Can We Start Telling the Truth and Have It Really Be The Truth?
September 22nd, 2008Truth. Reality. Apparently the GOP owns them both. By lying and then hearing the lie repeated constantly by everybody, including the supposedly liberal media:
Via: this commenter. Thanks, kadams76!
If only the mainstream media would start calling McCain a liar. Because that is what he is. Continually.
For GOP supporting liars, here’s a direct refutation of the lie that you are telling about Obama wanting to “raise your taxes”:
Tax Cuts for Wealthy Instead of Middle Class: The Bush tax cuts give those who earn over $1 million dollars a tax cut nearly 160 times greater than that received by middle-income Americans. At the same time, this administration has refused to tackle health care, education and housing in a manner that benefits the middle class.
snip
Obama and Biden will cut income taxes by $1,000 for working families to offset the payroll tax they pay.
Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families:
Obama and Biden will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need. Obama and Biden will create a new “Making Work Pay” tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. The “Making Work Pay” tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans.Eliminate Income Taxes for Seniors Making Less than $50,000:
Barack Obama will eliminate all income taxation of seniors making less than $50,000 per year. This proposal will eliminate income taxes for 7 million seniors and provide these seniors with an average savings of $1,400 each year. Under the Obama-Biden plan, 27 million American seniors will also not need to file an income tax return.Simplify Tax Filings for Middle Class Americans:
Obama and Biden will dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes. Obama and Biden will ensure that the IRS uses the information it already gets from banks and employers to give taxpayers the option of pre-filled tax forms to verify, sign and return. Experts estimate that the Obama-Biden proposal will save Americans up to 200 million total hours of work and aggravation and up to $2 billion in tax preparer fees.
Where did I find this? Not from the “liberal media”. Certainly not from a lying GOP supporting pundit. I found this on BarakObama.com. Specifically, this page.
Who is going to stand up for truth? This is why I keep posting political stuff this season. I can’t fucking stand the lying any more. o
Tags: 2008 presidential election, McCain lies, politics, video
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September 22nd, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Not only that but his tax cuts will benefit 95% of Americans and his middle class tax cut is 3 to 8 times bigger than McCain’s. Also, as if you needed a further sticking point for those who live outside the realm of reality, there’s this:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_07/014046.php
Adds up much better than McCain’s. But then again, no surprises there…
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Fuckers.
I can’t believe that they actually spin things so it seems like the GOP has a tax break plan for middle-class Americans. When we all know their tax breaks will go to their rich Republican friends.
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Keep doing what you’re doing. I know I appreciate it.
The Maddow piece was highly interesting and so well presented. We should all get it out there like this. Thanks.
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:42 pm
John~ Love your blog. I am one of those on the fence and not sure who I am going to vote for. It seems like you take up most of your your space telling me why I should NOT vote for McCain. Tell me why I SHOULD vote for Obama.
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Thanks, Jon. I’m sick of the lying, too. I just wish I had more faith in the general public to say enough is enough and vote for Obama in a landslide.
I like the new Rachel Maddow show. I liked her as a fill-in for Keith Olbermann on Countdown.
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:37 pm
@timothylrees, You need look only as far as last week. Obama handled the news of the financial crisis amazingly well. He assembled a committee of financial experts to advise him, he was careful and he spoke in a consistent, measured and eloquent way. He’s not the president yet, but he sure acted like it exhibiting prudence and calm in the middle of a major crisis.
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Well said Blurb….
It’s difficult to stay on topic and point out the obvious strength in the Democratic campaign this election cycle when the opposing side consumes themselves with spreading lies and more lies (for the record, people still believe he is a muslim terrorist).
http://mudflats.wordpress.com/2008/09/21/confessions-of-a-sign-hacker/
I’ve noticed Obama has not buckled to the pressure to ‘play their game’, and I respect him for that. However, that does put much more pressure on those of us supporting him to point out the consistent lies put forth by the GOP / McPhalin campaign. Well done.
