Via @Shoq
DITTO! Also too...
Via pumpybeanis
Ladies and Gentleman, I present to you... @GregWHoward
Behold the awesome power of stupid, in all it's teabagging wingnut glory.
Via @Shoq
DITTO! Also too...
Via Ken Layne
What this year’s crop of insane GOP/Teabagger candidates had lacked, so far, was really only a Tea Party-backed Republican nominee hand-selected as one of Eric Cantor’s “Young Guns” who also spent all his spare time dressed up like an actual Nazi Waffen SS soldier playing German Invasion in the woods around Toledo. And now, the story of the GOP Resurgence is complete, because the dress-up Nazi has been located. Meet Rich Iott, your new teabagger congressman from Ohio!
Joshua Green of The Atlantic brings us this charming tale of a man who simply loves history, that’s all:
Iott, whose district lies in Northwest Ohio, was involved with a group that calls itself Wiking, whose members are devoted to re-enacting the exploits of an actual Nazi division, the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking …. Iott confirmed his involvement with the group over a number of years, but said his interest in Nazi Germany was historical and he does not subscribe to the tenets of Nazism. “No, absolutely not,” he said. “In fact, there’s a disclaimer on the [Wiking] website. And you’ll find that on almost any reenactment website. It’s purely historical interest in World War II.”
Whatever, Hitler.
It only took a day for this very promising Nazi candidate to be removed from Eric Cantor’s heroic “Young Guns” group of 40-and 50-something GOP creeps chosen to be the Republican Party’s sexy new face:
Until last night, the GOP included the candidate, Rich Iott, on a list of promising potential members called Contenders — a notch below their so-called Young Guns. Now he’s gone, without a trace.
You can get away with a lot in conservative politics these days, but it turns out spending your weekends dressed as a Nazi, celebrating the brave Waffen 5th SS Panzer Division is still a bridge too far.
Haha, Talking Points Memo, always with the jokes. [The Atlantic/TPM]
Via Zach Carter
A full 90 members of Congress who voted to bailout Wall Street in 2008 failed to support financial reform reining in the banks that drove our economy off a cliff. But when you examine campaign contribution data, it’s really no surprise that these particular lawmakers voted to mortgage our economic future to Big Finance: This election cycle, they’ve raked in over $48.8 million from the financial establishment. Over the course of their Congressional careers, the figure swells to a massive $176.9 million.
The complete list of these Crony Capitalists is below, along with the money they pulled in from Big Finance, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics (opensecrets.org). The career data goes back to 1989. Of the 69 House members who voted with Wall Street on both the bailout and financial reform, 60 are Republicans, while nine are Democrats. All 21 Senators who voted with Wall Street on both issues are Republicans, and Republicans raked in over 90 percent of the total campaign contributions. Here’s a chart showing Wall Street’s total contributions to this crowd for the 2010 cycle, by political party:
And here’s one showing total Wall Street contributions over the course of their careers:
These aren’t the only politicians carrying water for Wall Street—only the most flagrant. Some of the bank lobby’s savviest servants on Capitol Hill do their dirty work early in the legislative process. They push through technical amendments and deploy complex procedural tricks to defang a bill, but when the final vote comes, they can still create the appearance of taking a stand against Wall Street’s interests. Rep. Melissa Bean, D-Ill., is a master of this technique, and Tea Party favorite Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., was able to claim credit for voting in favor of reform after demanding—and receiving—a host of big bank giveaways in return for his vote.
Nor are Republicans the only recipients of Wall Street largesse. Bean, for instance, has pulled in over $773,000 from Wall Street in the 2010 cycle alone, while working overtime to carve loopholes into new consumer protections (she’s scored $2.4 million over the course of her Congressional career). And the Democratic leadership has received millions as well.
When it comes to dealing out economic damage, no special interest group has been able to wreak more havoc that Big Finance. After inflating an $8 trillion housing bubble and sparking a recession that has cost the economy over 8 million jobs, public pressure to crack down on Wall Street was intense. And the public is still clamoring for Wall Street accountability—after two years in office, the Wall Street reform bill remains the most popular legislative effort championed by President Barack Obama, and getting tough on Big Finance has been a reliable re-election strategy for embattled incumbents.
