Jobless Benefits, Tax Fairies, Black Kettles and Mitch McConnell
Despite his turtle-like appearance and seeming Ambien-induced demeanor, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell can tell a gripping tale. And yesterday on the Senate floor, he told some tall ones. Republicans, it turns out, supported unemployment benefits for the victims of the Bush recession all along. And just days after he joined the Republican Tax Cut Fairies by laughably claiming "There's no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue," Mitch McConnell blamed Democrats for the flood of red ink that windfall for the wealthy actually produced
Ignoring the claims of his GOP colleagues including Jon Kyl and Judd Gregg (not to mention Rand Paul and Sharron Angle) that jobless benefits are a "disincentive for them to seek new work" which leads those without work "to stay on unemployment" or just "sit there," McConnell insisted:
"Everyone agrees we should help people struggling to get back on their feet and keep food on the table….Republicans support extending benefits to the unemployed…There's no debate in the Senate about whether to pass a bill. Everyone agrees that we should."
Then, in a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black, Senator McConnell blamed President Obama for the mushrooming national debt George W. Bush and his Republican enablers in Congress helped produce:
"If Republicans have done anything wrong in this debate, it was to underestimate how committed Democrats are to spending money we don't have…The President likes to point out that Congress has added to the debt in years past. What he doesn't mention is that we weren’t in the middle of debt crisis then. We weren’t be lectured by the French about the need to cut back on our spending. People weren't rioting in Greece. And we didn't have a President who came into office with a list of legislative priorities that would double the national debt in five years and triple it in ten."
That the national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan and doubled again under George W. Bush long ago gave lie to the myth of Republican fiscal discipline. As it turns out, of course, the Bush tax cuts didn't come anywhere close to paying for themselves. And making them permanent is the very worst thing the so-called deficit hawks could do to reduce the U.S. debt.
As Ezra Klein pointed out, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the 2001 Bush tax cuts "increased the deficit by $539 billion in 2005." The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities similarly found that the Bush tax cuts accounted for almost half the deficits during his tenure.
If the Bush tax cuts are made permanent beginning next year, as Mitch McConnell and his Republican Party demand, the fiscal devastation will be multiplied. A budget calculator from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget put the price tag at $3.28 trillion between 2011 and 2018. And as another recent CBPP analysis revealed, over the next 10 years, the Bush tax cuts if made permanent will contribute more to the U.S. budget deficit than the Obama stimulus, the TARP program, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and revenue lost to the recession - combined.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. (There are three thousand more here, here and here):
Mitch McConnell's grandstanding notwithstanding, the GOP was never serious about extending the unemployment benefits for suffering Americans. After all, they could have paid for it by simply reinstating the estate tax for multi-millionaires the GOP let expire for this year. Regardless, given the current economic crisis, John McCain's 2008 economic adviser Mark Zandi repeatedly insisted not only that unemployment benefits provide "the biggest bang for the buck," but that "it would be counterproductive to try and offset it this year or the next."
As for Mitch McConnell and the new Republican alchemists who believe tax cuts magically turn the government's revenue losses into gains, the chairman of George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers Gregory Mankiw was incredulous. "I did not find such a claim credible, based on the available evidence. I never have, and I still don't." Those making it, he insisted, are "charlatans and cranks."
Now, McConnell's Republican tax cut fallacy is being accompanied by a new GOP talking point. The looming expiration of the Bush tax cuts which the GOP voted for and Dubya signed is a "Democratic tax hike."
Another day, another Republican lie........
Is McConnell still dancing as if in a Republican trance?
A racist trance? A class warfare trance?
He does not recognize that it is killing him.
This incompetence is very concerning.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
turtles are cool. Mitch, not so much. :D
...opposes turtle marriage.
Mitch McConnell - the incredible melting Senator
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
a few hundred Ambien.
...is not only better looking, she's a hell of a lot smarter than McConnell. She doesn't buy that supply-side bullshit either.
"Buy the ticket, take the ride."
Hunter S. Thompson
So ..
NOW ..
We're supposed to listen to the "crybaby surrender monkeys" ???
Sacre' Bleu!
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
Ronald Reagan said that!
Source.
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
Mitch McConnell talks out of both sides of his ass.
Oh...you mean Harry the talking Donkey?
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
If the Democrats were smart they would be blasting this all over the airwaves that the Republicans cannot find it in their hearts to give $33 Bil for a crisis they created. However, no problem paying for wars. Remember when the Dems asked for the wars to be paid for? I guess killing people and making the rich pay less taxes are sacrosanct. What the Republicans are looking for is to cut the social programs, because it is for the "little people."
"If the Democrats were smart they would be blasting this all over the airwaves...."
But who ever said that the Democrats are smart?
...you mean they're not "motivated by/for personal gain".
The way the Republicans are...
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
I am a Democrat. You may not consider my views smart, but I guarantee that I am intelligent. And I know how to think critically, something a lot of conservatives have a hard time coming to grips with.
End all taxes! Zero revenues! No subidies to corporations. No public funds! Then...we get get back America to her golden past. Dirt roads, black lung, typhoid, rubella, measles, unfiltered water, children working in the fields, married mothers of 14...you know...the REAL America.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
New White House Theme Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH_StQ6KdW0
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
"And we didn't have a President who came into office with a list of legislative priorities that would double the national debt in five years and triple it in ten."
The priority for the Republicans in 2001 was to start a war in Iraq. That war would pay for itself, provide economic stimulus, privatize Iraqs oil, boost morale, create a legacy. In other words it was all about keeping the party in power for a generation. Worked out pretty well, didn't it?
