the lies of David W, Corn [View all]

[hfojvt]

Way, way back in 2004 or so, I donated $50 to the DNC to get an autographed copy of David Corn's book "The Lies of George W. Bush."

He wrote, for example, "By now it was old hat. If Bush was pushing a tax plan, he would describe it as deliverance for the middle class." page 244

Kinda funny too, now that I look at it. Corn's autograph looks like - DLC----

So now here is Corn now praising lies from a President and claiming that the extension of the Bush tax cuts, and also the accursed payroll tax cut are

wait for it

"deliverance for the middle class"

He writes http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/11/obama-fiscal-cliff-budget-deal-bush-tax-cuts?page=2

So Obama went after a deal. And what Biden cooked up with McConnell was pretty good for the White House. The package would extend the Bush tax cuts for all taxpayers for two years and would reduce estate taxes for the wealthy (a move many Democrats couldn't stand), but it also included a payroll tax cut, a child tax credit, additional unemployment insurance, renewable energy grants, and other stimulative measures. A White House chart noted that Obama had won $238 billion of stimulus in return for yielding on $114 billion in high-income tax cuts.

So, the accursed payroll tax cut is good for progressives. Some sort of victory for working people, or wait - the middle class.

The accursed payroll tax cut gave $13.55 billion in benefits to the bottom 40%, and $15.79 billion in benefits to the RICHEST 5%. And it gives a whopping $36.2 billion to the next 15%, making a grand total of $52 billion for the top 20% and less than a third of that for the bottom 40%.

But politicians like Bush, and now Obama, always want to include that 80-95th percentile group as part of the "middle class". That way, they can claim that tax cuts which give as much to the top 5% as they do to the middle 20% are really "middle class tax cuts".

Thank goodness there are progressive journalists like David Corn who won't let them get away with such lies.

Oh wait, now that a D (LCer) is in the White House, Corn is all too happy to catapault the propaganda.

I have to wonder if he, himself, is in the 90-95th percentile. Makes a cushy litttle living with his keyboard. Unlike myself, still at the 42nd percentile making a living with my back. Does his household make more than $88,000 a year? I strongly suspect it does. That unlike myself and Mr. Debs, he cannot say "If there is a lower class, I am in it ..."

Here's another lie - "yielding $114 billion in high income tax cuts".

Well, that seems to leave out the $80 billion in estate tax cuts, and also the $32 billion (over two years) going to the top 5% with the accursed payroll tax cut. But CTJ also says that the Obama "compromise" gave $108 billion PER YEAR to the top 1%. So that looks to me like $216 billion right there in "high income tax cuts". Unlike David W. Corn though, I also consider the rest of the top 5% (or as I call them, the top 4%) to also be "high income". They got $55.5 billion in tax cuts per year, for a total of $111 billion.

Not to mention the rest of the top 20% which is higher income than 80% of us make. They got $214 billion in tax cuts for the two years.

That compares pretty favorably to the $164 billion that the bottom 60% got.

So there's $621 billion in tax cuts going to the top 20%.

Corn describes this as "a good deal". Which it certainly was for him and his fellow members of the top 20%.

Not such a good deal for me. In 2011, my wage income was $15,814.01. And Obama's "good deal" replaced the "making work pay" credit with the accursed payroll tax cut. So unlike members of the top 20%, my taxes went up! (Granted, by a mere $83.72, but it's pretty tanjed aggravating that taxes for people like me would even go up a nickel as part of a "good deal" which gave average tax cuts of $77,000 to the top 1%. One small tax increase for a little man, one giant windfall for a plutocrat.)

Corn also mentions "additional unemployment benefits". Which I also call bullsh*t on. Unemployment benefits were extended by this same Congress on 6 Nov 2009, and on 22 July 2010. So why should we believe that agreeing to an extension of the Bush tax cuts was the ONLY way to get another extension of unemployment benefits? It sure was convenient though that the July extension expired at just about the same time as the Bush tax cuts. Like somebody planned it that way, so they'd have a bone to throw to the masses at the same time they gave another windfall to their donors.

And it appears I was wrong as well. The chart that Corn links to, is one that, first of all, describes the accursed payroll tax cut as a stimulus (which it is - Reagan style http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/160) but also dishonestly hides $57 billion in estate tax cuts http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/138.

Maybe Obama could not win those fights, but I still say he could have at least fought them. Could have at least tried. Don't try to tell me that a horrible deal was really a good one, and do NOT expect me to accept a bad deal now without some sort of fight. Especially when, once again, we hold the trump card. The tax cuts will expire - even if we do nothing.

By which I mean a fight FOR me, not a fight AGAINST me, as Obama began trashing the left after they complained about his surrender in 2010. He wasn't willing to fight the Republicans but he sure was willing to fight the left. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/12/love_obamas_smack_at_the_sanct.html