But harnessing the Wall Street beast proved a tortuously long and difficult process, taking nearly two years despite its economic urgency. And while the bill that Congress approved this year has plenty of virtues, many of the most critical reforms were simply not addressed by the legislation. The too-big-to-fail financial behemoths that taxpayers bailed out in 2008 are even bigger today, banks can still gamble with taxpayer money, and the foreclosure crisis continues to ravage neighborhoods across the country. Until these issues are addressed, the U.S. economy will remain beholden to Wall Street’s bonus-crazed whims.
But if you follow the money, it’s obvious why so much work remains to be done on financial reform. This year alone, Wall Street spent a staggering $251 million fighting financial reform. According to a separate analysis of campaign contributions performed by Public Citizen, lawmakers who voted with Wall Street on both the bailout and reform received nearly triple the campaign cash of those who opposed Wall Street (figures in the Public Citizen study don’t correspond to those I’ve compiled, as Public Citizen examined contributions from 2007 through July of 2010).
Despite the popularity of Wall Street reform, 90 members of Congress didn’t even want to publicly pretend to support reining in almost universally reviled banks. When you’re trying to decide which bums to throw out in November, here’s one place to start. These members of Congress are okay with setting up economic calamities, and they don’t mind paying for them with your tax dollars.
Here’s how Wall Street’s contributions break down among Wall Street’s 21 Senate Cronies. For 2010:
For their careers:
And here are all of the Cronies, along with their Wall Street hauls:
| Senator | 2010 Wall Street Cash | Career Wall Street Cash |
| Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) | $1,600,000 | $4,900,000 |
| Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT) | $1,500,000 | $2,600,000 |
| Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) | $333,600 | $3,300,000 |
| Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) | $1,500,000 | $3,300,000 |
| Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) | $2,500,000 | $3,500,000 |
| Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) | $451,700 | $1,200,000 |
| Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) | $3,100,000 | $3,300,000 |
| Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) | $3,200,000 | $4,700,000 |
| Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) | $1,300,000 | $2,600,000 |
| Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) | $1,100,000 | $2,000,000 |
| Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) | $233,200 | $1,100,000 |
| Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) | $1,400,000 | $2,600,000 |
| Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) | $1,400,000 | $4,700,000 |
| Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) | $1,500,000 | $4,200,000 |
| Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) | $2,800,000 | $3,800,000 |
| Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) | $412,200 | $2,500,000 |
| Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) | $947,600 | $34,000,000 |
| Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) | $4,300,000 | $5,300,000 |
| Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) | $268,200 | $909,700 |
| Sen. John Thune (R-SD) | $1,600,000 | $3,900,000 |
| Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) | $435,200 | $2,800,000 |
| 21 Republicans | ||
| 0 Democrats | ||
| Senate Total | $31,881,700 | 97,209,700 |
| House Member | 2010 Wall Street Cash | Career Wall Street Cash |
| Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La. | $106,500 | $422,300 |
| Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala. | $611,600 | $4,400,000 |
| Rep. Gresham Barrett, R-S.C. | $20,400 | $806,700 |
| Rep. Marion Berry, D-Ark. | $24,900 | $663,700 |
| Rep. Judy Biggert, R-Ill. | $395,000 | $1,900,000 |
| Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. | $1,200,000 | $3,800,000 |
| Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio | $1,300,000 | $3,700,000 |
| Rep. Jo Bonner, R-Ala. | $90,400 | $702,200 |
| Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif. | $190,000 | $733,400 |
| Rep. John Boozman, R-Ark. | $257,700 | $491,000 |
| Rep. Dan Boren, D-Okla. | $123,100 | $722,200 |
| Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va. | $92,700 | $1,400,000 |
| Rep. Charles Boustany Jr, R-La. | $226,300 | $934,600 |
| Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas | $157,000 | $840,500 |
| Rep. Henry Brown, R-S.C. | $35,700 | $494,000 |
| Rep. Vernon Buchanan, R-Fla. | $336,800 | $1,400,000 |
| Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif. | $180,300 | $940,300 |
| Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich. | $588,000 | $1,700,000 |
| Rep. John Campbell, R-Calif. | $413,400 | $1,200,000 |
| Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va. | $2,100,000 | $4,400,000 |
| Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del. | $749,100 | $3,200,000 |
| Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C. | $23,400 | $502,500 |
| Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. | $110,000 | $686,000 |
| Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas | $161,500 | $711,800 |
| Rep. Ander Crenshaw, R-Fla. | $86,100 | $717,000 |
| Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas | $90,600 | $606,900 |
| Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa. | $177,900 | $881,000 |
| Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas | $324,200 | $1,900,000 |
| Rep.Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich. | $8,500 | $292,200 |
| Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo. | $143,900 | $904,400 |
| Rep. Mary Fallin, R-Okla | ($1,000) | $340,700 |
| Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J. | $86,200 | $840,300 |
| Rep. Jim Gerlach, R-Pa. | $251,600 | $1,800,000 |
| Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas | $140,000 | $1,100,000 |
| Rep. Wally Herger, R-Calif. | $171,500 | $1,100,000 |
| Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich. | ($1,000) | $300,600 |
| Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C. | 0 | $572,800 |
| Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. | $173,900 | $1,600,000 |
| Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill. | $1,900,000 | $4,200,000 |
| Rep. John Kline, R-Minn | $170,900 | $989,100 |
| Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif. | $31,800 | $748,000 |
| Rep. Daniel E. Lungren, R-Calif. | $147,700 | $622,500 |
| Rep. Howard McKeon, R-Calif. | $132,100 | $1,100,000 |
| Rep. Gary Miller, R-Calif. | $144,500 | $902,000 |
| Rep. Harry Mitchell, D-Ariz. | $130,900 | $558,000 |
| Rep. Sue Myrick, R-S.C. | $93,600 | $1,200,000 |
| Rep. Soloman Ortiz, D-Texas | $40,200 | $381,700 |
| Rep. George Radanovich, R-Calif. | $24,900 | $462,000 |
| Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala. | $128,200 | $1,000,000 |
| Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky. | $50,200 | $468,000 |
| Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla. | $127,000 | $986,000 |
| Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. | $531,500 | $1,900,000 |
| Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio | $121,900 | $519,700 |
| Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz. | $39,700 | $1,200,000 |
| Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa. | $30,700 | $403,600 |
| Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Ind. | $20,500 | $266,900 |
| Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo. | $112,500 | $524,200 |
| Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas | $258,900 | $1,300,000 |
| Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind. | $40,500 | $405,800 |
| Rep. Zack Space, D-Ohio | $169,300 | $476,300 |
| Rep. John Sullivan, R-Okla. | $79,200 | $494,800 |
| Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb. | $202,600 | $1,400,000 |
| Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas | $42,500 | $603,400 |
| Rep. Patrick Tiberi, R-Ohio | $555,500 | $2,800,000 |
| Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich. | $81,700 | $929,400 |
| Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore. | $180,700 | $732,400 |
| Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn. | 0 | $715,700 |
| Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C. | $155,500 | $580,200 |
| Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va. | $90,400 | $1,100,000 |
| 60 Republicans | $15,873,400 | $72,443,800 |
| 9 Democrats | $1,108,400 | $7,233,000 |
| House Total | $31,881,700 | $97,209,700 |
Via Jack Stuef
CNN is doing a documentary on the three or four people who are young American conservative activists, so they decided they would follow around that criminal James O’Keefe, the guy who made those ACORN videos and tried to rape Mary Landrieu’s phones. But you know the one thing they weren’t expecting? They weren’t expecting James O’Keefe to try to lure CNN reporter Abbie Boudreau alone onto a boat filled with dildos and lube and a “condom jar” and “fuzzy handcuffs” and “an obvious sex tape machine,” so this is precisely what he did. Presumably it was to record himself raping her, of course, but O’Keefe says it was just a goof. Huh?
Thankfully, Boudreau was tipped off by O’Keefe’s female colleague, Izzy Santa. (Haha, IS HE SANTA? IS HE?)
“I noticed [Santa] had a little bit of dirt on her face, her lip was shaking, she seemed really uncomfortable and I asked her if she was OK,” Boudreau said. “The first thing she basically said to me was, ‘I’m not recording you, I’m not recording you. Are you recording me?’ I said, ‘No, I’m not recording you,’ and she showed me her digital recorder and it was not recording.”
Santa told Boudreau that O’Keefe planned to “punk” her by getting on a boat where hidden cameras were set up.
Haha, “punk’d,” that is a thing hip young people say in 2010.
CNN got hold of a document that supposedly is O’Keefe’s plans.
