Call me a Republican shill (again!), but...

[MannyGoldstein]

Last edited Tue Sep 18, 2012, 12:41 AM - Edit history (1)

I think we should all heartily thank Willard Romney. Thanks to his efforts and Mother Jones' reportage, we now have a leader of the 1%, on the record, proudly yammering that half of Americans are grifters of no importance. They just want free stuff, they consider themselves victims, they take no responsibility for themselves.

And, as usual, he reasoning is based on abject bullshit.

If there was ever any question that these folks don't give a fuck about working Americans... it's no longer a question.

IMPORTANT: The only group in which Romney is leading in the polls is those 65 And older. Please make sure that you show this video this everyone you know who is retired. Make sure they know that Willard says they're whining scammers.

[jsr]

1. Great piece

Thanks.

[uppityperson]

2. Indeed, keep talking Mitt. Keep talking.

[M_M]

12. And get Ann in on the conversation

[Grown2Hate]

17. "Don't YOU PEOPLE realize it's OUR TURN!? STOP TRYING TO WIN!!!" NT

[Jennicut]

3. My parents are retired.

And they vote Republican every year. Sometimes, you cannot convince people what is best for them. My husband and I pay more in income taxes then my parents because they are retired. And yet I get accused by them of wanting government to do everything for me. Some people just shoot themselves in the foot and it is hard to accept because I have their genes and I do love them. How I wish it was as simple as showing them the truth.

[WinstonSmith4740]

18. I know what you mean.

One of my sisters is a loyal republican. I love her, but I'll be damned if I can figure out how she thinks. When my sisters & I got together this summer, she kind of off-handedly mentioned that she didn't know what her oldest son (who beat Hodgkin's Disease at 15) is going to do this October when he turns 26 and she won't be able to keep him on her insurance. She also has a 22 year old with some health issues, (a lot of which stem from the fact that he's 22 and thinks he's indestructible) who is also on their insurance. She kind of caught herself and gave me a weak smile, so I didn't rub in the obvious, namely that she was planning on voting for the guy who would take that away from her, throwing her younger son to the insurance industry wolves. But she knew she stepped in it, and I was holding back because I love her.

[Jennicut]

23. My parents are not bad people.

They have been kind and generous to me many times and they care for my little girls. But they are so delusional it is painful.

[WinstonSmith4740]

28. Same here.

I think that's what makes this stuff so painful to watch. Your parents & my sister are GOOD PEOPLE...there for their family, and always willing to lend a hand. You and I have been fortunate enough to have that in our lives, but a lot of people don't, and they are falling by the wayside.

I keep thinking back to a speech I heard Gore Vidal give back in the 80's. He said part of the genius of the Reagan Administration is that they could not only get people to VOTE against their own best interest, they get people to THINK against their own best interest. Someone here at DU posted a map last night highlighting the states that pay the lowest taxes, due to the fact that they have so many poor people in them, and it's almost solidly southern, republican states. We've all seen the interviews with people that are living in dirt poor environments who just attack any Democrat as a "socialist". It really makes me shake my head in sadness.

[DJ13]

4. K&R dor the Republican shill!

[ProSense]

5. Ezra really pisses me off with this shit!

Behind this argument, however, is a very clever policy two-step that’s less about who pays taxes now and more about who is going to pay to reduce the deficit in the coming years. Here’s how it works.

There wasn't anything clever about Romney's remarks. Nothing in Mitt's comments has anything to do with a "clever policy two-step." That's simply bullshit.
Ezra did the same think with the Chinese factory video, which is to ascribe motives to Mitt that he hadn't intended.

This leaked video (via Political Wire) from a Mitt Romney fundraiser is being sold as “Romney talks about Bain profiting from Chinese slave labor.” That’s wrong. There’s no evidence that any of the labor at the factory Romney is discussing was slave labor. There’s no evidence it’s even mildly coerced labor. In fact, the entire point of the story is that the jobs from that factory, despite the seemingly awful conditions, are in tremendous demand.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/15/romney-if-you-were-born-in-america-you-didnt-build-that/

Remember Mitt's Chinese factory video? It looks like the same venue as the current videos
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021363972

[MannyGoldstein]

8. Well maybe the Firebagger says it better

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/the-real-romney/

[ProSense]

10. Not the same point.

In fact, Krugman took Klein to task last year for a similar positioning of Ryan's plan.

Here is Klein walking back his defense.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/why-rep-paul-ryans-budget-plan-is-so-flawed/2011/04/11/AFHLOpMD_story.html

[Zalatix]

25. EVERYONE with common sense walks their bullshit back as soon as Krugman reaches back

with the intent to slap you with facts.

[ProSense]

14. The difference, and why Krugman's is more appropriate

Krugman:

Actually, if you look at the facts, you learn that the great bulk of those who pay no income tax pay other taxes; also, many of the people in the no-income-tax category are (a) elderly (b) students or (c) having a bad year, having lost a job — that is, they’re people who have paid income taxes in the past and/or will pay income taxes in the future. The idea that half of Americans are just grifters is grotesque.

If this is real, it’s very, very ugly.

Klein:

<...>

Part of the reason so many Americans don’t pay federal income taxes is that Republicans have passed a series of very large tax cuts that wiped out the income-tax liability for many Americans. That’s why, when you look at graphs of the percent of Americans who don’t pay income taxes, you see huge jumps after Ronald Reagan’s 1986 tax reform and George W. Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. So whenever you hear that half of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes, remember: Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush helped build that. (You also see a jump after the financial crisis begins in 2008, but we can expect that to be mostly temporary.)

Some of those tax cuts for the poor were there to make the tax cuts for the rich more politically palatable. “Do you think we wanted to include a welfare payment to people who don’t pay taxes and call it a tax cut?” A top Bush administration official once asked me. “No. But that’s what we needed to do to get it done.”

But now that those tax cuts have passed and many fewer Americans are paying federal income taxes and the rich are paying a much higher percentage of federal income taxes, Republicans are arguing that these Americans they have helped free from income taxes have become a dependent and destabilizing “taker” class who want to hike taxes on the rich in order to purchase more social services for themselves. The antidote, as you can see in both Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney’s policy platforms, is to further cut taxes on “job creators” while cutting the social services that these takers depend on. That way, you roll the takers out of what Ryan calls “the hammock” of government and you unleash the makers to create jobs and opportunities.

So notice what happened here: Republicans have become outraged over the predictable effect of tax cuts they passed and are using that outrage as the justification for an agenda that further cuts taxes on the rich and pays for it by cutting social services for the non-rich.

That’s why Romney’s theory here is more than merely impolitic. It’s actually core to his economic agenda.

Klein is literally stating that there are Americans not paying income taxes who have become dependent, but that it's a "predictable" outcome of Republican policies. That's bullshit. The "taker class" is a good point, but he's making an argument that leaves an opening to claim that a "dependent" class exists, but it was created by Republicans. That is not a good argument.

[Zalatix]

26. Does any of this include Bank of America which paid no corporate taxes?

[Egalitarian Thug]

6. You republican shill.

You're welcome.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. I knew you had it in you Manny

to admit to yourself who you favor.

[fascisthunter]

30. hahaha...

he's been exposed!

[elleng]

9. Hope I can do this as necessary at my high school reunion,

coming up couple weeks. Few of them 'like,' or DID anyway, rmoney recently. Don't want to alienate anyone, but will try to use this example.
Thx

[ProSense]

11. Here's Mitt's damage control press conference

and reaction.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021365748

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021365620

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021366153

Not the kind of event associated with "clever."

[MannyGoldstein]

13. Great stuff.

Thanks.

[amuse bouche]

15. Yes he should keep talking

especially since part of the 47% are troops in combat.

They don't pay federal income tax.

[lonestarnot]

16. K and fucking R!

[OnyxCollie]

19. I recently saw a SUV with a Romney bumper sticker

and another sticker that read, "You are not a victim and nobody owes you anything."

I guess this video is no secret to RWers.

[JNelson6563]

20. A rare rec from me Manny.

[tavalon]

21. Yeah, thanks Mittster, you saved us the trouble of digging your grave

putting you in it and covering you up. You did it all.

[scheming daemons]

22. omg. I just recd a Manny Goldstein thread

Apocalypse.

[MannyGoldstein]

27. Politics makes strange bedfellows

Other than my being a Republican shill, we're both basically Democrats.

[defacto7]

24. If he really, really really, tried to lose

he wouldn't be able to make it worse than it is.

[fascisthunter]

29. damn man... you are on Fie-yuh!