Apparently, the reason Paul Ryan has never released any details on how his bold and serious plan to gut medicare and shower tax cuts on the rich would also cut the deficit is because the math would take to long to explain:
WALLACE: So how much would it cost?
RYAN: It’s revenue neutral…
WALLACE: No no, I’m just talking about cuts. We’ll get to the deductions, but the cut in tax rates.
RYAN: The cut in tax rates is lowering all Americans’ tax rates by 20 percent.
WALLACE: Right, how much does that cost?
RYAN: It’s revenue neutral.
[…]WALLACE: But I have to point out, you haven’t given me the math.
Ryan: No, but you…well, I don’t have the time. It would take me too long to go through all of the math. But let me say it this way: you can lower tax rates by 20 percent across the board by closing loopholes and still have preferences for the middle class. For things like charitable deductions, for home purchases, for health care. So what we’re saying is, people are going to get lower tax rates.
Just how long is it going to take to explain the math? Some of us have been waiting over a year since it was released.
And again, shame on anyone out there who ever looked at the Ryan plan and called it bold or serious. It was obviously a ridiculous fraud from the moment it was released, and only really dim bulbs would say anything to the contrary.
Svensker
You can talk about anything you want. I’m a Jets fan. Unbelievable.
Bob In Portland
Guy goes into a liquor store, sticks a gun in the cashier’s face, empties the register.
“Don’t worry,” he says on the way out. “It’s revenue-neutral.”
Bob In Portland
@Svensker: I’m a Niners fan, Sven. Don’t worry. That blocked kick is revenue-neutral.
raven
@Svensker: The NFL is not playing today, didn’t you get the memo?
Violet
Paul “Barbie” Ryan–“Math is hard!”
Gravenstone
“It would take too long to explain” = “The American people are too stupid to understand so we’re not going to bother trying”
Of course, the reality is that it truly is a fraud. But selling the narrative that the Republicans are just so disdainful of the American people that they can’t be bothered to try and explain things to those they want to vote for them really shouldn’t be a difficult argument to make. This piggybacks so well on the 47% narrative of dismissiveness.
JPL
@Svensker: Don’t worry, it’s Tebow time.
mbss
did somebody say 49ers. ahhhh back in fine form.
as far as superserious budget plans:
it’s complicated. you americans don’t have the wonkistry threshold to withstand such a barrage of numbers and sheer right wing genius.
basically it involves invisible hands and gnomes and boats rising amongst the trickling down of various fluids.
KJG
Really? I thought that Ryan was a wonk. Don’t wonks love to talk about the details ad nauseum?
“The calculations are left as an exercise to the reader.”
cckids
Way OT, but Air Force One just flew over my house. Maybe I’m not jaded enough, but it is just really cool to look up & see the President flying over.
mbss
tebow, kaepernick will show you how it’s how it’s done. watch and learn, baby jesus.
+1. Sunday. Let’s do this.
Violet
Isn’t it “slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future”?
Amir Khalid
Oh, come on. Would Paul Ryan ever decide to ‘fess up? As in saying, “There is no math. I just made shit up. Like the experts have been saying all along, my numbers simply don’t add up.”
Because I don’t think Ryan’s even ‘fessed up to himself about this. As Krugman and others describe it, he’s been practising a cargo-cult approximation of economic wonkery: put up things that look like charts and graphs, with an x-axis and a y-axis and a squiggle (or a series of bars) in between, pull some numbers out of his hat, say the magic words: “Premium support for Medicare”. Ta-da!
ericblair
No, see, your tax rate is going to go down, but we’re going to take away all your deductions, er, close loopholes, so on average you’re actually going to pay the same amount of tax! But at a lower tax rate! So, um, who gives a shit, right? Money’s money? It’s all just election bullshit, right?
Well, you do care! See, when you’re one of the great unwashed working schlubs, you have pretty big deductions as a percent of your income. So you care more about deductions than you care about your marginal tax rate on your last few grand of wages. But when you’re a rich asshole, the deductions they’re talking about are all maxed out and they’re not a big percentage of your income. But you’re tax rate is important, and that went down! So if you’re a rich asshole, you clean up, and if you’re Joe Q. Lunchbucket, sucks to be you!