“Instead, I’ve decided to have a little fun. Instead of giving her a serious interview, I’m going to punk CNN. Abbie has been trying to seduce me to use me, in order to spin a lie about me. So, I’m going to seduce her, on camera, to use her for a video. This bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who comes on at five will get a taste of her own medicine, she’ll get seduced on camera and you’ll get to see the awkwardness and the aftermath.
Oh, we get it! It’s because all attractive women want to have sex with James O’Keefe. How can you resist that O’Keefe charm? CNN won’t like it very much when their reporter is forced to have sex with him on a boat! (Forced as in forced by her amazing sexual attraction to him, not rape or anything like that.)
This is why CNN should not employ women. They’re too liable to want to fuck James O’Keefe.
Also included in this story? This hilarious list of items in the boat!
Equipment needed
a. Video
1. hidden cams on the boat
2. tripod and overt recorder near the bed, an obvious sex tape machine
b. Props
1. condom jar
2. dildos
3. Music
a. Alicia keys
b. 80s romance songs, things that are typically James
c. avoid Marvin Gaye as too cliche
4. lube
5. ceiling mirror
6. posters and paintings of naked women
7. playboys and pornographic magazines
8. candles
9. Viagra and stamina pills
10. fuzzy handcuffs
11. blindfold
Looks like journalism to us, James O’Keefe. [CNN]
Via Ian Millhiser
On Fox News Sunday this morning, host Chris Wallace noted that the GOP’s “Pledge To America” has been widely panned even by conservatives. In response, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who played a lead role in drafting the Pledge, claimed that two publications praised his plan:
WALLACE: Congressman McCarthy, a number of conservatives aren’t buying this. Let’s take a look at what Erick Erickson, of the conservative website RedState had to say about this document. He said “it is full of mom-tested, kid-approved pablum that will make certain hearts on the right sing in solidarity. But like a diet full of sugar, it will actually do nothing but keep making Washington fatter before we crash from the sugar high.”
MCCARTHY: But National Review says it’s bolder than the Contract of ‘94. Wall Street Journal says it will do more to shrink the federal government. It’s like when the Contract came out. There’s going to be attacks on both sides.
Watch it:
McCarthy misrepresents the right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial page’s reaction to the Pledge. In truth, the WSJ gave a the Pledge a decidedly mixed review, stating that the pledge is “less specific in offering new ideas than was the GOP’s 1994 Contract with America,” and it attacks the Pledge for its unambitious approach to earmarks, health care and tax policy.
The conservative National Review did indeed praise the Pledge, as “compelling,” “praiseworthy,” and “a shrewd political document,” but that’s only half the story. As ThinkProgress noted yesterday, the National Review’s hagiographic editorial was prearranged with GOP leadership. One Republican aide called the editorial a “political blowjob.”
There’s a reason why McCarthy could only cite one source that wholeheartedly endorses his party’s trainwreck of a plan. The National Review’s political fellatio aside, public reaction to the GOP Pledge has been almost universally negative.
People don't seem to be particularly impressed with the Republican Party's new Pledge to America, do they?
The way I see it, at least it got the Republicans recycling…
Via Brooks Jackson
Summary
The Republican “Pledge to America,” released Sept. 23, contains some dubious factual claims:
The document, "A Pledge to America" is posted on the website of the Republicans in Congress.
Portrait or Caricature?
The Pledge is full of high-sounding pronouncements such as "America is an idea" and "an inspiration to those who yearn to be free." We won’t argue with any of that.
It is also full of partisan political opinions. At one point it says that an "unchecked executive, a compliant legislature, and an overreaching judiciary have combined to thwart the will of the people." The GOP is certainly entitled to state those opinions, and it’s not our role to argue for or against them. Nor is it our job to say whether the promises laid out in the document would be good policy or bad policy. That will be debated elsewhere for the remainder of the campaign.
Our role here, as always, is to say when facts cited to support the arguments are false or misleading. And there are plenty of factual claims to check out.
In general the Pledge draws a gloomy picture of the sputtering economy, the horrid state of joblessness, and a federal budget wracked by record deficits and ballooning debt. Many of the claims are true. But as might be expected in a partisan manifesto, this is a lopsided rendering. At times it is more caricature than portrait: any facts that might brighten it are simply left out, and some claims are exaggerated or incorrect.
The Economy
Pledge, page 5: Our economy has declined and our debt has mushroomed with the loss of millions of jobs.
