[Note: Not all political messaging involves framing specific words or phrases. Framing a political message involves longer story-telling, as well. It's about creating a picture in people's minds of who you are and what you stand for, whether it's by using individual "catch phrases" or a larger narrative.

In this installment, The Winning Words Project is attempting to paint the larger picture of who and what "government" really is: "We, the people." It's a critical aspect of why the Democratic Party has so often failed in combating the Republican narrative—Republicans have defined "government" as a monolithic, non-living entity that needs to be slayed like a dragon that is destroying our country with its fiery breath and gigantic talons.

Until we create our own image of government that is not a deadly dragon, all of our messaging can be overpowered by the impression that no matter what policies we are fighting for, and no matter how moral we make them, all we are doing with them is feeding the dragon, not taming it or taking it down. But if people stop seeing "the government" as a dragon, but come back to recognizing it for what it is—US—it becomes harder and harder for the Republican narrative to be supported. People don't want to see us destroyed! Here is the story we should be telling ...]

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union ..."

There's a reason the Preamble to our Constitution begins with those words: Government is us. So when Republicans say they want to choke government and make it small enough to drown in a bathtub, they mean they want to "choke" and "drown" us ... you and me; we, the people.

Government is us. So when Republican leaders get on television and attack the government, they're attacking us. They're telling us our services aren't wanted or needed to build and maintain this country's infrastructure, operate 911 switchboards, code the military's computers, represent defendants who cannot afford an attorney, lay pipe that takes sewage away from our homes, drive city buses, nurse our returning veterans at VA hospitals, process small business loan applications, or tens of thousands of other jobs we do that keep this country running, prosperous, and safe.

Mitt Romney says he's "going to do something to government." And just so we're clear, when Romney says he's going to "do something" to government, he means he's going to do something to you and me. As in fire us. "Choke" us. "Drown" us in a bathtub. Romney says, "I'm going to make it simpler and smaller and smarter. Getting rid of programs, turning programs back to states, and finally, making government itself more efficient."

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On Friday, the House approved the $801 billion "compromise" tax bill, sending it on to the White House for President Obama's signature. Over the next two years, that budget-busting, gilded class giveaway will cost the Treasury $70 billion in revenue lost from the top 2% of taxpayers and another $25 billion uncollected from the richest estates in America. But sooner or later (sooner, if born-again deficit hawks get their way), that bill will come due and it will be paid by everyone else. In the meantime, here's a picture of your tax dollars at work - for the rich and famous.

For openers, it's worth noting who will not benefit from the extension of the top Bush income tax rate and the gutting of the estate tax. Certainly not small business owners. Now-abandoned Democratic proposals to end the Bush tax cuts for families earning over $250,000 a year affected only 2% of all households, and an even smaller fraction of small businesses. (The Republican claim that Democrats want to "raise taxes on roughly half of small business income in America" is contingent on Bechtel, Coors, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and other multinational "S corporation" being categorized as small businesses.)

And from the beginning, the winners of the successful Republican crusade against the estate would never included family farmers. As incoming Speaker John Boehner put it in 2009:

"People who aren't wealthy, who may have built up value in land over generations and many family farms find themselves in situations where they've got to sell the farm in order the pay the taxes."

Unfortunately, that claim is just as false today as when George W. Bush uttered it during and after the 2000 presidential campaign. Now as in 2001, Republicans wrongly claimed that the estate tax led to the loss of family farms. When President Bush blasted opponents who say "the death tax doesn't cause people to sell their farms" with a mocking "don't know who they're talking to in Iowa," neither Hawkeye State farmers nor researchers could name one. As David Cay Johnston, among the nation's leading journalists when it comes to tax issues, conclude in the New York Times nine years ago:

Almost no working farmers do, according to data from an Internal Revenue Service analysis of 1999 returns that has not yet been published. Neil Harl, an Iowa State University economist whose tax advice has made him a household name among Midwest farmers, said he had searched far and wide but had never found a farm lost because of estate taxes. "It's a myth," he said. Even one of the leading advocates for repeal of estate taxes, the American Farm Bureau Federation, said it could not cite a single example of a farm lost because of estate taxes.

The future looks no different. In 2009, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) estimated that only 1 in 500 estates (0.24%) was impacted by the $3.5 million per person threshold and 45% tax rate House Democrats sought to continue. And last year, the Tax Policy Center quantified just how few family farms or small businesses are actually impacted by the estate tax proposals under consideration, including the $5 million exemption and 35% rate advocated by Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and now to be signed into law by President Obama:

We estimate that under the Obama proposal, 100 family farms and businesses would owe tax. (We define such estates as those where farm or business assets are valued at under $5 million and comprise the majority of estate assets.) The Lincoln-Kyl proposal would cut the number to 40. Even under current law, fewer than 2,700 family farms and businesses would owe tax.

But thanks to the new tax bill, one family-owned business - Walmart - could reap a multi-billion dollar bonanza.

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So it's come down to this. On Saturday, David Stockman, the legendary Reagan budget chief who presided over the Gipper's supply-side tax cuts, announced that the "debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party's embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don't matter if they result from tax cuts." The next day, the former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, who famously helped sell the 2001 Bush tax cuts to Congress, declared them simply "disastrous."

