David Gregory famously rejected any responsibility for actually providing his viewers any kind of fact checking or context, which makes the all-too-rare inclusion of Rachel Maddow on the round table that much more critical, since Rachel--armed with facts and an interest in truth, unlike her colleague Gregory--feels no such compunction from calling out others, even if they are (allegedly) on her side of the debate.
Then again, when we're speaking of former congressman and DLC chairman Harold Ford, it's hard to know on whose side he is, besides his own. In his true corporatist, right wing meme-swallowing style, Ford has been pushing the stupid "we must address the deficit" pearl clutching advocated by the Republican Party and advocating for tax cuts.
Um, hello? Can anyone provide a single reputable economic study that shows that the best way to stimulate the economy and actually reduce the deficit is by cutting taxes? I know that this is a fetish for Republicans, who think the answer to everything is cutting taxes--want to reduce crime? Cut taxes! National health care? Cut taxes! Teenage acne? Cut taxes!--but seriously, can anyone look at the state of our economy after the last 30 years of slavish devotion to Reagonomics and honestly say that cutting taxes is the answer to anything other than increasing the income gap and destroying the middle class?
Of course, you'd never get David Gregory pointing that out, especially not at a table peopled with former RNC chair (and still current deed-holder) Ed Gillespie and David Brooks. But luckily, Rachel is there to call Ford out on his embracing of unproven conservative ideals and point out that the only PROVEN way to do what they say they want is the tactic which the Republicans are preventing:
HAROLD FORD, JR: But the payroll tax cut-- in order-- in order to pay down the debt, you gotta do two things. You gotta get your spending in order and you gotta grow. When Bill Clinton was in office, the real advantage we had was that the economy grew. They made-- they took-- they made some tough choices around spending. I was in Congress for a good part of that. But the same time, we had this I.T. explosion and growth in the country, which created millions of jobs.
My only point is if you cut the payroll tax for small businesses, you keep money in those communities. If you really want a stimulus, cut the payroll tax at a hardware store. Cut the payroll tax at a foundry. Cut the payroll tax at a--
(OVERTALK)
RACHEL MADDOW: If you really want a stimulus do what we-- what's proven to work in stimulus, which is states like extending unemployment-- benefits, which is something that Republicans are blocking... (OVERTALK)
Thank FSM we have Maddow just questioning this oft-repeated but rarely challenged tax cut fetish. Maybe, just maybe, a viewer or two might actually think about the situation intellectually, no thanks to David Gregory.
RACHEL MADDOW: I think that-- I think that most Americans also, though, understand the basic arithmetic that when you're talking about pushing tax cuts that do mostly benefit the wealthy and you're simultaneously talking about getting tough on the deficit, you're talking about a world in which math doesn't work the way most people think it works.
If you're gonna talk about tax cuts-- I mean, Harold, you-- as a Democrat, proposed some very significant tax cuts when you were thinking about running for Senate in-- in New York, a huge corporate tax cut, a big payroll tax holiday. And then said simultaneously, "And we gotta get serious about the deficit."
HAROLD FORD, JR: Rachel, in all fairness--
RACHEL MADDOW: Tax cuts hurt the deficit.
HAROLD FORD, JR: But the payroll tax cut-- in order-- in order to pay down the debt, you gotta do two things. You gotta get your spending in order and you gotta grow. When Bill Clinton was in office, the real advantage we had was that the economy grew. They made-- they took-- they made some tough choices around spending. I was in Congress for a good part of that. But the same time, we had this I.T. explosion and growth in the country, which created millions of jobs.
My only point is if you cut the payroll tax for small businesses, you keep money in those communities. If you really want a stimulus, cut the payroll tax at a hardware store. Cut the payroll tax at a foundry. Cut the payroll tax at a--
(OVERTALK)
RACHEL MADDOW: If you really want a stimulus do what we-- what's proven to work in stimulus, which is states like extending unemployment-- benefits, which is something that Republicans are blocking --
