The luminaries at Red State have once again managed to confound expectations by actually taking on the aspects and intellectual acumen of the term I've always thought best described their demeanor, assholes. At this point, I think Moore's Law has advanced computing power past the point of the technological singularity, as it's certain no actual human could have accomplished so thorough a conversion from the metaphorical to the literal. The logistics are asinine. And yet....
In a post entitled Balanced Approach: The Tax Hikes That Democrats Should Propose walking colon polyp and "businessman" Francis Cianfrocca muses about what kind of policies his dear friends the Democrats would propose if they really believed in "this year's fiscal code word," the balanced approach to solving our imaginary deficit crisis. Now, three things struck me when I perused this
1) I thought this year's fiscal code word was the same as last years: Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!!!
2) Weird, I didn't know that benign anal tumors could still come off so dickish.
3) Um, where'd you get your numbers, bub?
So I took the plunge and dug a little deeper and I promise no more anal imagery below the squiggly.
I think it's fun that the terms "affluent" and "influent" only differ by a couple of letters. It's a crude and completely invalid connection, I know, but what fun that it can be said with a great deal of truth, the more affluent a person is, the more influent they generate.1 Or at least it seems so on the subject of taxation.
Anyways, I figure the best way to address assho...I mean, bad people like Cianfrocca is to pick apart their claims, each from each, and watch the whole juicy mess just fall in on itself. So, my response, point by point to his incredibly inept concern troll post.
[Balanced approach] means nothing more or less than higher taxes on high earners, business income, and capital gains.
Odd. Cuz I sort of thought the term meant
cuts in spending AND raising revenues. Perhaps you're acquainted with the Google?
But Cantor stressed that they never presented an economic rationale for higher taxes. It was all about class warfare, pure and simple.
Well, I don't know if Cantor the Cartoonish made this claim, but since you seem to buy into it, I'm gonna count it on your ledger. So, how about when President Obama said we needed to
stop incentivizing the offshoring of our jobs? How about
when he cited a CBO score for extending the Bush tax cuts that said that cutting taxes for the wealthy is the least stimulative policy available? Seems like maybe you could have done a little research there, Francis.
Class warfare is like catnip to progressives.
Hm. Well if raising taxes on the wealthy is class warfare, and class warfare is a progressive thing, then you Red Staters are well and truly fucked. Cuz the
majority of Americans want to tax the shit out of Daddy Warbucks. Guess that means now that not only do
facts have a liberal bias, but so does everything else.
Then, Democrats readily admitted the numbers: the Bush tax cuts on high earners were worth an estimated $700 billion in revenues over ten years, while the same cuts on everyone else were worth about $2.8 trillion.
Unfortunately for you, yeah, I do. And so does the Internet. The breakdown goes a little something like
this:
"For the first 98% of Americans, extending the tax cuts for 10 years will cost $3 trillion. By a rough calculation, that’s $2,500 each year per taxpayer. For the next 1.9% of Americans, extending the tax cuts for 10 years will cost $320 billion. By a rough calculation, that’s $14,000 each year per taxpayer. For the last 0.1% of Americans, extending the tax cuts for 10 years will cost $360 billion. By a rough calculation, that’s $300,000 each year per taxpayer."
You can raise taxes on high earners, but you don’t solve any economic problem that way.
Um, cutting taxes caused an economic problem, so I'm gonna have to call bullshit.
There just aren’t enough rich people to buy candy and bubble gum for everyone else.
Well, how about food and healthcare? Because, as all the evidence indicates, there's plenty of cash locked up in the top 1 percent to pay for those.
Source
So it’s plain and obvious that the ONLY motivation that Obama and the Democrats have for their “balanced approach” is class envy. Economics has nothing to do with it.
How come? I mean, you've thus far absolutely struck out on the facts. So how could you make the claim that economics has nothing to do with it? Ipse dixit? Tell you what, how's about we check in with a real economist who also happens to have the same effect on your kind that crosses and garlic do on Buffy's love interests, yer pal,
Paul Krugman, who states the obvious, "if we give money to people likely to be liquidity-constrained, they are likely to spend it. That’s why aid to the unemployed is an effective stimulus; it also suggests that tax cuts for lower-income workers will be relatively effective at raising demand. But the affluent, who typically have lots of assets and good access to borrowing, are much less likely to be in that situation."
Then propose higher taxes that really will reduce deficits while minimizing the effect on job creation.
Whoops! Can't have a wingnut screed without a little "job creator" mythology! And you're a "businessman and investor," Francis? You don't know that
demand creates jobs, not rich people? Really? I mean, that's kind of Econ 101, fellah.
1Influent is untreated wastewater, i.e., sewage.