Fact: It’s true that the economy lost nearly 8.4 million jobs from the peak of employment in December, 2007 to the bottom of the job slump in December of last year. More than half (4.4 million) were lost before Obama took office. The economy has regained 723,000 jobs since hitting bottom, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Pledge, page 14: Private sector unemployment remains at or near 10 percent, jobless claims continue to soar, and the only parts of the economy expanding are government and our national debt.
Fact: It’s true that the unemployment rate is 9.6 percent, but that’s actually down from the peak of 10.1 percent reached last October. It’s also true that new claims for unemployment compensation – “jobless claims” – continue at a high level. But they are actually running eight percent lower than they did at their worst levels, so they are slowly declining, not soaring.
And it’s not the case that only government is growing. The opposite is true — the private sector has gained a net total of 763,000 jobs this year, according to the BLS.
But at the same time, the total number of government jobs has declined by about 40,000, despite a transitory spike in hiring by the Census Bureau to conduct its decennial head count. That spike is now over. The decline in overall government employment is mostly due to public schools shedding 62,000 positions as local property tax rolls decline due to plunging real-estate values.
Health Care
Pledge, page 26: The Obama Administration has been forced to acknowledge that the new law will force some 87 million Americans to drop their current coverage.
Fact: This is a misrepresentation. It’s true that the president over-promised when he repeatedly told Americans that "if you like your health care plan, you keep your health care plan." As we noted shortly before the bill passed, he can’t make that promise to everyone. It’s also true that after the bill passed, the administration released estimates showing that only about 55 percent of large employers and 34 percent of small employers would be offering the same insurance coverage in 2013 as they do now, under "grandfathering" rules. That works out to about 87 million workers — more or less — whose policies are likely to change in some way.
But it’s deceptive of the GOP to claim that employers of these workers will "drop" their coverage. It would be accurate to say they are expected to change it.
In many cases policies will be replaced by more generous coverage, accompanied by government subsidies to help pay the premiums. Some workers will lose grandfathered status merely because their employers buy substantially similar policies from a different insurance company. In other cases coverage might get worse — plans would lose grandfathered status if they were significantly changed to cut benefits; raise co-insurance payments, copays or deductibles; lower employer contributions; or add or tighten caps on payments. But while the law would allow this, it certainly does not "force" employers to reduce coverage, as many have done in the past.
Pledge, page 27: Skyrocketing medical liability insurance rates have distorted the practice of medicine, routinely forcing doctors to order costly and often unnecessary tests to protect themselves from lawsuits, often referred to as “defensive medicine."
Fact: The claim that "defensive medicine" contributes to high medical costs is true — but it doesn’t add much. For years the majority of economic studies consistently failed to validate the claim that fear of lawsuits drove up costs by any measurable amount, as we reported extensively in 2004. But last year, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office revised its thinking based on new studies, and concluded that limiting malpractice liability would reduce total national health care spending by about one-half of 1 percent, or about $11 billion in 2009.
The new health care law addresses that by giving five-year demonstration grants to states to come up with alternatives to malpractice lawsuits. The Pledge promises "common sense" reforms to "rein in junk lawsuits." Just don’t expect them to lower health costs by much.
Pledge, page 28: Roughly 16,500 IRS auditors, agents, and other employees may be needed to collect the hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes levied on the American people by the new health care law.
Fact: This is simply not true. As we reported last March, this figure "stems from a partisan analysis based on guesswork and false assumptions, and compounded by outright misrepresentation." For an eye-opening account of how Republican staff members of the House Ways and Means committee came up with this inflated figure, see our Ask FactCheck item posted March 30. Most of what the IRS will do under the law is hand out tax credits, not collect penalties.
Stimulus Bill
Pledge, page 14: The trillion-dollar “stimulus” spending bill
Pledge, page 15: . . .the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ was signed into law
Fact: The stimulus bill is a big one, but CBO says it won’t cost $1 trillion, even spread over 10 years. CBO’s most recent estimate puts the price tag to $814 billion. That’s higher than originally estimated at the time of passage, but still well short of $1 trillion.
Pledge, page 15: Despite the ‘stimulus’ and Democrats’ promises the unemployment rate would remain below eight percent, the unemployment rate climbed from 7.7 percent in January 2009 to 9.5 percent in August 2010.
