Wall Street Journal is a solid source of economic news data and good reporting, however, I always found it puzzling how this can coexist with the loonies who write editorials there. I mean, they have Karl Rove as a contributor, for Christ sake, usually lecturing Obama on how to run the country.
Here’s the latest:
Here’s a quote: ”The logic is clear if curious: While it’s OK to blame Mr. Bush for spending too much, it’s not OK to point out that Mr. Obama is already well on track to spend much more.”
Um, yeah, he has to buy the cleaning supplies plus pay the bills for the stuff you bought. I’m at awe at how the biggest fact that escapes those guys is that the crisis didn’t built overnight, but they honestly expect Obama to fix it in 9 months? Perhaps those “experts” have a solution on how to stop a train at full speed? They demand to see results right now, stomping their feet on the ground and end up looking like petulant juveniles.
After I read the comments page I felt like going into a rant.
Most favorite argument that I keep hearing from many Republican friends is that 40% of taxes are paid by 1% of the people on top. Yeah, and? 35% tax on $1bn is more than 35% tax on $200,000. Yes. We have established that we can count. Are you proposing the top 1% being taxed on absolute dollar amount rather than the percent of what they make? Are you demanding that because the $200,000 guy pays $70,000 in taxes, that’s what the $1bn guy should pay? Because when you make statements like the one above, you sound like that’s what you’re implying. Besides, if that really rubs you the wrong way, perhaps the real reason for this disparity is that now the top 1% earns about 300 times of what the average Joe makes, while 20 years ago it was more like 70 times. Perhaps, you’re barking at the wrong tree and it’s not the tax rates you should be attacking but the wage disparity.
You know, this “cutting taxes will solve all problems” crowd is really a piece of work. Their next favorite argument is pulling Ayn Rand and start painting the horrid picture of rich giving up and disappearing. And where exactly are they going to go? In Russia there’s a flat tax of 13%, but these guys are not in a hurry to move there, because, you see, they are socialists over there. (They really are not, but that’s the storyline on the Right and I don’t want to break it for them. B.L.). Or better yet, Somalia – it’s a libertarian paradise. No taxes, no government, guns everywhere, but again, I don’t see a mass exodus there. You see, while they’d love not to pay any taxes, they still need someone to enforce laws, like property laws and it’s the guvmint job. You know, the same govmint that we hate, but would love to run to show that it doesn’t work. Isn’t that what Republicans excel at?
Left with Balls 