In case you missed the story about the new cigarette warnings, you can read about it here. This would be one of the good things that Democrats have done that no one knows about (Bush was threatening to veto any law giving the FDA power to regulate tobacco products).
On the other hand, the Dems are on the verge of caving on extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy without putting up a fight. If ever there was a golden opportunity for Democrats to emerge from their morass of mixed messages and effing DEFINE THEMSELVES as defenders of the working class, this is it. Force the Republicans to publicly explain why they are holding middle-class tax cuts hostage in order to make executives even richer! Call them out on the absurdity of bemoaning the deficit at the same time they would contribute vastly to it! Ah, but that would be showing conviction, and we all know "the big tent" doesn't allow for such things.
I highly recommend reading this little piece in the Washington Post on Bush tax cut myths. As a small-business owner making significantly less than $200,000 a year (like some 98% of small-business owners), I have to laugh every time I hear BS about the upper-crust cuts somehow helping us.
Just on the cartoon – or, you know, you might have a disability that makes it difficult to handle a giant pot of boiling water (or too tired to cook it) and the crappy food is better than no food. That’s not despair, that’s a coping strategy.
Force the Republicans to publicly explain why they are holding middle-class tax cuts hostage in order to make executives even richer!
How does continuing the same tax rate as status quo ante make executives richer?
“I was going to come over and take $10,000 away from you, but I thought it over and decided not to.”
Did I just make you $10,000 richer?
The Bush tax cuts were explicitly temporary tax cuts. That’s what the law written by congress and signed by Bush said — the tax cuts last 10 years, then stop.
So making the tax cuts permanent would be increasing the future net income of people who’d otherwise have less future net income. That counts as making people richer.
And it’s not continuing the status quo, by the way. The status quo is that the temporary tax cuts end as scheduled.
So making the tax cuts permanent would be increasing the future net income of people who’d otherwise have less future net income. That counts as making people richer.
Progressive declares: tax cuts make people richer!
In that case, let’s ask the question, why is that Republicans want to make ALL Americans richer, while Democrats want to make only SOME Americans richer?
Man, those Democrats are bastards.
We should raise taxes on everyone who makes more money than I do.
It’s the right thing to do.
Robert,
You already know this, but Obama’s tax cuts will apply to everyone who pays taxes. Indeed, people making $250,000 or above will get more of a tax cut than people making less than $250,000. The Bush tax cuts were huge tax cuts for the 1% and small tax cuts for the other 90%, the Obama tax cuts are large tax cuts for the 1% and small tax cuts for the other 90%.
Sure, when you’re making a million dollars, a $6,000 tax cut may feel like chump change, but it is still larger than $1,000 (numbers pulled out of my ass, and it’s still more than your argument deserves).
And Brandon, your comment doesn’t even deserve numbers puled out of my ass. Yes, there is no basis for a progressive tax system besides class envy.
As someone with a middle class Manhattan income (aka “ungodly” in many parts of the country) I have the urge to go to Washington, visit each and every Senator and Representative individually, and say to each of them, “Raise my taxes already, idiot!” And then slap them. With a dead fish. The same dead fish. Saving the Republicans for last.
(Note to the NSA: Chill out. It’s just a fantasy and in no way a plan.)
I played with this graphic the other day and balanced the budget with nothing but some minor tax increases and a few trivial cuts in the defense budget. Note that this app doesn’t allow you to make any radical reductions to the military budget or serious tax increases. So really minor changes could do it, if the politicians just had a few guts.
Dianne – If you want to pay more, the IRS is always glad to accept donations.
But in fact, you don’t want to slap the Senators silly and demand that they raise YOUR taxes. You want to slap them and demand that they raise taxes for everyone making as much as you make. And there’s where the contradiction hits, because many of the other people making as much as you make, don’t want to pay more taxes.
If YOU want to, there is absolutely nothing stopping you.
I really don’t agree on the cigarette warnings. Lack of warnings are not the reasons people smoke. Big Tobacco would like you to agree that they do, because it’s something they use as an excuse for everything else they do, like marketing to children and overseas: gawrsh, but we TOLD them it was dangerous, how can you blame us?
Let me put it this way. I know a lot of lawyers who represent companies that sold asbestos products. I don’t just mean the mom and pop reseller, but companies that damn well knew the stuff was dangerous. Pretty evil, yes? THEY all think tobacco lawyers are the scum of the earth.
LOL, mythago. I do most of my writing work for lawyers who sue your lawyers.
Hey there! They aren’t MY lawyers.
A friend of mine who does tobacco litigation tells me that whenever he meets a bunch of them the first time he asks “What’s your pro bono?” because, according to him, they ALL have something they do (like saving puppies or helping battered women) to convince themselves that they are Good People.
Charles:
You misunderstand my comment. I was in no way trying to imply that class envy necessarily has anything to do with it, though I’m sure it does in some cases. I was just highlighting the “no skin off my nose” dynamic at play here. It’s easy to advocate raising taxes when you know that the cost will be paid entirely by other people. Not very credible, though.
At least Dianne is willing to put her own skin in the game. I can respect that, even if I’m not terribly keen on her desire to force the other members of the piñata bracket, willing or not, to pony up along with her.
I remember the reactions when those graphic cigarette warnings first appeared in Canada.
For most smokers (particularly visiting Americans) the first response was “collect ’em all!”.
When I was a smoker, my response to these warnings was generally along the lines of “what??? This is BAD for me? OMG!!!!”
Wanted to second lilacsigil on the second panel being a bit problematic. :\