Comments on: Handy Brother-in-Law Retorts

By: Misaki

Misaki — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 09:51:48 +0000

As of Jan 2011, only 19% of people were watching Fox (within confidence for the sample size), down from 26% in Feb 2010, out of 83% of the population watching TV in Jan 2011.

http://documents.nytimes.com/new-york-timescbs-news-poll-reducing-the-deficit?ref=politics

By: Misaki

Misaki — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 09:45:44 +0000

“most of the public wants the government to spend less, and doesn’t want the government to create jobs with spending from current or deferred taxes or inflation”

reply: …

By: Kathleen Fox

Kathleen Fox — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 19:15:53 +0000

Every time you go into a government office, or a doctor’s or dentist’s office, notice what they have on the television. Most of them have Fox, which creates a captive audience for them, and people believe what they hear 500 times. So maybe the b-i-l wouldn’t even have anything to say if it hadn’t been forced on him. I’ve started asking them to put on CNN, and sometimes they do.

By: Roman Berry

Roman Berry — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 12:37:30 +0000

…we could fully cover the shortfall in Social Security, by using the revenue we’d get from the expiration of the highend Bush tax cuts. Not even all the cuts, just the highend ones.

That’s a fail, and the reason that it’s a fail is because there is no shortfall in Social Security. None. Zero. Nada. Zilch.

Social Security is perhaps the most solvent program of any. The Social Security surplus is over 2 trillion dollars and is expect to grow to over 4 trillion in the next decade before the trust fund is gradually drawn down over the following fifteen to twenty years…exactly as designed.

People who claim that there is a shortfall in Social Security are helping (intentionally or not) to reinforce the meme that Social Security is going broke. It isn’t. The problem that people like Barack Obama and other Republicans have with Social Security is two fold: First, they don’t want the deficit masking effect of excess Social Security contributions to end. And second, as would logically follow, they don’t want to have to repay the loans taken from the Social Security Trust Fund (which were used to help offset the costs of all those tax cuts) which are guaranteed by the special purpose treasuries that were issued to the trust fund when that money was borrowed.

That’s really the “crisis” in a nutshell right there: Obama and other Republicans don’t want to ever repay the money borrowed from Social Security. They want the program to constantly be “in surplus” so that they can effectively steal that surplus.

Anytime someone (even with the best of intentions) starts talking about the “shortfall” in Social Security, they need to be corrected. Because what they are saying, no matter how well intended, is wrong.

By: Richard Ettelson

Richard Ettelson — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 02:32:19 +0000

My in-laws are mostly Republicans, some are even Obama haters; I’m not just reading your post, I’m studying it. Thanks!

By: Brian.Montana

Brian.Montana — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 22:01:34 +0000

This is an excellent list! Like Lex says, DeLong has the Notes for the Virtual Green Room, but I’ll be more likely to run into arguments that your list will help explain.

Thanks Jared!

By: general c. san desist

general c. san desist — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 20:29:50 +0000

jfk proposed the end of ideology, essentially myth vs. reality, when he stated the following…

What is at stake in our economic decisions today is not some grand warfare of rival ideologies which sweep the country with passion but the practical management of a modern economy. What we need are not labels and clichés but more basic discussion of the sophisticated and technical questions involved in keeping a great economic machinery moving ahead…Political labels and ideological approaches are irrelevant to the solutions…Technical answers-not political answers-must be provided.

…problem is Jack didn’t have osama boss limbaugh nor henpeck nor the Treasury Extortion Anarchist Party nipping at his ankles. Just exactly how did the Fairness Doctrine get gelded & why?

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 20:10:00 +0000

Have you heard the definition of rich? Making more money that your wife’s brother-in-law. So I’ll never be rich as my wife’s b-in-law is a CEO. I could have used these on him a while back, but even they are starting to see the light and think they should pay more taxes. I just don’t understand were all the business owners are in this. They know they have weak demand and yet they stay silent on cuts in spending that reduce demand further.

By: Lex

Lex — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 19:34:28 +0000

Brad DeLong at Berkeley has done something similar, posting some items on his blog titled something like "Notes for the Virtual Green Room," which are basically factual rejoinders to conservative talking points. Bless you both for trying to repair the fraying edges of the reality-based community.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 19:25:56 +0000

While I agree with your first point that cutting spending cuts jobs, the example you cite is a bad one. The whole 70,000 number was just based off a formula from a 3 year old study. Of the “70,000″ cut jobs it turns out that 46,000 of them weren’t lost, but rather “impacted.” And these 46,000 jobs were not construction workers out of work, but people like “drug store clerks and restaurant waitresses, who might see ‘a tiny bit less revenue flow.’”

Here’s a link: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/08/04/faa.jobs/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn