TheAgitator.com
Wow.
Monday, September 15th, 2008Good on this Fox News anchor for calling out McCain’s campaign manager spokesman on another outright falsehood the campaign is pushing, this time about Obama’s tax plan.
Watch him squirm. Note that Bounds never defends the actual truthfulness of the ad. Only its truthiness.
Um, he blathers about Obama’s voting record in relations to the promises he makes, while she attacks him for calling a liar.
Obama is a liar. It’s a fact.
There’s certainly blood in the water after that.
Loose the hounds!
/give them SCUBA gear
No, she attacks him for saying “Obama said he will raise taxes on the middle class”, when it is clearly not true. Maybe the crap he was blathering about was true, but it had nothing to do with what she was asking, and that’s what made him look like an idiot.
As Nelson (of Simpson’s fame) might say, HAAA HAAA!!!!!
More of this please for all candidates at every level of government and bureaucracy.
She framed the question perfectly, noting that the McCain campaign should just defend its ad on the basis of trickle down economics. Any thinking person knows the difference between the two tax policies, and they should let the voters decide on those differences. There’s no reason to obscure the policies by scaring the average joe. Well, there clearly is.
Radley, I generally like you and your site on civil liberties issues but you are the “liar” here. This guy is not McCain’s campaign manager.
If you think that Obama won’t raise taxes on everything and everybody, how will he pay for all his extravagant promises?
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/15/palin.investigation/index.html
Doesn’t this sound familiar? Who else has just refused to cooperate with investigations of their wrongdoing for the past 8 years?
“Obama is a liar. It’s a fact.”
Wow!!
If you repeat that again and again, it just might sound true.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
Radley, I generally like you and your site on civil liberties issues but you are the “liar” here. This guy is not McCain’s campaign manager.
Ah yes, I mistook a “campaign manager” for a “campaign spokesman.”
Which totally invalidates everything else in the video!
Adolphus, I’m SURE the tough inquistion will continue when Sarah Palin meets up with her toughest interviewer yet, Sean Hannity!!!
If you think that Obama won’t raise taxes on everything and everybody, how will he pay for all his extravagant promises?
How will McCain pay for all of his extravagant promises?
This goes to the discussion we were having last week over McCain’s attack on the Obama sex-ed vote in Illinois. McCain is losing credibility as the “honest maverick” because the idea that he is lying in hs capaign ads is becoming a template story in the media. He and his surrogates will spend more time defending that as the campaign continues. You can bet that as FNC presses him on it, the others are thrilled to do so, too.
And, it’s stupid on McCain’s part to take that approach. It would be an effective and accurate ads to run down the times Obama has voted for tax increases in the Senate (and maybe in Illinois) and basically say, “Now Barack Obama wants more money for his big government schemes, but he claims he’ll only raise taxes on the rich. Yeah, right!” That would get McCain’s point across without stretching the truth.
Honestly, I don’t understand the need of these people to go so far. Isn’t someone in the campaigns saying, “Yeah, we know his tax increases will hurt the middle class, but he didn’t actually say he would raise taxes on them, so let’s take that part out of the ad.”?
Okay, okay, enough already, I get it … McCain and Palin are two horsemen of the Apocalypse. But the four are rounded out by Obama and Biden, and I’m sick of them getting a free pass. Everywhere I go, I’m inundated with hate for McCain and Palin … I’m tired of it even though there’s approximately zero percent chance that I’d vote for them.
Radley, come out and tell us if you’re campaigning for Obama. Or Barr. Or LaRouche. Just tell us who you like and why. Please?
I’m starting to lose respect for Radley and his brand of libertarianism. His constant attacks on McCain and adoration for Obama show me that he is more liberal than libertarian.
I don’t doubt for a second that Obama and a Democratic Congress will raise taxes on everyone. But he’s not saying he’ll raise income taxes on the ‘middle class’.
What he is saying is that he’ll raise taxes on everyone via cap and trade, which no one is talking about (mostly because McCain will, too). I also think it’s valid to point out that Obama’s grand plans will require huge tax increases (health care for everyone is going to cost everyone a big chunk of money)… the McCain folks need to get better at framing the argument.
