Talking about those Fox Phd'

[Tex]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jared-bernstein/labor-day-economy-_b_946387.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=090211&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BlogEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Briefs

Jared Bernstein
Jared Bernstein

Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities


Labor Day is upon us, that last family cookout or picnic of the summer. So we'd better fire up both the grill and our handy responses to annoying arguments from that conservative brother-in-law with a PhD in Fox TV. (Again, that's not you Sean, Jim, Andy, Tom, Clint... well, maybe Clint... and Tom... kidding!... I love you guys!).

Refer back here for the original installment of this series, but here are some more canards that are as sure to show up as your aunt's potato salad.

(Recall that I keep these link free so you don't have to click through and slow down your delivery... but I've included the relevant links at the end for later reference.)

Why are you libs always picking on the rich?! You should love them: they're the ones who pay the taxes -- half the country doesn't pay any taxes at all!

First, dramatically get everyone's attention... "Whoa, wait a second... that doesn't sound right at all. I mean, what about all the people drawing paychecks out there... they all pay payroll taxes, right?"

In fact, if you combine income tax and payroll taxes, then 86% of households pay taxes. Then, if you throw in state, local, and sales taxes, pretty much everyone pays something. Even if you're in a state without a sales tax, point out that if you put gas in your car, you're paying the Federal gas tax.

In fact, if you put all those taxes together, the lowest income families -- the ones in the bottom fifth of the income scale (but don't say that -- sounds too wonky/snooty) -- pay about 16% of their income in taxes.

Now, get a little understanding in your voice, "But you must be just talking about the federal income tax -- and sure, lots of people in the bottom half of the income scale don't pay that tax... BECAUSE they don't make enough money!!"

Warren Buffett pointed out the other day that because of all the tax breaks for rich people, he pays 17% of his income in taxes... (dramatic pause... you might get some gasps out of that one, because chances are, most people at your picnic pay a larger share of their income in taxes than that). Sure -- when it comes to federal income taxes, the wealthy pay a larger share, but they've been the only ones making the big bucks for a while now, and in fact, just like Buffett -- their incomes been growing faster than their income tax liability, so their average rate's gone down!

"So," you say, "I guess it doesn't really bother me that 14% of households, most of whom are low-income elderlies or students don't pay income or payroll taxes. You wish them the best... (quiet pause as you wind down... ) God knows they're struggling..."

(Oh, Snap!)

If they'd just cut out all those damn regulations, I guarantee you America would be creating jobs!

I'd start out folksy: "You know, that just doesn't sound right to me. I mean, let's say you're a business man or woman, kinda like Uncle Sean or Uncle Tom over there, and enough people want to buy your stuff that you'd be leavin' money on the table if you didn't hire some more help. Are you tellin' me that because that nasty old EPA down there in DC has some rules you don't like, you'd leave that money on the table?!"

(Maybe wait to see if you get a nice guffaw here... look around incredulously...)

"You know, even business folks themselves don't say regulations and red tape is their biggest problem. I was looking at this survey of small businesses the other day, and they themselves say their biggest problem is poor sales, not enough customers walking in their doors, and according to this survey, they've been saying so for months now."

And then there's this: seems to me we might want to worry about what life would look like if we didn't have rules about pollution, food safety, or even that car seat Aunt Nell's new baby rode over here in.

Sounds more to me like this is just something those folks up at Fox TV have been complaining about forever. Now they're trying to tie it to jobs, but we've had periods of extremely robust job growth with regulatory regimes much like today's.

Finish with some current events: "I hear the President's going to give a jobs speech this week. Here's what I bet... you get some of his ideas at work in this economy, get some money into some working people's pockets, some jobs fixing schools, maybe a tax break to employers who hire people. I'll bet you'd see a bunch of jobs come on the scene, even with the EPA regulating smog."

Obama's new jobs plan won't work just like none of his other stuff has worked...why do you think we're still in this mess!?

In fact, his stuff has worked pretty well, it's just that the hole is so deep. Remember how bad things were when he took office? The economy was cratering, with GDP falling 9% in the last quarter of 2008, right before he moved to DC. Then, after the Recovery Act, by the third quarter of 2009, the economy was growing again. It was a huge turnaround, and the Recovery Act was a big part of the reason.

I know it's hard to accept that it helped, given that things are still so tough, but facts are facts, and literally within months of the stimulus act, GDP began to do a little better and the rate of job losses began to taper off. But March of last year we were adding private sector jobs and we've added about two-and-a-half million jobs since then.

Not enough, for sure. One thing you can say is that his stuff ended too soon to repair enough of the damaged economy he inherited. But the "stuff" he's put in place has kept the worst recession since the Depression from becoming its own depression.

And you know what else? I just heard the GM and Chrysler posted some great sales numbers last month, up about 20 and 30 percent, respectively, over last year. How about that?

So, seems like his stuff maybe wasn't so bad... he just needs to do a lot more of it.


That should keep your bro-in-law quiet at least up to Thanksgiving. By then, we'll be ready for the next round.

