Sherrod Brown tells Democrats to grow a spine and fight to end the tax cuts on the rich:
Sherrod Brown, who is in a competitive race in Ohio, flatly stated that the President’s proposal is right on the substance and on the politics.
“This is simply restoring the tax levels from years ago on two percent of taxpayers,” Brown told me. “I don’t know why some Democrats are queasy. Possibly they think it’s better messaging if the cutoff is $1 million. Elected officials at this level know a lot of people who make $300,000. We generally don’t spend enough time with people who make $30,000.”
“But I think the president is right here,” Brown continued. “The American public thinks that if you make a quarter million dollars, you’re doing really well. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be shouting this from the rooftops.”
“I think independents will see this exactly as the president does — that people making that much can afford to pay a little more,” Brown said.
Here is Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley explaining why his state raised taxes on the rich to pay for necessary services:
Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland, the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, gave an impassioned defense of his approach to mayors from across the state who gathered here at the end of last month at the annual convention of the Maryland Municipal League.
“Without any anger, and without any meanness, and without any fear, let’s ask one another in these critical months ahead and years ahead: how much less do we think would be good for our state?” Mr. O’Malley asked. “How much less do we think would be good for our country? How much less education would be good for our children? How many fewer college degrees would make our state or our country more competitive? How much less research and development would be good for the innovation economy that we have an obligation and a responsibility, a duty and an imperative, to embrace? How many fewer hungry Maryland kids can we afford to feed? Progress is a choice: we can decide whether to make the tough choices necessary to invest in our shared future and move forward together. Or we can be the first generation of Marylanders to give our children a lesser quality of life with fewer opportunities.”
Now that wasn’t very hard, was it Democrats? More pols like these two.
Cassidy
OT, noticed something interesting today. The CNN comments, which I regard as one step above youtube comments, seem to be very anti-Romney/ Republican, lately.
cathyx
Every time I hear Sherrod Brown’s name, I think of Rush Limbaugh mistakenly thinking he was black.
Rommie
Biden layed into Mittens but good with the papers comment. I’m feeling better about their plans for the next 16-17 weeks. Perhaps the GOPers shouldn’t have whined about Chicago Politics so much now that they are looking at getting force-fed the real deal.
4tehlulz
Eric Holder goes there.
RP
No, no, no…they should listen to Drew Westin and talk about raising taxes on people making “a quarter million dollars” instead of $250,000. Or, better yet, limit it to millionaires.
Nutella
Nope, that’s worse messaging. It’s bad enough saying that everyone from 0 to $250k is middle class but FFS tax the damn millionaires.
venice
Actually, everyone gets the tax cuts…but only on their first $250k of income.
So “the rich” are not being singled out, they get the same tax cut that everyone else gets, but not more than that.
RosiesDad
It also might not hurt to hammer home the point that back in the Boom 1990’s, everyone paid higher tax rates and since the tax rates were lowered, the economy has been flat to worse. Post hoc ergo propter hoc? I don’t think so.
This AM on MJ, they were having this same discussion and they played a clip of Obama talking about raising tax rates on earners >$250K and then Romney talking about the wrong time to raise taxes on job creators. And I thought to myself, “We’ve had these tax rates for a LONG TIME and we’ve had crappy job growth for an equally long time. WTF doesn’t someone point this out?”
And then, lo and behold, Mika actually said it. Flabbergasted I was.
c u n d gulag
Warren/O’Malley in 2016!
Or, O’Malley/Warren in 2016!
dmsilev
Along a similar vein, Release The Biden!:
MomSense
I heard Gov. O’Malley speak at our Maine Democratic convention and he was fantastic–smart messaging.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
These three, John. I believe Brown mentioned another Democrat that had the right idea.
NonyNony
@dmsilev:
Holy shit – did Biden just smack the guy with Daddy issues in the face with a “you’re not half the man your Daddy was”?
…
Yes. Yes he did.
If the chattering classes put this out there for discussion I expect the tantrum from Romney to be epic.
Smiling Mortician
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Thank you for that. I was trying to figure out how to say “Um, hello? Props for the guys who agree with the president, but not for the president himself? WTF?” But you said it better.
dmsilev
@NonyNony: We can but hope. Extreme hilarity would undoubtedly ensue.
Especially since Romney is going with the “I know *nothing*” defense with regards to stashing cash in overseas tax havens.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NonyNony:
Yeah, I think this is reeeaaaally gonna get under Romney’s skin. Like grains of sand in a the gears and cogs and software of a finely tuned robot.
Legalize
Shorter Biden: I knew your father – you’re not your father.
Biden is the perfect guy to be out there ripping Willard’s entitled, smug, fucking face off.
ant
Perhaps if congress people didn’t spend 5 out of 8 hours a day calling millionaires and begging for money every day, then I wouldn’t be so cynical.