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Jon,
thanks for continuously providing not only insight, but also finding outlets that inject a little humor into this whole experience. Kind of one of those “I’ve got to keep laughing, or I’ll start crying” kinds of things.
I find myself in the same boat– posting all this political stuff because its the most pressing thing I have to say when I start to type.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Thanks for posting this. The MSM will start calling liars liars when it is blatantly obvious to everyone that people are liars and they have no other choice but to call them that. Posts like this one are a step in that direction.
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:15 pm
I hadn’t commented before today and I’m sure you won’t miss my readership at all. Hell, I don’t even see the ads on your site 99% of the time, since I usually read through Google Reader in Firefox with AdBlock Plus. That being said, I felt like I ought to let you know that I’m unsubscribing from your feed and I won’t be back until after the election, at which point, I’ll play it by ear. For me, it’s not about whether I agree or disagree with you, but about my not liking a site that I visit for intelligent commentary on random topic turning into a series of righteously indignant rants in which anybody who doesn’t see things your way is seen as a moron.
September 22nd, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Bravo. Loved the video.
@daephin, intelligent commentary is welcome…these posts have nothing to do with mocking the Republican viewpoint and EVERYTHING to do with drawing attention to McCain and how dishonestly he is running his campaign. We’d be having the same discussion if it were Obama doing all the lying (and I’ve cringed at more than one of his half-truths, trust me), with perhaps a tinge more embarrassment.
That being said, I think Jon will be interested in this (& others): http://www.nationinstitute.org/p/schanberg09182008pt1 . I know, it screams LIBERAL CONSPIRACY THEORY at first glance but the ten key points at the end are pretty damning. I wouldn’t be basing my campaign on my war hero status if I were him…
September 22nd, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Teh Awesome: Buy My Shitpile! http://www.buymyshitpile.com/
“With our economy in crisis, the US Government is scrambling to rescue our banks by purchasing their “distressed assets”, i.e., assets that no one else wants to buy from them. We figured that instead of protesting this plan, we’d give regular Americans the same opportunity to sell their bad assets to the government. We need your help and you need the Government’s help!
Use the form below to submit bad assets you’d like the government to take off your hands. And remember, when estimating the value of your 1997 limited edition Hanson single CD “MMMbop”, it’s not what you can sell these items for that matters, it’s what you think they are worth. The fact that you think they are worth more than anyone will buy them for is what makes them bad assets.”
September 23rd, 2008 at 4:36 am
Hi Jon, have you seen this aspect of the bailout bill? It’s really going underreported.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/22/dirty-secret-of-the-bailo_n_128294.html
Somewhat related, insofar as it yet another example of the way the GOP feels about democratic due process.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:02 am
I am the complete opposite of daephin: I love coming here and seeing your political commentary. Not enough people pay attention to politics these days, and it’s nice to see blatant lies exposed.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:45 am
Thank you for posting this. I have never been so angry during an election before and I am 31. I moved from Pittsburgh to a small conservative out in the middle of no where town in PA and it is frustrating. I read our “newspaper” and it has a section called 30 seconds. Basically any yahoo can right in and say what they feel. Ugh. It tortures me. The are convinced Obama is a terrorist and his wife hates america. It is exhausting. Unfortunately all the truth and facts in the world will not convince these idiots!
Obama ‘08
September 23rd, 2008 at 12:00 pm
If you don’t pay taxes, you can’t get a tax cut, what you get is a check taken from taxes someone else paid. Over 40% of the population pays no income taxes, and 60% pays very little. If you get more “back” from the government than you paid in you are not getting a tax cut you are getting a welfare payment and to call it a tax cut is a lie. For the record, the “rich” got back less as a percentage from the “Bush tax cuts” than they paid in. If you paid more, you got more, though by percentage it was skewed to the lower payer. To divide up the total amount of benefit from the cuts and then say the “rich” got most of it is itself a lie. If I paid $100 in taxes and got back $10 - ten percent - and someone paid $50 and got back $7.50 - fifteen percent - it’s a lie to say that I got more of a tax cut. Finally, if Obama lives up to all the new spending he implies in his speeches and then says he can give 95% of the people a tax cut, he’s telling the biggest whopper of the campaign.