Sources:

Misconceptions and Realities About Who Pays Taxes

NFTB Small Business Economic Trends

"Will More Smog Create Jobs? Republicans Think So"

"The Impact of the Recovery Act, In a Few Easy Charts"

This post originally appeared at Jared Bernstein's On The Economy blog.

More in Politics...

Pro-Bachmann Super PAC Attacks Rick Perry In...
FAA Shutdown Looms Once Again As Lawmakers...
Joe Walsh To Skip Obama Jobs Speech,...
White House Requests More Than $5 Billion...


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Viper
Former repub, still repenting
1349 Fans
43 seconds ago (11:52 AM)
As bad as things are , all because of long term Repub policies of deregulati­on, outsourcin­g, race to the bottom wages, free trade and self regulating companies/­markets that dont exist and that date back to the robber baron period and have failed through our history and that were resurrecte­d in1980, the repub solutions are exactly the same as more than 100 plus years ago, pre middlelcas­, pre rising wages and one percent getting all the econpomic benefit, with the rich owning the government­,. just like now and amazingly their solutions are exactly the same that caused the latest disasters.

Regards
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TiredFed
1 Fans
4 minutes ago (11:49 AM)
All Together Now: Lets not give billions to folks who dont deserve it (corporati­ons) or need it (millionai­res) - so don't extend the 2% FICA cut and dont expand it to employers!­!! Better to target policies to putting people back to work (tax credits for new hires only if they were long-term unemployed­) or creating new jobs (infrastuc­ture projects - can you say Irene??)
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Viper
Former repub, still repenting
1349 Fans
6 minutes ago (11:48 AM)
Stimulus cant fix the jobs problem if what people buy is not made in the U.S. and 80% of the benefit goes to the producer nations as it should that then have the cash to loan us more money so we can buy more of what they make until we go broke!

1.4 trillion of our economy was the housing/cr­edit bubble under Bush caused by deregulati­on.. that went POOF! It covered the massive outsourcin­g of high tech, the finishing off of the private industry segment( replaced by the GOvernment defense industry that doubled in cost and doubled our debt). If repubs had their way of what was left of private MFG, the auto industry would be gone, millions of jobs.. The stimulus, net of the tax cuts, was 500 billion over 2 years or 250 Billion a year to replace the 1.4 trillion we lost annuallly in the houing makret collapse(p­honey temp economy)..­. thats not going to be enough! Do the math!

Spending 70% of our discreatio­nary income on militray, the worlds worst job multipler, with 300 billion to support foreign bases.. money/weal­th flowing out just like with trade deficits.. a permanent loss of wealth!

In 1980 40% of our economy was Industry. Today the private component of industry is just 5%, while Finance/in­surance has gone from 5%(fair middleman share) to 43%!. We have an upside down economy.. with high tech/desig­n, engineerin­g flowinga s always to where the MFG is.

The comments hit it right on.


Tex

 

[Lonecowboy]

America now has the weakest labor market in a generation, and the American people know it. In a new CNN/ORC poll released this week, 65 percent of Americans say they disapprove of how President Obama is handling the economy. And even the White House has downgraded its expectations for the United States' economic future, as The Hill reports:

When the 'substantial' economic 'turbulence' of the last two months are [sic] considered, the administration expects the economy to grow as little as 1.7 percent in 2011 compared to last year. That is down from a rosier projection of 2.7 percent growth, made in February.

In truth, even a 1.7 percent growth rate would be remarkable at this point, given that the economy grew at an annualized rate of about 0.7 percent in the first half of the year and has since slowed. A 1.7 percent growth rate suggests a remarkable acceleration beginning immediately. More than remarkable, that's incredible.

But none of this is should be shocking news. Earlier this month, the Congressional Budget Office's mid-year assessment of the budget and economic situation, based on data through June and thus ignorant of the recent further slowdown, predicted that the jobless rate will fall only to 8.9 percent by the end of this year but remain above 8 percent until 2014.

If Americans want to return to full employment, which means unemployment would be around 5 percent, then they'll have to wait until 2018 if employers are infused with a new confidence and began hiring at the same average rate they did during the 2003–2007 expansion (+176,000 jobs per month). But 176,000 jobs per month is a far cry from the zero new jobs reported today.

And while the U.S. economy is creating no net new jobs, President Obama is offering no new ideas to fix the problem. In a speech to a joint session of Congress next Thursday, the President is expected to rehash the same expensive, ineffective policies he has tried since his presidency began. And it's an economic philosophy that America has come to know all too well. The President hopes that through the sheer force of spending taxpayer dollars, he can turn the economy around. It isn't working—and neither are nearly 14 million Americans.

Case in point: President Obama's "sunshot" initiative–his proposal to dump taxpayers' dollars into alternative energy projects with the goal of creating green jobs. It has failed, by all accounts. Even The New York Times reported that the President's promise to create 5 million green jobs over 10 years has proven to be nothing more than "a pipe dream." And this week, California-based solar panel manufacturer Solyndra went bankrupt, despite receiving a $535 million taxpayer-funded loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy. End result? About 1,100 people out of work. But during his jobs tour across the Midwest, the President continued speaking of the promise of the green economy.