"every cloud is silver liney"
"If Republicans have done anything wrong in this debate, it was to underestimate how committed Democrats are to spending money we don't have…"
Republicans have no ground to stand on here, please give your cushy jobs (with LIFE TIME benefits) to people who care about the tax paying citizens and not some faceless corporation. Idiots.
....Like all the rest of the repubs...
They're gonna click their little red heels together 3 times in november, and they'll be back in power!! just wait and see..!!
O'bama really needs to grow a pair and get busy turning this garbage around!
Bush 2 couldn't have cared less what people thought...walked around like a monkey with a 2x4 strapped to his back, trying to walk through locked doors!
This stuff is gettin old Barack...get busy!!!!!!!!!!, or the gorlocks just may have a chance....
"...Senator McConnell blamed President Obama for the mushrooming national debt George W. Bush and his Republican enablers in Congress helped produce...."
HELPED produce. That's the key. Bush and company started the financial mess -- even though I think that it is one heck of a stretch to say even that.
When I was suckered into voting for Obama, I truly thought that I was voting for change like the voters did in 1933. I did not even dream that I was voting for a closet Republican. Consider: With big Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, what did we get? Bailouts for Wall Street bankers. Continuation of two Republican wars. A health-care program that is so awful that it should be repealed and begun again from Page One. Jobs still being sent out of the country instead of being created here. A "recovery" that benefits only the Haves, at the expense of the Have-Nots. Boy! all of that sounds awfully Republican to me.
And if the Democratic majority in both houses of Congress are willing to roll over on their backs with their bellies facing up and not fight against this stuff, maybe it is time for me to study the Blue Book in earnest and begin boning up on some third-party candidates.
voting for Obama were you aware that the bank bailouts were under Bush?
And under Train v. City of New York, 420 U.S. 35, 95 S. Ct. 839, 43 L. Ed. 2d 1 (1975), the Supreme Court said the president did not have the right to impound money appropriated by Congress, so once signed by boosh, Obama has no choice but to see it through.
At least unlike boosh, he means-test the banks to see if they can survive with help.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/histori...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Yep. That made it way easier to vote for Obama.
And think about this sentence: "When you was sucked into voting for Obama..."
You are how you speak.
You may "think" alright but you should try reading and actually incorporating some facts into that thought process you have goin on , facts that you are obviously unaware of .
truly thinker. It's going to be real hard to find a better
president than Obama for the next six years.
The job is much harder than the president makes it look.
We might even free ourselves from an oppressive oligarchy.
Let's just all stick together. It's the best revenge anyway.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Amen / Ditto . We may not " win " but lets not give the Reich wing / the Republicans a gift or a reward for what they've done and are doing ... and make things even more unbearable for ourselves .
some stocks? Or sell the house for a nice profit so they can have a windfall and still be able to move into a nicer place?
I don't know honey, as good as everyone has it in this country you would think everyone would be doing it. They should diversify their portfolios a bit. That will bring extra cash.
What stocks? What portfolio? I am poor:)
What stocks? What portfolio? I am poor:)
Oh, no man who has god in his heart is poor - quote from whichever conservative rich white douchebag you like.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
I have been in Kentucky to visit my brother, who lives there. Kentucky is a real cultural throwback. Unfortunately, Mitch McConnell is considered quite evolved for a Kentucky politician.
... keeps telling everyone that raising taxes during a recession is the worst thing that could happen.
BASTA! FINISH!
No one ever asks him to explain the logic of that.
No one ever explains to him that raising taxes after the Great Depression worked wonderfully, even during the years after until Reagan and the Bushes screwed it all up
Raising taxes for the rich would certainly be enough to pay for unemployment benefits, if paying for them is the repug objection.
If you need funds to pay for essentials, you have a revenue problem
If you need funds to pay for frivolity, you have a spending problem
since it reduces demand. Raising tax on rich people and spending it is good during a recession since it takes money that is idle and creates demand and infrastructure with it. Republicans are forgetting to tell people that rich people are not investing their money on creating jobs in America since there is no demand here.
Give a rich man money and what's he going to do , say " oh goody , now I have some spending money " ? No , he sits on that money , he already has more than he will ever need . If you give a man who's struggling to support his family that same money that man is going to spend it right now which creates demand which creates jobs which in turn makes "the haves" , the business owners and even corporations and the lenders , all the more $ , everyone wins . The Bush tax cuts under the pretense that the cuts create jobs or that letting the tax cuts expire will in turn make unemployment and the job situation worse was and is absolute horse shit , nothing but lies , does not even make any sense and it never did . Why doesn't anyone in the MSM point out this simple to understand fact ? Why doesn't a single Dem point this out , not one has that I am aware of . The Dems and the White House are so lame it makes me wonder sometimes , exactly who's side are they really on ?
in order to keep their wealth over several generations. History proves that the children of the wealthy are the most useless humans on the planet and therefore require lots of cash to keep them from ever having to compete with the lower classes. Good God, where's your compassion?
I believe it is time for all of the unemployed/under-employed (especially the 99ers)to send a cover letter and resume to each and every one of the Congress Critters.
I keep hearing that I could have a job, if I really wanted one, but the the reality is quite different. I send out my resume at least 3 times every day, so I figure sending it out to three or four DC dorks each day can't hurt.
Maybe if they got inundated with resumes, they would stop lying about the rosy job market.
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to the republic which it established, one nation from many peoples, promising liberty and justice for all
Lies , lies and more lies , the truth and the facts are the enemy of the Republican party and the Reich wing .
he's had so much botox he looks more like a golem than a human. Somebody probably told him it would make him look younger; instead, he looks like an animated corpse. You gotta be pretty damned vain to do that to yourself.
And the teabaggers still support assholes like Mitch. Shocking.
NOBODY 2012
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