Why Won’t John McCain Call Harry Reid A Liar? (VIDEO)
Anderson Cooper asks John McCain about Harry Reid’s allegation that Mitt Romney didn’t pay taxes for ten years. The entire exchange is simply mind-boggling.
First, Anderson Cooper seems shocked that Harry Reid would make such an accusation without offering any proof. What? This is a new thing in politics? Harry Reid has come under intense fire from the “liberal” media for making a claim and presenting no evidence for it. Yet, over the last three years we’ve heard that Obama is a Muslim, he was born in Kenya, he’s going to take all our guns away, he has an enemies list, he hates white people, he’s a junkie, his birth certificate is fake, Obamacare has death panels, Muslims have infiltrated the government and we’ll be living under Sharia law any day now.
The lack of mainstream media outrage at these unfounded and hysterical claims was noticeable to say the least. Whatever could be different this time? Oh right! A Democrat said it! I forgot. IOKIYAR – It’s OK If You’re A Republican.
The important part is McCain’s response (and what he doesn’t say):
“Occasionally he displays some erratic behavior.” Since when? Reid has a reputation for being insanely mild mannered. Last week, however, he got so angry, he used the word “poppycock” on the Senate floor. Yeah, Harry’s out of control.
“I think Harry might have gone over the line.” So Sarah Palin can accuse Obama of “paling around with terrorists” but accusing a known tax dodger (“It’s all legal!”) of dodging taxes is a just a bridge to nowhere too far? Really?
Notice that McCain entire response is to attack Reid on a personal level. The response from most of the right-wing has been the same; RNC chairman Reince Preibus even called Reid a “dirty liar.” Yet, John McCain, of the few public figures to have seen Romney’s tax returns just couldn’t bring himself to say “Harry Reid is lying.” Nothing he’s said contradicts Reid in any way. Why not? He would know, wouldn’t he? If he knows that Reid is lying, then he has every right to say so. Of course, if McCain says Reid is lying, Romney’s tax returns get out and it turns out Reid was telling the truth…well…
And that should tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about this “controversy.”
[CLICK THE LINK TO WATCH VIDEO]
(Source: seriouslyamerica)
Trivia Time! Who said it: President Obama or President Reagan?
“[I received] a letter from a man out here in the country, an executive who’s earning six figures, well above $100,000 per year. He wrote me in support of the tax plan because he said, ‘I am legally able to take advantage of the present tax code, nothing dishonest, doing what the law prescribes, and wind up paying a smaller tax than my secretary pays.’ He wrote to me to tell me he’d like to come to Washington and testify before Congress as to how that’s possible for him to do and why it is wrong.”
If you picked the guy who raised taxes seven out of eight years he was in office, then you’d be correct.
Until World War II, the income tax was levied only on the rich. But wartime spending meant the government needed money, and ordinary folks are now asked to pay.
“There was a lot of concern that Americans just wouldn’t do it,” Joe Thorndike, co-author of the book War and Taxes, says. “Or that they wouldn’t understand that they were supposed to … or even just how to do it.”
The government needed to get the word out. It needed a spokesperson. Someone credible, and easy to understand.
The government needed Donald Duck.
The movie at the top of this post is from 1943. In it, Donald Duck marches around his house, listening to the radio and filling out his tax form. Occupation: actor. Dependents: three (Huey, Dewey and Louie).
I’ve never seen the original. Its interesting propaganda.
(Source: seriouslyamerica)
Morgan Stanley Executive Calls For Higher Taxes On The Rich: ‘We Cannot Cut Our Way To Greatness’
By Pat Garofalo | Think Progress
Several wealthy bankers, investors, and entrepreneurs have called for higher taxes on the rich as an important part of reducing the nation’s deficit, led most prominently by Warren Buffett. “It is mathematically impossible to invest enough in our economy and our country to sustain the middle class (our customers) without taxing the top 1 percent at reasonable levels again,” wrote wealthy entrepreneur Nick Hanauer in an op-ed last week. “Significant tax increases on the about $1.5 trillion in collective income of those of us in the top 1 percent could create hundreds of billions of dollars to invest in our economy, rather than letting it pile up in a few bank accounts like a huge clot in our nation’s economic circulatory system.”
Joining the list of those in financial positions of power that are calling for higher taxes on the rich is Morgan Stanley Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat who, as the Huffington Post’s Bonnie Kavoussi reported, said over the weekend that it’s “inappropriate” that income inequality in the country is continuing to grow while taxes on the rich stay low:
“The wealthiest can afford to pay more in taxes. That’s a part of the deal. That makes sense. I don’t know anyone that doesn’t agree with that,” Porat said.“The wealth disparity between the lowest and the highest continues to expand, and that’s inappropriate.” “We cannot cut our way to greatness,” she added.
The rising compensation of executives and those in the banking industry is one of the major factors driving the nation’s income inequality. And at the same time that the rich have been getting richer, their tax rates have been plummeting. It’s refreshing to hear someone in the banking industry acknowledge these truths and want to rectify them, rather than decrying higher taxes on the rich as akin to the Nazi invasion of Poland.
Rep. Steve LaTourette (R) of Ohio, who signed the Americans for Tax Reform pledge to never raise taxes in 1994.
The Christian Science Monitor’s Gail Russell Chaddock writes about increasingly strident Congressional criticism of the tax pledge.
This could be construed as a hopeful sign for the deficit supercommittee, which has been hung up on whether increased tax revenue.
Here’s another zinger from Democrat Rep. Rob Andrews (N.J.), one of the few Democrats who ever signed the pledge.
“I signed the pledge in 1992, and I understood it to mean that for the next term, if I were reelected, I would not vote to raise taxes,” he says. “I honored that pledge.”
“But I never renewed it. I never considered it to be like my marriage vows, I’m married to Camille Andrews not Grover Norquist. I promised her to be faithful until death do us part, and I mean it. I did not promise him to oppose tax increases until death do us part.”
(via dcdecoder)
(Source: dcdecoder)
