now I see it - re: The Daily Howler

[hfojvt]

With yesterday's post it struck me how Somerby seems to be going out of his way to find fault with the left as we attempt to stop an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich.

Here's the Howler http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh121310.shtml

and here's what I wrote to him

Now, it does seem to me that you go to great lengths to find fault with liberals. Why is that? You take Brooks over Reich?

It may sound like I am being tribalist because Reich is in my tribe and Brooks is in the other one, and there may be some of that. Whether we are tribes or not is one question, but we certainly are sides, and Brooks has never been on mine.

And then there are facts. You wrote "Nothing resembling “the lion’s share” actually goes to the rich, of course. But so what?"

And that statement is just as much bullshit as anything that Reich said. What is the "Lion's Share" and what is "the rich" are two questions that make Reich's statement kinda fuzzy. To me, people in the top 20% count as rich. Of course, it seems to me that people in the top 20% want to deny it. After all, they can barely make payments on their 2nd beemer and their vacation house. To them, only the Forbes 400 count as rich.

"Nothing resembling" seems pretty far from accurate to me, but what is the Lion's share? If 40% goes to the top 20% is it fair to call that the Lion's Share? What if 70% goes to people above the median income? Isn't 70% much more than 50%? Don't liberals generally prefer tax cuts that benefit people below the median income? (Actually no, but some people, like myself and Reich think they should.)

What is the source of your feeling that the Lion's Share does not goto the rich? Is it the propaganda that the White House is spewing to support their surrender? The one that pretends that the payroll tax holiday is a victory for progressives? (It's not http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/135) And other charts show only the gain, perhaps, from extending the Bush tax cuts for incomes above $200,000. When the fact is that the rich also get huge gains from the tax cuts for incomes below $200,000. In 2001, a person with income over $200,000 paid taxes of $58,815 on their first $200,000 of taxable income. In 2008, they only paid $51,751.

A gain of a mere $7,000 does not seem huge, even to me, but multiplied by the number of tax filers with incomes over $200,000 and you find that the grand total is about $25 billion going to those rich households. Then there's the group with incomes between $100,000 and $200,000. (A group that seems pretty rich to me as I load sixteen tons of tables and chairs for a mere $15,000 a year. But what do I know, I am just a dumb tribalist.) In 2001, the taxes on the first $100,000 was $25,152, in 2008 it was only $21,978. Again, a mere $3,000 (I paid $3500 for the car I am driving now). But there are some 10 million households in that income range, so their total is at least $34 billion (obviously that group includes some people making $180,000 who save even more).

Then you go on to say that people like me deny that there are other people in the world (you mean people who are being lied to by the M$M and now by our own Democratic President and who think that tax cuts for the rich really aren't and are somehow absolutely necessary? Those people?) AND that we are just upset because we don't want the other side to get ANYTHING.

Except that WE were ALREADY giving the other side a ton. What we want, or what I want because I do not know how many mice are in my pocket, is to see the stupid Reagan tax cuts rolled back, to see the income taxes become much more progressive. Like this http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/129

"It makes perfect sense to me to put in three more brackets
39.1% up to $500,000
45% up to $1,000,000 (1)
55% up to $5,000,000 (2)
65% for the rest (3)"

I wanted to see the Bush tax cuts rolled back for incomes over $80,000. But I was aware that Republicans would make hay with that, as they always lie and call any tax increase for the rich an "increase in YOUR taxes" even though that is not true for most of the listening audience. So making the threshold higher makes a Democrat more electable to a misinformed and gullible electorate.

So what Obama said in the campaign, and promised, I thought, to fight for, was already a compromise. Not my ideal, but something I could live with, as at least a first step in the right direction. (And now we cannot even get that, and have a 'leader' who won't even fight for it?) Republicans were not satisfied with what we gave up though (they didn't want us to get anything, and fought and now we are really not getting anything, unless a bitter pill counts), and went to the mat for the top 2%. Our guy was supposed to fight for the bottom 80%, but somehow thought it was important to surrender instead.

As for strategy, are we dreaming to think we could have gotten something better? Maybe. It's easy to play Monday morning quarterback. But when I see a quarterback who is facing a blitzing linebacker I expect him to scramble, or stand in the pocket and deliver a strike downfield even as he gets buried in the turf. I feel perfectly free to criticize a quarterback who instead wets his pants and tosses the ball to the linebacker and then cheers while the linebacker runs down the field for a touchdown for the other team.

I would rather see him fight for me and lose, than to just surrender even if the end result is the same.

Obama has said that a fight would hurt lower income working people and the economy, and so his Christmas gift to the rich MUST be passed for the sake of the poor and the economy. Ironically enough, that is also how Bush sold them in the first place.