So, do you think they’ll fiddle with the things that rich people care about, like the carried interest income rate and trust regulations? Go on, take a fucking guess!
Here endeth the lesson.
trollhattan
@Violet:
I think Cole’s conflating Steve Miller and Joe Jackson. Always half-step ahead of us, our JC.
JPL
uhoh… The Falcons need the Panthers to fumble..
MikeJ
If it would take that long to explain, I wonder if his changes would pass muster with Herman Cain by being less than three pages long.
Corner Stone
@raven:
I kindly beg to differ cranky old puss. The Texans just pile drived the Titans in clean NFL style, tyvm.
PeakVT
blah blah blah by closing loopholes and still have preferences for the middle class. For things like charitable deductions, for home purchases, for health care.
So RYAN/romney plans to close all the loopholes except the ones that cost the most money. But the math will still work.
He’s such a lying shitstain.
Soonergrunt
@John Cole, top:
Yes. Dim bulbs like Nobel Laureates in Economics.
PreservedKillick
This sums up the Ryan/Romney argument.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuE_jqYNi3c
Napoleon
@cckids:
Back when Bush was on his sales effort to sell SS privatization after his reelection I am in my back yard raking and suddenly at tree top level Marine One was overhead at treetop level taking him to an event. I was so pissed I didn’t get off the bird.
scav
@trollhattan: Isn’t it all mashups here now anyway? Or am I still chronically behind again? Could probably both be true.
mbss
oh crap did cam newton just fumble?
mbss
JPL i see you up at 16.
raven
@Corner Stone: Oh, there used to be NFL THREADS here.
General Stuck
Oh I can’t wait till Biden destroys this soulless huckster in about every way you can in a debate. Look for the patented Ryan/wingnut victim and po misunderstood genius pout. The wingnut crazies begin to rotate and lash themselves into a hurricane eye wall outrage – as we inch ever closer to Peak Wingnut.
debit
Since we’re talking football, I will say that my Vikings are looking pretty good, much to my surprise. I know it’s not going to last, that they’ll pull me back in only to toy with me and tease me, and finally break my heart. But today they looked like an actual football team.
kdaug
@Amir Khalid:
Fess us to what, precisely, Amir?
There is no there there. So what? It’s the nature of things.
A Shakeweight(R) will make you a body builder, Slimfast(R) will make you young and beautiful, Shamwow(R) will absorb oceans and fix your plumbing.
There is a product. There are people who want to sell it. “Truth” is nice, but not necessary. The imperative is to make the sale.
It’s your choice whether or not to buy.
hhex65
New Romney/Ryan slogan: Fly Like an Ostrich
OGLiberal
Check out Halperin here trying to make something out of the Romney shit sandwich:
http://thepage.time.com/2012/09/30/re-set/
I love how he points to a Selzer poll showing Obama “only” up four as a sign of tightening in swing states. Firtst, the same poll shows Obama at 51% approval and Mitt with an underwater favorabilty rating. Second, this Selzer result is in about the midrange of recent polls there. Third, it’s the first time she’s polled there since February so hard to compare. (btw, Romney led Obama by two in tat one)
If I’m Obama and Selzer of all pollsters shows me up 4 in Iowa with almost 50 and almost no undecideds in early October, I’m feeling really good about the state.
As for Romney winning or tying the last four news cycles – huh? Tying, maybe…but winning. Which one? For the record, I hate the win the day BS.
Finally, Halperin assumes Romney will win the debate expectations game. That will be because Halperin will say he beat expectations no matter what happens.
Perhaps no beltway pundit I despise more than Halperin.
Dennis SGMM
One year on and Ryan hasn’t seen fit to release his plan in toto. If it’s such a masterpiece why hasn’t he shared it with the rest of us so that we can cheer him and What’s-his-name on to victory?