But yeah, whatever.
Mr Stagger Lee
Perhaps they should be asking questions in Pennsylvania why are policemen and fire-fighters facing a prospect of minimum wage jobs? Why would anyone want to stop a bullet or go into an inferno to save a life when they can paid to flip burgers a much safer job? So the TP’ers are willing to sacrifice civilization David Koch can get an extra million in tax savings, and maybe..just maybe might throw a quarter at them.
ant
the whole goddamned thing is fucked.
Leadership positions and powerful committee chairmanships are all allocated to whoever can call the most millionaires and lick ass the most.
They should just make the cuts permanent, and knock off all the bullshit theater.
Gets annoying.
General Stuck
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Teebee, my first thought at this post. Maybe we need braver bloggers as well for some non nutroot approved news.
Xecky Gilchrist
You know why else the Democrats should raise taxes? Because the Republicans think they’ve already done it, so why not?
taylormattd
bullypulpit, they’re all cowards, moar bullpulpit, ALANGRAYSON.
General Stuck
Speaking of Sherrod Brown, the wingnuts keep pouring CU and other monies down that Ohio rabbit hole, and Brown is maintaining a double digit lead according to TMP polltracker. It sounds like Brown is five by five in the pipe glide slope to victory with a message the citizens of Ohio approve of. Obama ain’t doing to bad there either. Not bad at all. Maybe he can sneak under the wire riding the courageous Brown coat tails. Discuss
Rafer Janders
I dunno. Their tone seems pretty uncivil to me….
Lee Hartmann
Another O’Malley gem, via Drum:
I’ve never known of a Swiss bank account to build an American bridge, a Swiss bank account to create American jobs, or Swiss bank accounts to rebuild the levees to protect the people of New Orleans. That’s not an economic strategy for moving our country forward.
Patricia Kayden
Good for Sherrod and O’Malley (my Governor). And yes, Dems need to grow a spine. Not just for the taxes issue, but for pretty much everything. Looking at you Corey Booker and Ed Rendell.
...now I try to be amused
I heart America’s Favorite Uncle Joe. That is all.
David Koch
But blogosphere icon Russ Feingold was against raising taxes on the rich. Shouldn’t we listen to Russ?
James E. Powell
We could use about a hundred more Democratic senators and congress-creatures saying the exact same thing. Since most people agree with it, we can expect such statements to meet with and increase support for what the president is proposing. I’d say, have the senate schedule a vote for early October.
Ask the whole country, “Is America a country worth paying for?”
rikyrah
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/outside-spending-against-sherrod-brown-tops-10-million
Kathleen
@General Stuck: Kay has uplifted my cynical soul with two excellent observations about Ohio politics. 1. Outside money failed to defeat the well organized “on the ground” campaign in the fight to overturn Issue 2 in Ohio and 2. Most of the people she meets have nothing but good things to say about Sherrod Brown. He’s a very experienced congressman/senator who provides excellent constituent service. I know of one other Democratic office holder in Hamilton County (Ohio) who is beloved and supported by both Democrats and Republicans because he works very hard and talks to his constituents. So there is hope. Provided our votes are counted honestly.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
More Democratic politicians who wholeheartedly support the Democratic president and his agenda instead of trying to prove that they’re “independent thinkers” by opposing all of Obama’s policy proposals?
Gotta agree with you there.
General Stuck
@Kathleen:
I was born and partly raised in Ohio, in the SW corner that is pure wingnut, and still have lots of family there, but is also full of union folks that work in auto parts making, and all sorts of other appliance and tool and die type manufacturing. So I kinda knew what an assault on basic union rights to collective bargain, even if with public employees. Ohio is Much more a union state than WI or IN.
Add onto that, the appreciation for Obama saving the auto industry, and Romney wanting to send it to the Wall Street bankster wolves, along with saving the ancillary auto parts makers throughout the state, and it’s a double dose of anti republican sentiment, for all but the most rabid wingnuts. Of which there is no shortage of.
I love Sherrod Brown, right up there with my two senators, Tom Udall and Jeff Bingaman, soon to be replaced by just as solid lib Martin Heinrich. But Brown owes Obama big credit for facing down the “bail out” haters, on both the right and left, to save the auto industry.
Arclite
Huzzah!
gene108
With CNN trying to be a Fox News clone, I’m not sure there’s any real hope in getting any non-right-wingnut message out.
Watched Wolf Blitzer for a few minutes today. He was going on and on about a hospital in Afghanistan that we sunk $100 million into, but the Afghans running it weren’t doing a good job. Charges of patients starving because they couldn’t bribe officials for food or medicine.
Some ex-military officers, who were there helping the Afghans are now whistle blowers and contend the Lt. Gen. in charge covered this up to help Obama and Democrats in 2010.
There’s an ongoing IG investigation of their claims, but Republicans in the House are jumping on this as a major issue.