There's another old idea being bandied about, too–infrastructure spending. Remember the President's $780 billion stimulus, which included infrastructure spending on "shovel ready projects" all across the fruited plain? Despite the government infusion of cash into the economy, no jobs were created in August. As the President joked, "Shovel-ready was not as ... uh .. shovel-ready as we expected."Yet an "infrastructure bank" rumored to be endowed with up to $30 billion, appears to be a central component of the President's jobs plan next week, and more spending on building roads and bridges is one of Big Labor's favorite subjects, too. AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka this week called for America to spend $400 billion a year over 10 years on public works projects--and that money, conveniently, would directly benefit his union membership at the expense of the U.S. economy. Whether we need additional government spending on infrastructure is a debate unto itself. What is clear is that $30 billion spent over some number of years in an economy 500 times greater cannot make much difference.

The two-and-a-half-year Keynesian experiment of flooding the economy with taxpayer dollars has failed, yet the President and his union allies continue to peddle the myth that the only way to save the economy is to spend more. There's another way to go: freeing America's small businesses from the day-to-day shackles of existing over-regulation, freeing families and entrepreneurs of the threat of higher taxes, and cutting spending to eliminate the constraining fear of America's debt crisis. Zero job growth does not have to be America's reality, but changing course will mean ditching the dream that more government spending will save the day

 

[Mike]

1.4 trillion of our economy was the housing/cr­edit bubble under Bush caused by deregulati­on.. that went POOF!

This must be real Einstein writing this. Bush was on record saying that Fannie & Freddie needed overhauling, and tried, with Barney Frank denying that there was any problem there at all.

Yea, those comments are right on. :roll: :roll:

The column it self is 180 degrees out of kilter too.

 

[Steve]

Quick response to liberals like Tex,... if god forbid you have to spend labor day with them... :?

I sure would like Buffet to cough up the billion his company owes...

Buffet is majority stake holder followed by Gates..

"Berkshire Hathaway had $24.30 billion in cash and cash equivalents. [1]"

by the look of it they can afford to pay up...

 

[Tex]

Quick response to liberals like Tex,... if god forbid you have to spend labor day with them... :?

I sure would like Buffet to cough up the billion his company owes...

Buffet is majority stake holder followed by Gates..

"Berkshire Hathaway had $24.30 billion in cash and cash equivalents. [1]"

by the look of it they can afford to pay up...

Regardless of what Bush said, it was what he did that matters. It is the same with ALL politicians. It is what they do or don't do.

Some of you can get caught up in their talk but when it comes down to it, Bush was head of the Executive Branch and WAS responsible for the regulatory agencies, not Barney Frank. This doesn't mean that Barney Frank is not guilty too, it means that the buck stops with Bush and his power he used of didn't use in the executive branch.


hypo, you are a hypocrite. The facts above are not liberal or conservative. That is just fodder for the simple minded that Fox News has developed over time. Don't think, they will think for you. If in trouble, just start calling everyone a liberal and don't stop until, well, don't stop.

Sorry about that hypo, it was Steve I was responding to but it fits you 89.8 percent of the time too.

Tex

 

[Mike]

New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae

By STEPHEN LABATON
Published: September 11, 2003

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

Bush tried to regulate them in a responsible manner.

 

[Steve]

Quick response to liberals like Tex,... if god forbid you have to spend labor day with them... :?

I sure would like Buffet to cough up the billion his company owes...

Buffet is majority stake holder followed by Gates..

"Berkshire Hathaway had $24.30 billion in cash and cash equivalents. [1]"

by the look of it they can afford to pay up...

Regardless of what Buffet said, it was what he did that matters.

while little in Tex's rant had anything to do with what I posted.. the bolded/underlined part was funny so I left it...


as for calling a liberal a liberal.. why does the word bother liberals so much?

 

[hypocritexposer]

Quick response to liberals like Tex,... if god forbid you have to spend labor day with them... :?

I sure would like Buffet to cough up the billion his company owes...

Buffet is majority stake holder followed by Gates..

"Berkshire Hathaway had $24.30 billion in cash and cash equivalents. [1]"

by the look of it they can afford to pay up...

Regardless of what Buffet said, it was what he did that matters.

while little in Tex's rant had anything to do with what I posted.. the bolded/underlined part was funny so I left it...


as for calling a liberal a liberal.. why does the word bother liberals so much?

give it a little time, when people figure out what a "progressive" is, liberals will want to be called "liberals" again.

 

[Tex]

New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae

By STEPHEN LABATON
Published: September 11, 2003

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

Bush tried to regulate them in a responsible manner.

So you are telling me that Bush could stand up against Saddam Hussein but not Barney Frank?

If that was the case, it was by choice. No politician should be judged on what they say, but rather what they do.

I will agree with you that Bush was way busy managing two wars but one has to walk and chew gum at the same time. Did Franklin Raines go to jail? Clearly his misdeeds were known during the Bush administration but he was not forcefully prosecuted (to be fair, not under Obama either) and this was an EXECUTIVE BRANCH RESPONSIBILITY.

Bush didn't try hard enough which is a common story among the political elite of both parties.

Tex

Tex