Roger Moore
@Soonergrunt:
Reading comprehension fail. Cole is saying that nobody should have been fooled. Krugman wasn’t fooled.
wrb
Gilligan’s not a math guy, he’s a Powerpoint guy.
cckids
@Napoleon: I admit, I did flip one or two W’s way. We live about a mile from the flight path into McCarran, so we have a few sightings.
I’ve noticed Obama flies into Nellis more often than McCarran, I believe to keep traffic nightmares down, or maybe for security.
I did wave, but they didn’t tip the wings or airdrop me a pony or anything.
PreservedKillick
@wrb:
Nothing screws up a story like numbers.
mbss
falcons on the 1.
ohhhhh white makes the catch!!
trollhattan
@cckids:
Have only seen AF1 parked, at Boeing Field in Seattle, never in the air. Did see this a couple weeks back, however [shameless bragging].
http://g2.img-dpreview.com/16CD9EF279794293AD70370DE76BB7D7.jpg
Have always maintained I’d meet a president, any president, if I had the chance. Despite all the campaigning it’s a rare thing few Americans ever get the chance to do. Even from the nosebleed seats in a stadium, or on a rope line, would be just fine.
pluege
It was obviously a ridiculous fraud from the moment it was released, and only really dim bulbs would say anything to the contrary.
Let us not forget it has taken the gravitas of a Nobel Laureate PhD in economics – Dr. Krugman hammering on the ryan fraud for months to get any notice at all that the very serious ryan with the very serious wonky plan is a complete scam. Without the strength of Krugman pushing back, we would drowning in ryan accolades.
Corner Stone
@raven: Indeed. But that was before we entered the New Era of Civility(tm) here.
MikeBoyScout
Will any of our villagers who get the chance to “interview” House Republican Intellectual Leader, Paul Lyan Ryan, ever have the testicular fortitude to confront him when he spews this BS with
“Isn’t what you’re doing the same as selling a pig in a poke?“
pete
@Soonergrunt: Huh? Methinks thou hast grievously misunderstood either Cole or Krugman.
JPL
fingers crossed
mbss
anyway. seniors have seen enough of the plan to hate it. remember how beloved it was with the beltway intelligensia when it was theoretical?
seniors know enough to understand that it fucks them over. look just at medicaid getting raped. florida is gone. they are dropping their SS checks right into obama’s coffers as soon as it comes in the mail.
America has looked at Ryan’s plan and rejected it.
so paul ryan sucks but matt ryan is on fire now.
edit: man, big win.
Greyjoy
The math would take too long to explain because first Ryan has to go learn math. And then teach it to the rest of the Republican party.
JPL
wahoo
Spaghetti Lee
So, in other words, he’s ‘given us people all we need to know’? Huh, sounds familiar somehow…
trollhattan
@pete:
Or, double-secret irony being deployed. I canna follow, cap’n.
NonyNony
@Soonergrunt:
I dunno – it looks there like Krugman was saying it was a fraud and that Ryan just made shit up that works. Did you mean to post a different link? Cause that one agrees with Cole.
burnspbesq
@Amir Khalid:
It may take a few days for your Internets to get to Malaysia and clear customs, but they will arrive soon.
cckids
@trollhattan: Love the shuttle pic! I wish it had flown over here. THAT was a once-in-a-lifetime sight!
I agree about seeing the President, if you can. I’ve been to see Reagan, Carter (after he was out), Clinton, Bush (while running the 1st time), and Obama. I’ve noticed that with Bush & Romney both, it seems hard to find out when & where to get tickets. Maybe cause I’m registered as a Democrat, I know with Bush, once he got elected he didn’t want to see anyone not registered R. Romney was here last week, saw the news stories about the visit, but no info on how to get tickets. OFA always has that included in their news releases.
AA+ Bonds
.
.
Go ahead and get the latest Jacobin, ad-free, $7.95, you won’t regret it – Seth Ackerman and Chris Hayes
Kathleen
@Gravenstone: 47% of voters can’t do math.