Sadly, Stockman and Greenspan are just about the only voices in the Republican Party speaking the truth about the fiscal devastation wrought by the expiring Bush tax cuts. After all, the national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan, only to double again during the tenure of George W. Bush. And as it turns out, the Bush tax cut windfall for the wealthy accounted for almost half the budget deficits during his presidency and, if made permanent, would 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. Of course, you'd never know it listening to the leaders of GOP.

And that's just the beginning. Here, then, are 10 Republican Lies about the Bush tax cuts:

• Lie #1: Democrats Plan Across the Board Tax Hikes on January 1st
• Lie #2: Democrats Want a $3.8 Trillion Tax Increase
• Lie #3: Tax Cuts Pay for Themselves
• Lie #4: The Bush Tax Cuts Didn't Add to the Deficit
• Lie #5: Expiring High Income Tax Cuts Will Hurt Small Business
• Lie #6: The Estate Tax Devastates Small Businesses and Family Farms
• Lie #7: The Bush Tax Cuts Helped All Americans
• Lie #8. Extending Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy is the Best Way to Stimulate the Economy
• Lie #9. Bush Tax Cuts Produced 52 Straight Months of Job Growth
• Lie #10: The Rich Pay Too Much in Taxes Already

For the details, data and charts for each, continue reading after the break.

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During the comparatively mild 1991 recession, President George H.W. Bush twice vetoed the extension of unemployment insurance because the $5.3 billion price tag would add to the deficit. After taking a pounding in the polls, he eventually made a deal with Democrats, who funded the program in part through higher taxes on the wealthy. But for Bush's reelection prospects in 1992, the damage was done, perhaps best captured by his pathetic plea to voters, "Message: I care."

Now with the Congressional GOP again following Bush the Elder's formula on the $34 billion extension of jobless benefits, Democrats should make them an offer they can't refuse. Democrats will pay for the 3 million desperate Americans whose unemployment checks will end this month by reinstating the expired estate tax on the rich. If Republicans still say no, they will be sending an unmistakable message about whose side they are really on.

In calling the Republicans' bluff on unemployment benefits and the estate tax, the math is straight-forward. As Dean Baker noted:

"[The] argument the Republicans give is that these bills would add to the national debt. For example, the latest extension of unemployment benefits would have added $22 billion to the debt by the end of 2011."

Conveniently, that's about how much the estate tax would bring in to the U.S. Treasury. But thanks to the same GOP obstructionism, Republicans so far have chosen a one-year windfall for a handful of billionaires over millions of Americans in the throes of financial crisis.

In 2009, only 1 in 500 American estates paid taxes. In 2008, the tax produced $25 billion for the U.S. Treasury even in a year when the stock market was battered. But barring new legislation in Congress, in 2011 the estate tax rate will jump back up to its pre-2001 level of 55%, starting at $2 million per couple. In December, the House voted 225-200 to maintain 2009's rate of 45% beginning at $3.5 million per person or $7 million per couple. But as 2009 ended, Jon Kyl led the successful GOP effort to block the bill, ensuring the temporary one-year expiration of the estate tax on January 1st, 2010:

"It's a problem that doesn't have to exist if they'll just leave the existing law alone and let the rate go to zero, which is where everyone wants it to be."

Well, not everyone. Just, as the numbers show, the very, very rich.

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Refusing to extend unemployment benefits to 1.2 million Americans by adding to the deficit, Senate Republicans by a 41 to 57 margin on Thursday again filibustered the Democratic $112 billion jobs bill. As it turns out, most of the roughly $35 billion still needed to pay for it could largely come from a single source: the estate tax. But thanks to the same GOP obstructionism, Republicans have chosen a one-year windfall for a handful of billionaires over millions of Americans in the throes of financial crisis.

Already scaled back from its original $200 billion price tag, the $112 billion jobs package includes tax cuts, critically needed aid to states and the extension of unemployment benefits. On Sunday, Maine Republican Olympia Snowe wrote to Harry Reid suggesting Democrats cut further by offering a stand-alone unemployment insurance bill. For a Republican Party which had no problem with deficit spending during times of prosperity, helping struggling Americans during a recession is another matter altogether, As the New York Times reported:

The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has insisted that the bill not add to the deficit. Democrats argued that they had found ways to cover the entire cost of the $112 billion measure, with the exception of the $35.5 billion extension of unemployment benefits, which some Republicans said they could accept...

"The only thing Republicans have opposed in this debate are job-killing taxes and adding to the national debt," Mr. McConnell said. Anticipating that Democrats would reject his proposal, he added, "Their commitment to deficit spending trumps their desire to help the unemployed."

Of course, as they made crystal clear with the perpetual effort to kill the estate tax, Republicans' commitment to the rich trumps everything else.

In 2009, only 1 in 500 American estates paid taxes. In 2008, the tax produced $25 billion for the U.S. Treasury even in a year when the stock market was battered. But barring new legislation in Congress, in 2011 the estate tax rate will jump back up to its pre-2001 level of 55%, starting at $2 million per couple. In December, the House voted 225-200 to maintain 2009's rate of 45% beginning at $3.5 million per person or $7 million per couple. But as 2009 ended, Jon Kyl led the successful GOP effort to block the bill, ensuring the temporary one-year expiration of the estate tax on January 1st, 2010:

"It's a problem that doesn't have to exist if they'll just leave the existing law alone and let the rate go to zero, which is where everyone wants it to be."

Well, not everyone. Just, as the numbers show, the very, very rich.

Continue reading »