As far as Radley being ‘pro Obama’, my interpretation is he’s more frightened of McCain than Obama. I’m not suprised, and would share that opinion if the Congress wasn’t going to be in the hands of the Democrats. In a vacuum, McCain is far more frightening to me as President. In this climate, Obama is, because it will take 50 years to undo the damage he’s going to be able to do in 4 if Congress goes along with him.
Picking between Obama and McCain is like picking which terminal disease you want to get.
Which site are you reading? Certiainly is not this one.
Oh wait…are you one of those with the mentality of “attacking one guy is equal to praising the other”?
Here is a table of what Obama and McCain plan on doing taxwise, from the non-partisan tax policy center:
Income………….McCain……….Obama
………………..Avg. tax bill….Avg. tax bill
Over $2.9M……-$269,364…….+$701,885
$603K and up…..-$45,361…….+$115,974
$227K-$603K…….-$7,871………..+$12
$161K-$227K…….-$4,380……..-$2,789
$112K-$161K……..-$2,614…….-$2,204
$66K-$112K……….-$1,009…….-$1,290
$38K-$66K………….-$319……..-$1,042
$19K-$38K………….-$113……..-$892
Under $19K………….-$19……….-$567
It looks like families who make less than $112 a year are better off under Obama’s tax plan than McCains. Notice how much money the rich get under McCain’s plan? Obama’s plan will pay for itself just on increasing the taxes on the very wealthy.
McCain and his people have probably thought this out something like this:
“We are guaranteed about a 35% of the vote, being that part of the public that would vote GOP even if we roasted puppies in front of orphanages. That leaves us with getting about another `15%+1′ of voters.
“So the first question we ask ourselves is this: are there large numbers of Americans who we can lie to because we are telling them what they want to, or are preconditioned to hear? The answer is `yes’.
“The second question we ask ourselves is, are there large numbers of Americans who we can lie to because they are low information to start with, and unlikely or unable to actually do the minimal amount of checking to ensure that we are lying? Again, `yes’. (Frank, that’s you on the “bag of hammers, subcommittee. Good work!)
“The third question we ask ourselves is, are there large numbers of Americans who we can lie to only for a given time because they are likely to find out that we’re lying, but not before they pull the lever for us? Again, `yes’.
“Last and most important question: Can some combination of these three groups give us that `15%+1′ on election day? Don’t know for sure. But we aren’t gonna win this any other way, so let’s go out there, lie like mad, and find out!”
Trickle down makes me laugh. The only thing that trickles down is urine, blame and layoffs.
The Bush years have seen the nation’s top earners get break after break after break on their taxes, and regulatory frameworks defanged in order to facilitate wealth creation by the rich. As a result, the real estate market has collapsed in the subprime mess, major investment houses are imploding, the deficit is huge even without counting the cost of the two wars and the USA is heading into what even that GOP enabler Greenspan admits is a once-in-a-century meltdown.
The corporations and the rich have been given more than their fair share of tax breaks under the current system; the result has been a disaster. Obama, whatever faults he has or may have, is at least saying, “okay, let’s shift that opportunity to the middle class and the poor”. You don’t have to like or support the guy to concede that the Hiltons and Lehman Brothers and the like have had their chance to make the country prosper and they pissed it away and that it’s time for people like you and your neighbours and the guy down the street to have their chance.
[/rant]
“I don’t doubt for a second that Obama and a Democratic Congress will raise taxes on everyone. But he’s not saying he’ll raise income taxes on the ‘middle class’.”
Whereas McCain would like to just keep spending a zillion dollars a day in Iraq, with no plan to pay for it whatsoever, huge deficits that continue to climb, huge drops in the value of the dollar, etc. Not to mention, tax employees’ health care benefits.
What does he care? He’s got his heiress. AND his benefits. Courtesy of the federal government.
The Republican “fiscal responsibility” meme is the big lie here. At least the Dems don’t pretend to want “smaller government” while increasing its size and reach to unprecedented levels.
Actually seeker6079, John Rogers over at Kung Fu Monkey posited that the percentage of people who would vote GOP(or for that matter, Dem, if the positions were reversed) even with said puppy roastification, at 27%.
