” would write an article with a premise that would make even McMegan cry into her perfectly mixed hollandaise? Screw that moron.
Julie
@brewmn: Didn’t Obama basically say exactly this with the whole YoYo Economics thing? Nicely, of course, but that’s kind of his way.
brewmn
@Julie: He’s been so over the map on how to get Americans back to work, that I don’t think a clear counterarugment has emerged. I would love to see him risk establishment Washington getting the vapors with a full-throated repudiation of trickle-down economics. And if Romney is, as is likely, his opponent, he wouldn’t even have to mouth the words. He could just point to a picture of Mitt.
Julie
@brewmn: That’s a fair assessment. I assumed that speech was the groundwork for exactly what you outline above, but we’ll see how the campaign unfolds — since, as you point out, Mitt is an excellent target. :)
Joey Maloney
@The Dangerman:
Like Mitt would even know which end of a shovel goes into the ground. He hires people to dig his holes. (Though not illegals. He’s running for office, for goodness sakes!)
[Edit: Yay, edit!}
d0n camillo
Needless to say Fox is doing its best to spread the same meme about the rich paying too much taxes and the poor not enough. Via Steve Benen.
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201201250007
FlipYrWhig
@brewmn: That’s because they (think they) know that they work hard, but The Government is also wasting billions of dollars on other people who just want a handout and aren’t willing to work hard like they do/did. It’s pretty much the basis for why anyone is a Republican in the first place: someone somewhere is intent on taking their stuff, and Democrats are using the government to help them do it. If they questioned whether their stuff was rightfully theirs in the first place, if they began to wonder whether they actually earned it or benefited from flukes and perks not of their making, they’d never end up Republicans to begin with.
Frankensteinbeck
@brewmn:
Define ‘full-throated’. He has to repudiate a huge number of poisonous Republican lies, so he can’t go after just one topic at a time. And he ain’t gonna get loud and rude. Polite has worked very well for him so far, and let’s face it, the media’s been waiting with their noose for three years for the ‘Angry Black Man’ opportunity.
EDIT – Bear in mind, Obama’s the one who started pushing ‘The rich don’t pay their fair share’ as a national meme, and now it’s out in the open. He’s throwin’ the punches we want, there’s just thirty years of bullshit to dig out from under.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
Lets not forget, one of the key reason RawMoney’s favorables are falling, and have a built-in drag on them, even as the clowns make him seem least bad, is that the fundies like dr. dre on the chronic felt it was finally time to make their impression felt.
i think you can crush RawMoney with the class warfare thing, because its the one flip he can’t flop, but you have to go all the way after it. you have to explain that it isn’t redistributing the wealth, the wealth is being redistributed upwards already. its not jealously if the game is rigged from the beginning, which seems right now the bridge too far, you have to refute the double-tax thing and all the old favorites in quick portable argument that can be turned into its own exploitable.
the soundbite has been replaced by the exploitable and the meme. the most convincing arguments are the ones people can make their own version of.
brewmn
@Frankensteinbeck: I didn’t mean “full-throated” as in “get all angry and up in peoples’ grill.” I meant full-throated as in well-articulated, consistent, and relatively free of the mealy-mouted doublespeak that Democratic poltical consultants typically favor.
IM
@John Cole:
Pethokoukis is a useful idiots working for the democrats. He doesn’t know, but those are the best.