We've all heard it; too often in fact. The tired old conservative lie that "the rich are the ones who create jobs". This is often closely tied in with "cut capital gains taxes" and "concentrated wealth is good for the economy".
The problem with explaining why that viewpoint is wrong to these folks is that most of the time they don't have the patience or the willingness (or the attention span) to have an intelligent conversation. Yell louder and yell the truth.
This clip on C+L shows exactly what I mean; they yell, but don't want to sit down and have a conversation.
While is isn't the most productive thing in the world, it is very satisfying to be able to yell back, and having something to yell back with sometimes gives them pause; speaking their language as it were.
So here are some talking points I yell back:
When a rich person says, "the rich create jobs" I immediately ask "What's your employer ID number? Don't have one? You haven't created ANY jobs"
Its a nice, personal 'take responsibility' type challenge. After the first round, yelling the question, "Whats your employer ID? how much is your monthly payroll?" works as a beautiful challenge to yell at the top of your lungs. The key idea behind this talking point is that most rich people don't actually create any jobs directly themselves. Even gardeners and maids are almost always either self employed (they created their own jobs) or are working for a company, of whom the rich folks are only clients.
When a republican who isn't rich says "the rich create jobs, another reply is "Bull, venture capital create jobs. Venture capital dollars are as good coming from middle class people as from rich people". The refrain here is "venture capital" repeated over and over. This talking point reinforces the fact that starting up businesses creates both jobs and businesses directly. However, 1000 people investing $5000 is as good as an investor dumping 5 million into a company. Sometimes yelling "my dollars are worth as much as yours" also makes a difference.
Should someone bring up that rich people make good investors "Trading in stocks hires no one! Profits, not stock price make hiring decisions". Over and over, hammer, "Profits, not stock price!"
To those who advocate taxing the poor because they can't avoid the taxes like rich people can, yell back "no blood from a stone!" as the refrain, with the follow on, "Unless you want people starving in the streets, every dollar you take from the poor in taxes you have to give back in aid". Usually those advocating this claim that people on welfare have cable, nice cars, and don't need the aid. The best way to respond is to dismiss them and effectively ignore their argument. "but those pople aren't poor; those TV's are income The point is about the REAL poor people" That gets into explaining them about reification, true scotsmen, perfection in welfare and surfers, which most of them aren't willing or prepared to discuss.
And a few others for good measure:
Every time someone complains about senate process; you know, backroom deals, reconciliation, conference committee, etc, I yell, "Bush Tax Cuts!" at the top of my lungs. I remind them that the Bush tax cuts were the product of backroom deals, rammed through with reconciliation, and worked out mainly in conference committee. It is always funny asking someone "what kind of a republican are you opposing the biggest tax cuts in history after the fact?"
Against Ron Paul types who insist on taxing consumption, I point out that the rich don't spend their money, they invest it. "Investments sit and are not taxed" and just repeat, "Investments are not taxed!". Any fair tax scheme assumes that it will tax all of a person's income because people spend all their income. The problem is, investments, and capital gains, which would be exempt, mean that the richest folks who invest most of their income, would never be taxed at all!. It doesn't matter that I'm arguing perpendicularly to the Fair Tax argument, the idea is to make the whole idea of exempting investments from taxes so toxic it can't get off the ground.
Against someone who is willfully misrepresenting the meaning of the constitution, I like to hammer with "argue with what it says, not with what you want it to say".
Add your own in the comments. While undesirable, good, four word phrases which bear yelling and repeating can get through to some of the yelling republicans. And beating the hopeless ones at their own game is occasionally quite satisfying, at least to me.