Surprisingly, his theory has held up, as Bush’s approval rating have hovered around the 27& margin.
“nation’s top earners get break after break after break on their taxes, and regulatory frameworks defanged in order to facilitate wealth creation by the rich. As a result, the real estate market has collapsed in the subprime mess, major investment houses are imploding, the deficit is huge even without counting the cost of the two wars and the USA is heading into what even that GOP enabler Greenspan admits is a once-in-a-century meltdown.”
As a result? This problem doesn’t site on Bush’s tax cuts or the wealthy. Government baited the hook when they created Fannie and Freddie. People responded to those incentives. Everyone in the mortgage chain is partly responsible for not ensuring certain protections were in place. The good thing about it is that these sectors *are* imploding! We need this implosion. The market will correct itself. Yet so long as government continues to bait the hook with guaranteeing and insuring, people and businesses will take increased risk exposure and attempt to profit from it. It’s like squeezing a Play-doh – eventually it will find a way to squeeze out between the fingers of regulation.
You can keep baiting the wealthy but the reality is that it did take a few lying/inept people at all levels to get to this point. There was little incentive to stop lying when the short-term gains were so lucrative and the risk exposure appeared so small.
corrections:
*site = sit
(laughing amiably). Salvo, consider my post amended as to numbers, then.
Colson, the problem wasn’t with the two organizations that you list, per se; it was the privatization, the deregulation and the manner in which they were handled after they became market entities with fewer and fewer regulatory restrictions. In Fannie Mae’s case it was created with a public purpose and as public entity and functioned very well for decades as such; it was privatized in 1968 and made subject to gradually looser and looser restrictions in subsequent years. In Freddie Mac’s case it was actually created in 1970 as result of the misplaced Fannie Mae privatization and subject to the same regulatory loosening and short-term thinking that has characterized the increasingly rapacious upper end of American corporate thinking over past few decades. The hook wasn’t baited by government it was baited by private industry who acted in exactly the “short-term” manner of thinking that will always rise to the top whenever the checks and balances are taken out of the system.
Pretty much every person who comes to this blog is an economic libertarian in some form or another. Libertarianism, however, will fail if it falls victim to thinking of itself as infallible ideology rather than intellectual and analytical framework. (Frankly, I think we’d best leave that sort of nonsense to the Marxists.) Sometimes private entities, when left alone, do incredibly stupid or rapacious or destructive things which have incredibly damaging ripple effects throughout the entire economy. Pointing that their governmental origins and sulking that it must be government’s fault is self-delusion. If nobody had touched Fannie Mae in 1968 and if all the regulatory safety switches hadn’t been disconnected in subsequent decades (the worst commencing in 1989) then this particular mess wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad as it is.
The problem in this case wasn’t government. It was taking away from government something that it was actually doing right, then making the mistake worse via deregulation.
Which is good for the market in a philosophical sense, but horrible for hundreds of thousands of people who have no control or influence over these things, people who lose their homes, their jobs, or suffer other economic penalties for decisions made by other people. The fact that people like you make arguments like that (which boils down to “my philosophy is intact, and that’s so much better than you losing your house!”) is one of the reasons that libertarianism as an economic model will never have a significant amongst the vast majority of people. Most folks, myself included, would say, “umm, wouldn’t it be better if we made sure that these wild implosions didn’t take place in the first place?”.
I’d hate to think of your viewpoint applied to other fields. Can you imagine an shipwright saying “the good thing about it is that these submarines *are* imploding! We need this. It makes subsequent submarines stronger as designers correct themselves!”
Man … a lot of liberals on here nowadays …. anything other than a ‘flat’ tax is what’s truly ‘unfair’. This idea that the ‘rich’ are getting tax breaks is ridiculous when you look at the percentages they are already paying and the fact that people making less than like 40K a year pay next to nothing in federal / state taxes. And if you look into all the other taxes that Obama will raise (death tax, capital gains, etc), it will offset any ‘breaks’ he claims he is giving the middle class.
I agree with Paul, best statement about this election:
“Picking between Obama and McCain is like picking which terminal disease you want to get.” And we just can’t agree on which terminal disease is going to kill us quicker.
