But they do. They do live in Bizzaro world.

Saying that the Clinton tax hikes caused job loss & Bush (either one) tax cuts created jobs means you’re living in Bizzaro world.

The various ways that conservative could frame it are very quick and simplistic, so they have the advantage. Say “he’ll raise your taxes”, “socialist” “tax the successful” “destroy business”.

Obama and economists did their best to explain why it made sense. But the media generally stuck to only the stuff that fit into short, easily understandable soundbites. That is that 95% get a tax cut. The most in depth on economics that the media got was when they would have Robert Reich explain our economic situation and why Obama’s plan was the best for us.

Obama should have absolutely dominated the tax and economics front if people were truly informed, but he had to settle for something closer to a draw.

And to SaveFarris…

How in the world are you perceiving a lack of investment? Jobs are being cut from lack of DEMAND. Not lack of investment. Businesses are contracting, not expanding. And if demand were booming, do you really think there wouldn’t be willing investors to fund expansion to meet demand?

Furthermore, cutting spending would be disastrous right now. Thank God McCain won’t get a chance to enact a “spending freeze” to try to send us into a depression.

Exactly. People who don’t know what the Laffer curve looks like but want to use it to argue for tax cuts drive me nuts. I would educate these people, but far too many of them are ignorant by choice.

Ferris, no president before Bush Jr. has ever lowered taxes during a time of war. And considering the record deficits and the state of our economy. It should be pretty clear why.

And I still find it hilarious that the cons still seem to think that the Laffer curve is an inverse graph, not parabolic. Reminds me of the boss from Dilbert thinking “Theoretically, if we cut costs enough, we can make a profit without selling any products.”

2. Cut spending.

Where? The war? No, that’s the ultra con’s little baby.

Thank god! You clearly have no idea how economics works, because by cutting spending while heading into a recession would kill the economy.

And lowering Capital Gains tax is the worst way of stimulating growth.

Fuck that. You tax the rich and spend the money on infrastructure, thereby increasing the number of jobs.

Obama didn’t waffle on most issues. The current New Yorker had an article on the Obama campaign about a critical moment early in the campaign, when the moctroversy about Obama being willing to negotiate with Iran came out. His people were considering how to spin it, but Obama said “No”. He said we negotiated with Stalin, we can negotiate with Ahmandddkddkdkwhatever. He refused to back off, and trusted the American people to understand. The issue you raised is just another example of this strategy.

Elsewhere on the thread, it’s amusing how cons who make $30,000 a year carry the water for people making millions per year. What they don’t realize is that like Willie Sutton when asked why he robs banks, balancing the budget requires that we go “where the money is”. It’s not JT, though he is invited to help Warren Buffett pay his increased tax burden if it bothers him so.

I really don’t think so. Where Obama paid a price on the tax issue among people who otherwise might have voted Democrat was where voters believed McCain’s lies about Obama’s tax plan. I was registering voters in Philly in September, and I met an elderly, middle/ working class elderly African American woman who insisted that despite having voted Democrat all her life, she was voting McCain. I was flabbergasted and asked why, and she said it was because Obama would raise her taxes. I said No, he only was going to raise taxes on people making at least $200k a year. (It may have been presumptuous of me, but she really didn’t look like she made $200k.) She said that Obama was only saying that now to get elected, but that in fact he had voted to raise taxes on people like her before and he would do it again.

I realized that she’d probably seen the ads McCain ran in Pennsylvania claiming that Obama had voted to raise taxes on people making $45k a year, which ads were based on Obama’s voting for a budget resolution that assumed the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. The budget resolution of course is hypothetical and does not change the tax code in any way, but I figured trying to explain all that was not an effective use of time, so I said OK and moved on to the next house.

People with that much brains aren’t voting Republican anyway. Besides, I’m just saying that Obama paid some price. Maybe not even a net negative. But some. Dig?

The theory that investors are just SO caught up in marginal changes in Capital Gains has lost all its punch. Ain’t so. Sure, a 20% rise or fall changes behavior, but a couple of points? It’s a giggle.

> 2. Cut spending.

Every economist of every stripe, save a few backburner ideologues, knows you don’t Hooverize when a serious recession / depression is looming. Not serious.

“If you tell a group that 95% of them will pay less money in taxes, and they believe you, getting 52% of the vote is no great accomplishment.”

I can’t believe you’re dissing Reagan like that!

But seriously … telling the public that ANYBODY is getting a tax hike, and paying little or no price, shows chops, and having a finger on the pulse.

Obama succeeded, where Dukakis and Mondale didn’t, because he didn’t waffle when challenged. Both D and M were ‘bold’ for about one speech or debate, and immediately started to wilt. Obama stuck it back in their face. The Obama team has game, that’s a fact.

Damn fingers just aren’t workin’ the keyboard right this AM.

So refreshing, actually, to see rich folks and conservatives who claim to be the victims, who don’t whine as if they were the ones struggling.

Showing your usual complete disregard for reality, I see. How consistent of you. “Keep taxes where they are”. That is, don’t change anything. The economy is in dire shape and you want to stay with the policies that got us here. 28 years later voodoo economics has utterly failed, yet you blindly keep saying “more of the same”.

Sure, let’s cut the taxes for the rich and count on their good graces to share the wealth. That’s certainly worked well.

Most of the jobs created come from small businesses. Businesses typically owned by people who make less than $250k year. If you want to grow the economy doesn’t it make sense to reduce taxes for them?

Now if Obama had still won while promising tax plans like Mondale and Dukakis had, then that would be notable. But this win, on those terms? Not so much.

Which then leaves the question of just why Oliver thought he had some grand insight here unanswered…

J.

That class war stuff is pretty weak soup, amigo.