Republicans have a point here, as we noted some time ago. Back in July of last year we wrote, “the original projections from President Obama’s economic advisers on what would happen with and without the stimulus plan are still off — and significantly so.” But nobody “promised” that unemployment would remain below 8 percent.
As we also wrote in June of last year, the White House explanation was simple: “They say President George Bush left them a worse mess than they realized" when Obama’s advisers came up with their predictions. And that’s true. The original chart – produced Jan. 9, 2009 — was based on economic projections that were in line with what private economists were forecasting. Those forecasts were being revised for the worse even before any stimulus money was spent.
And for the record, CBO’s experts calculate that the stimulus has had a positive effect on employment. In its most recent report on the measure, the agency estimated that in the second quarter of 2010, stimulus spending lowered the unemployment rate between 0.7 and 1.8 percentage points and increased the number of people working between 1.4 million and 3.3 million.
Small Business
Pledge, page 14: [Obama] also wants to raise taxes on roughly half of small business income in America.
Fact: This is an exaggeration. Republicans are equating "net positive business income" reported on individual returns with "small business income," which isn’t correct. They rely on a report from the nonpartisan staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (p. 12), which estimated that about 3 percent of taxpayers who have any business income on their personal returns would see a tax increase under Obama’s proposal, and that those 750,000 taxpayers account for about half of all the business income reported.
But some of that income is from big businesses raking in tens of millions of dollars a year. The JCT stated quite clearly that "These figures for net positive business income do not imply that all of the income is from entities that might be considered ’small.’" Some in fact are quite large, and those big businesses account for a good chunk of that income.
The JCT said: "For example, in 2005, 12,862 S corporations and 6,658 partnerships had receipts of more than $50 million."
Republicans do have a point here. Many small businesses and some large fraction of small-business income will be adversely impacted by raising the top rate on individual taxpayers.
The fact is, though, that the JCT couldn’t estimate how much of the total business income was accounted for by "small" businesses, or how many of the 750,000 individuals affected own "small" busineses. What we do know is that a good deal less than half the small business income, and something less than three percent of small business owners, would be subject to higher taxes.
Taxes
Pledge, page 14: Unless action is taken, a $3.8 trillion tax hike will go into effect on January 1, 2011 that will unravel these policies. A family of four with a household income of $50,000 a year will have to pay $2,900 more in taxes in 2011.
Fact: True, but misleading. What the Pledge fails to note is that Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress have consistently promised to extend the Bush tax cuts for all families making less than $250,000 a year, and singles making less than $200,000. It’s true that hasn’t happened yet, but the reason is that several House and Senate Democrats are agitating to extend the cuts for everybody, even those with the highest incomes.
Congress might yet fail to extend most or all the cuts before they are scheduled to expire next year. As we reported in a Sept. 3 Ask FactCheck item on this issue, there’s always a possibility that Congress will grind to a halt in a stalemate. And sure enough, on Sept. 23 Senate Democrats announced they would put off any vote on extending the cuts until after the election. A spokesman for Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said, "Democrats believe we must permanently extend tax cuts for the middle-class before they expire at the end of the year, and we will."
There's a lot of folks sending me DMs about me not being a purist and throwing my support behind the Democrats in Alaska and Florida Senate races.
For the record... I'm all for McAdams and Meeks. I have no problems with either of these exemplary liberal Democrats as candidates... other than their current status in electability. I am a pragmatic realist, not a pie-in-the-sky dreamer. My priority in support is as follows:
1) Keep the crazy-ass wingnut teabagger out of the US Senate.
2) Put the most electable liberal Democrat in the seat.
3) If step 2 is unattainable, refer to step 1.
Am I missing something in the way of pure logic, science and math here?
Do try to remember why we were all so overjoyed and elated when the teabaggers shot themselves in the foot for November general election Senate race in Delaware:
And what does our boys' situations look like? Let's see Meek's probability of a win...
1.7% chance of a win?? OUCH!! Not too good. How about Scott McAdams...?
This is only one Rasmussen poll of likely voters, but 3.3% is STILL not pretty.
Folks, if Scott McAdams support EVER exceeds Lisa Murkowski, or Kendrick Meek's level of support surges past Charlie Crist between now and election day... I'll get behind the mule, pucker up, kiss your ass and admit I was wrong. But not until then.
Don't blame Dems who are trying to keep the crazy teabagger out of office... just because you wanted ideological "purity" and an unelectable weak candidate.
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