Wolf said he won’t stop covering it because $100 million is a lot of waste of taxpayer money and the government could’ve built a hospital in the U.S. for that kind of money.
In short, between CNN (which people still think is balanced and therefore people aren’t on guard for their right-wing tilt) Fox News, Citizen’s United “free speech”, and the regular right-wing media, it doesn’t matter how popular an issue is because the people, who like it won’t ever find out about it.
It’ll be drowned out by the wurlitzer.
MCA1
@Lee Hartmann: Oh, I like that line of rhetoric. “Why aren’t all those Cayman Island partnerships creating more jobs?”
Smiling Mortician
@Kathleen:
And provided that all that CU money doesn’t buy shock-lie ads at the last minute that are believed by enough people.
These are my two fears: first, that the vote-suppression/poll tax tactic will make things close enough to steal; and second, that the current acceptance of flat-out lies as just another example of “opinions differ” will translate into some ridiculous fake-scandal ads in October that will be met with a resounding lack of journalism . . . here’s hoping I’m just being cynical and paranoid.
liberal
Yawn. I’d nod in agreement if they started making moves to increase taxes on real property, particularly land, since government spending by and large ends up increasing land values without any contribution to production from landowners whatsoever.
Baud
@liberal:
Yawning helps sustain the Republican party. No thanks.
El Cid
__
Much less! All of it! Less than that, too!
Zero education would be good for our children if it’s gubmit education! Good people can save their tax money and pay for their churches to properly instruct the childrens!
We can afford to feed zero hungry Maryland children. They shouldn’t be hungry — after all, their home probably has a refrigerator and a color TV and if they’d eat just rice and beans then they could afford food!
khead
As a MD resident, I’m all for it.
I also plan to gamble at lovely Arundel Mills Casino.
dp
I’m becoming quite the fan of Martin O’Malley.
Wazmo
@dmsilev: George Romney is more of a man that his spawn is-yet another case of trying to be more successful that DADDY.
Elias Isquith
Way to go, Carcetti!
asiangrrlMN
Gov. O’Malley is my newest political crush ever since he schooled Bob Schieffer on whatever show the latter hosts. Schieffer tried to talk about PBO’s “gaffe” about the private sector being fine, and Gov. O’Malley gave the full context of the PBO quote under the guise of what he’s sure PBO meant to say, making Schieffer look foolish.
By the way, when did Schieffer become a RW hack?
BruceFromOhio
Senator Sherrod Brown is the real fucking deal, and the Koch-sucking soulless ratfuck criminals know it, having now dumped millions into defeating him by fronting some young jackal and ponying up for a shitload of ad buys. Fuckers.
I’ve had the pleasure of voting for him when he was a back-bencher Dem for OH-13, saw him speak at a Drinking Liberally event sick as a fucking dog when he was stumping for his first run for the Senate, riveting every single person in the room with a real stem-winder that reminded me, again, why I am so proud to be a dyed-in-the-wool blue-to-the-core liberal Democrat. Caught him at a small fund-raiser in Ohio City in January, dropped off at the curb by himself like he was meeting friends at a bar (which he was), working the room in real-time for all comers, then taking the stage to hammer the republicans re-fucking-lentlessly, while reminding everyone that things like health care, college education, a decent living wage are there for everyone if we’re willing to stand and fight for it. Simple message, forcefully delivered, and WYSIWYG.
Sen. Brown is just the kind of guy to take it right to the sonsabitches with too much money and no Gaia-damned sense.
rb
I think the 2016 nom is Hillary Clinton’s if she wants it. If not, O’Malley will win the nom and the general.* Mark it down.
*Barring, you know, global cataclysm and chaos on a scale not seen since early 2008.
Nina
That’s my guv!
And not only that, he’s a decent Irish musician. Not brilliant, but decent. Which is all you need after your first Guinness anyhow.
SW
Fucking idiots! The tax cut on taxable income below two hundred and fifty thousand dollars is a tax cut for EVERYBODY not just low and middle income earners. Everyone gets that tax cut. This is the very definition of fairness. You just don’t get a tax cut on the next quartern million or the next quarter million. That is the way it needs to be described. No on is left out. Everyone gets the tax cut. You just don’t keep getting a tax cut for all the extra money that you make. The average person has no idea how the progressive income tax works. And the media isn’t about to tell them.
El Cid
@SW: I’ve asked many, many times, and very few people I’ve ever talked to understand the notion of a marginal income tax rate.
There’s something very difficult apparently for people to distinguish between a tax on a “person” and a tax on “income”.
They think it’s all about taxing a person, as an identity, as in, “they tax me”, rather than, “they tax income between X & XX at this rate”.
Nylund
No, it’s NOT. They still get the tax cuts on the first $250k, so it’s still less taxes than it used to be.