September 23rd, 2008 at 12:46 pm
@dross, ???
Read this and get back to me:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/election_issues_matrix.cfm
You are joking, right? Your numbers don’t add up. Nor do your accusations.
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Yes, dross….it’s only those pesky poor people who don’t pay taxes. It’s never, ever the rich trying to get out of paying Federal taxes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_and_Elaine_Brown
http://www.nhpr.org/node/13434
You might think about moving to New Hampshire, there’s no sales tax and no income tax…and no public services! Live Free or Die and all that good stuff….lock and load.
September 23rd, 2008 at 4:10 pm
MSM is starting to do a little fact checking of its own. Keep up the good work Blurb!
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/23/fact-check-does-obama-want-to-ban-guns-and-rifles/#more-20006
September 23rd, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Thank you for posting this - it really is exactly how I am feeling.
September 24th, 2008 at 6:52 am
blurb,
Which of my numbers don’t add up? The example I used of the “Bush cuts” were not exact numbers, but illustrated the principle the cuts followed. If you’d like me to look up the exact numbers to prove my point I will. The principle will remain the same. In the meantime, here’s my answer to your link:
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/09/17/obama-tax-cutter-or-tax-hiker/
September 24th, 2008 at 8:49 am
The media needs to demand that Palin be interviewed, for a start! This kind of debacle, just a few weeks from the elections, is startling. The lies are building and building, and it seems that not enough people are actually questioning them
September 24th, 2008 at 10:28 am
@dross, My link was non-partisan. Your partisan link is biased.
Bottom line: Obama gives a bigger tax cut than McCain for the middle class. You can try to obfuscate that fact, but your obfuscation is merely a smoke screen for reality.
September 24th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Much of Obama’s cut is actually a payment. The breaks are refundable credits and available even to those who don’t have a tax bill — and many of those targeted don’t.
He’s raising income taxes on higher incomes, taxes on capital gains and dividends, and hinted at raising payroll taxes on higher incomes. He’s raising myriad taxes on business — windfall profits on oil companies, rearrangement of income earned in other countries, etc. Except last week he admitted that income tax increases are bad for growth and maybe he’ll hold those until the economy recovers.
Bottom line, he’s raising taxes on people who aren’t his constituency and giving the money to people who are. It might work as politics, but doesn’t encourage the growth needed to give people jobs.
September 24th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
blurb,
The Tax Policy Center, which you call non-partisan, is a joint venture between the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, which are left-leaning think tanks. I believe the Tax Policy Center is biased, so we get nowhere with that. I wasn’t attempting to address which tax cut is better for the middle class. The assertion I was arguing against in my comment was:
“here’s a direct refutation of the lie that you are telling about Obama wanting to ‘raise your taxes’”,
which appears in the original post. The poster used the Obama campaign web site to back up Obama’s assertion that he is cutting rather than raising taxes, and then goes on to use that as “proof” that McCain is lying. You can dice it any way you want, but under Obama middle class taxes will be higher than they are today. In order to say that isn’t so, he assumes that the tax cuts currently in effect won’t be extended, which they most certainly will. You call McCain a liar for saying that Obama will raise taxes, which his plan will, unless you define tax cuts as raising taxes on middle and upper payers, and giving checks to lower level non-payers.
Even the Tax Policy Center which you cite says in their analysis of the two tax plans in their “An Updated Analysis of the 2008
Presidential Candidates’ Tax Plans” says,
“In several important ways, the candidates’ speeches and web sites differ from the plans as we’ve outlined them above, and, in several cases, descriptions of proposals provided by campaign advisors strike us as implausible.”
That’s a nice way of saying BOTH candidates are lying.
If I pay more total taxes today than I do tomorrow, then my taxes have been raised not cut and to say otherwise is a lie.