Warren Buffett, the third-richest man in the world, has criticised the US tax system for allowing him to pay a lower rate than his secretary and his cleaner.
Speaking at a $4,600-a-seat fundraiser in New York for Senator Hillary Clinton, Mr Buffett, who is worth an estimated $52 billion (£26 billion), said: “The 400 of us [here] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do, or our cleaning ladies, for that matter. If you’re in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.”
Mr Buffett said that he was taxed at 17.7 per cent on the $46 million he made last year, without trying to avoid paying higher taxes, while his secretary, who earned $60,000, was taxed at 30 per cent. Mr Buffett told his audience, which included John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley, and Alan Patricof, the founder of the US branch of Apax Partners, that US government policy had accentuated a disparity of wealth that hurt the economy by stifling opportunity and motivation.
…and yet, despite his pompous pontificating windbaggery to the contrary, noted hypocrite warren buffet has never voluntarily sent a large check to the government to rectify the ‘imbalance’ he whines about, nor does he have any plans to do so.
he just wants *you* to.
…and yet, despite his pompous pontificating windbaggery to the contrary, noted hypocrite warren buffet has never voluntarily sent a large check to the government to rectify the ‘imbalance’ he whines about, nor does he have any plans to do so.
he just wants *you* to.
It sounds like he wants the government to tax him and other multi-millionaires more than it does and tax middle and lower class people less than it does. What’s wrong with this?
just can’t help yourself, can ya, les. what IS IT with your creepy, pathetic, sad little fixation on me? is it that you somehow sense that your fey, o-so-witty little bon mots aren’t succeeding here?
as for buffet, the hypocrisy is this: what he *wants* is higher taxes. (taxation is theft.) however, despite his stated desire for washington to steal more of his money, presumably because he thinks that’s a wonderful thing, he doesn’t want to go it alone. doesn’t want to send 10 or 20 billion to our political masters because it would be the right thing to do. he could easily afford that, right? it would be a wonderful thing to do, right? noooo, he wants washington to force **others** to do it, too.
actually, since buffet is a value investor and likes to buy things cheap, what he probably wants is a rise is the top income tax rates because – just like it always does – that’ll cause the economy to go south. prices will fall. he’ll then be able to snap himself up some bargains.
if dear warren was *really* concerned about the little guy, he’d have businesses he controls – geico and wells fargo among them – he’d have them stop raping their customers at every turn. of course, that’s not gonna happen: the typical buffet behavior in a newly-bought company is to instantly raise fees and penalties *for their own customers*. and if his secretary is among them, tough luck for her.
Kinda funny …. I’m sure Warren Buffett has like 50 tax lawyers working for him that figure out every loophole possible to get him a tax rate that low … otherwise his percentage wouldn’t be that low. The rest of us don’t have the time or money to find every loophole, credit, etc. Which goes back to my point about a flat tax … it would also ensure no more loopholes and such for the mega-rich. Completely even playing field ….. can’t have that though.
That would be “kinda funny” if it wasn’t for the fact that I published that Buffett quote in response to your:
This idea that the ‘rich’ are getting tax breaks is ridiculous when you look at the percentages they are already paying and the fact that people making less than like 40K a year pay next to nothing in federal / state taxes
Warren Buffett’s trying to cheat you; Steve Forbes’ flat tax is the only fair alternative!
You are arguing apples and oranges … the rich are still ‘supposed’ to pay the most, but we also have such a ridiculous/complicated tax code, that they can get out of that. So how was your example such a ‘smackdown’ exactly?
xyz123, what was I thinking, asking you a question? That was silly of me.
My husband’s small business is being taxed at about 37%, I think. Between payroll taxes, property taxes, sales taxes… what am I forgetting?… it adds up to a big fat frickin’ negative almost every month.
Hubby is terrified of an Obama presidency because he knows it’ll only get worse.
For my part, I’m in the “which terminal disease” camp. We’re fucked six ways from sunday no matter who winds up winning this November.
I’m so tired of all this.
The flat tax is fair, but it has to apply to capital gains as well as employment income to please warren buffet. The fact that capital gains has a separate, smaller rate is why his overall rate is lower.