"We need tax relief that creates the greatest number of jobs. (Applause.) The goal is to create a million new jobs by the end of next year. I've submitted a good, strong plan that will help meet that goal. The United States Congress must not only listen to your voice, but must listen to the voice of somebody looking for work. We need aggressive action out of the United States Congress now." May 6, 2003

"Oh, you'll hear the talk about how this plan only helps the rich people. That's just typical Washington, D.C. political rhetoric, is what that is. That's just empty rhetoric. This plan for a family of four making $40,000 a year would see their tax bill go from $1,178 a year, to $45 a year." May 12, 2003

"Yes, I'm worried about the deficit. I'm worried about the deficit, but I'm more worried about the fellow looking for work. I'm worried about the deficit, but I'm more worried about the single mom who's worried about putting food on the table for her children, so she could find work. And that's where the focus of this administration is going to be." May 12, 2003

[bbgrunt]

1. good letter. Somersby has always seemed

to be meticulous in his dissections, but his conservative bias is always lurking under the surface.

[hfojvt]

2. it continures today Somerby vs. Robinson

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh121410.shtml

"He (Robinson) loved the cuts one month ago. By last Friday, he seemed to hate them. Is anyone phonier in D.C. than reigning cable gods?"

I am not a huge fan of Robinson, partly from reading previous Howlers.

For example

"By now, we were more than half-way through the hour, and Mr. Robinson—the fierce Post “liberal”—still hadn’t said a single word that was critical of Republicans or conservatives. Indeed, the fierce Post “liberal” seemed to be troubled by nothing the Bush Admin had ever done. At the 27-minute mark, for example, Lamb gave Robinson a direct chance to criticize reigning Bush honcho Karl Rove. Nothing doing! Robinson avoided Lamb’s question about Rove’s honesty, and ended up making complimentary statements about policy e-mails the GOP writes. (Such work is “well researched” and “well argued,” the fierce liberal said.) Good Lord! What kind of “liberal” could go on TV without a single complaint about Bush? Easy—the kind of “liberal” the mainstream press loves. The kind of “liberal” who blames Dems for everything, who thinks that Karl Rove is a model."

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh022105.shtml


However, the examples used today just do not make sense. For myself, I agree with Robinson's column of Nov. 12, where he urges Obama and the Democrats to fight against extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Apparently there were some reports in November that Obama was gonna cave on this (hmmmm... something loudly denied by his supporters here IIRC).

However, that does not mean I am all that excited about the supposed "middle class tax cuts" either. For one thing, they do certainly add to the deficit, and for another they also benefit the wealthy. I don't think the middle class goes up to $200,000. Even $70 - 90,000 is UPPER middle class. By $200,000 a person is in the top 5%.

Secondly, this is wrong

"The plan is “unconscionable and irresponsible,” Robinson says. Rather plainly, he seems to include the cost of those middle-class tax cuts (which won’t provide any stimulus) when he renders this judgment."

Actually Robinson only said that as a summary of Republican and Democratic arguments, as the snippet that Somerby quotes clearly shows (and I think it is well written on Robinson's part).

"Before the deal was sealed, Democrats argued that it was unconscionable to continue a huge tax break for the rich when the nation is so deeply in debt. Republicans argued that it was irresponsible to keep extending unemployment benefits without paying for them by cutting something else. The solution? Do both."

By voting for this deal, both Republicans and democrats in CONGRESS have shown themselves to be big phonies and Robinson is spot on to point that out.

Yet, Somerby goes to great lengths to argue that Robinson is the one who is a phony.

Talk about misplaced priorities.

In the past, Somerby has written things like this

"Those data describe a social revolution. In the 1970s, the top one percent received eight percent of national income. By 2007, their share had tripled, to 23 percent. Herbert went on to state a concomitant point: “A male worker earning the median wage in 2007 earned less than the median wage, adjusted for inflation, of a male worker 30 years earlier.”

The rich have gotten a great deal richer. Everyone else has stood still.

At Slate, Timothy Noah has completed his series about this massive rise in inequality. We’ll likely discuss his work in the coming weeks. For now, we’ll only suggest that you ask yourself this:

In the face of that staggering social revolution, are you aware of any politics or political messaging on the left which has tried to encompass this revolution? Have liberal entities even tried to make the public aware of this change? Have liberal entities tried to build political frameworks in which average people of the left, the center and the right can see their obvious common interest in confronting this revolution?"

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh091710.shtml

And now that we have even Democrats pushing for policies which exacerbate that trend, Somerby wants to look for faults in the people who are trying to fight those policies? Is there some phoniness involved here?

[hfojvt]

3. I cannot believe nobody is jumping in this thread

to post "I told you so".