Marduk
It’s got electrolytes!
JoeShabadoo
I think he heard that Karl Rove is entitled to the math so he is just waiting for the royalty check to clear before he brings it out.
xian
@General Stuck: maybe he’ll storm out in a huff like he did when Obama took him to school
MikeBoyScout
@38 trollhattan:
Take it you’re near Seattle?
Going to have dinner with FLOTUS on Tuesday?
I am. Expect it to be the most fun rubber chicken dinner evah.
Paul
@OGLiberal:
Halperin became a joke when he accused the African-American President of the United States of being a d***.
Since then I know he is a partisan Republican and just a mouth piece for the Romney campaign. It is beyond me why MSNBC still invites him. They might as well invite Romney’s campaign manager.
Linda Featheringill
@Amir Khalid:
You think Ryan actually believes that voodoo he’s been marketing?
I’ve long suspected that Romney believes his own propaganda but Ryan? On the other hand, if he knows it’s all fake, why hasn’t he drummed up some numbers, even if the math is wrong.
You know, if you can’t impress them with your brilliance, blind them with your dazzle.
Ryan hasn’t even tried to do this?
arguingwithsignposts
The math was all done on a McArdle ™ calculator. That’s why it takes orders of magnitude longer to explain.
Paul
@OGLiberal:
Halperin became a joke when he accused the African-American President of the United States of being a d***.
Since then I know he is a partisan Republican and just a mouth piece for the Romney campaign. It is beyond me why MSNBC still invites him. They might as well invite Romney’s campaign manager.
Roger Moore
@Greyjoy:
And then revise the plan so it works even when he uses the same math that the rest of the universe uses when calculating these things.
xian
@OGLiberal: Obama up in Iowa by 4, tight race! Obama down in Arizona by 3′, leans Romney!
xian
@MikeBoyScout: i just want one debate moderator to ask Romney if he took the Swiss amnesty.
mbss
technically that’s true about the McMegan caclulator but that sentence collectively is nonsense.
xian
@Paul: he still believes elections are won by winning the most news cycles. it’s a sort of “rain follows the plow” for the mass-media age.
PreservedKillick
@Linda Featheringill:
Ryan’s been inhabiting a world where anyone who can drive PowerPoint is regarded as a Very Serious Person. The people he hangs with not only inhabit a strange parallel universe, but they are so astoundingly stupid that they don’t even question his numbers. He is Very Serious, after all.
So, this “pushback” thing is all new to him.
Of course, the other problem is that he simply CANNOT discuss the numbers in a concrete way without tanking his chances, Romney’s chances, and the Republican party. Just like Mitt cannot reveal his actual tax returns.
So they stonewall.
You people should just stop asking.
Chris
@Linda Featheringill:
I wonder that about almost any conservative (along with the third option, “doesn’t give a shit,” which I think was the case for George W. Bush, for example). Hard to tell.
Southern Beale
Shorter Paul Ryan: “I was told there would be no math.”
trollhattan
@MikeBoyScout:
No longer. Grew up there (as a Boeing kid no less) and continued to go while the folks were still alive.
Have fun with FLOTUS! (Ooh, that doesn’t sound right, somehow.) I’m filled to the brim with envy, but good for you anyway!
Biden did a fundraiser two blocks from my office but I couldn’t catch a glimpse from the scrum when he was leaving.
cathyx
Clearly Mike Wallace didn’t get the memo to play along.
Yutsano
@OGLiberal: Everything is always good news for
Grandpa WalnutsWillard dontcha know.Ash Can
@Gravenstone:
@cckids: The prez’s helicopters fly over my house almost every time he comes to Chicago. I never get tired of it. :)
MikeBoyScout
@69 trollhattan:
Sorry we’ll miss you.
Anywho, give your best to your parents. Boeing employees built one helluva city here. My family is grateful.
gbear
I want to fry like an egg’ll, in the heat.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
somewhere in Massachussetts, or New Hampshire, Willard or Fernstrom or somebody is screaming “Cross that fat fuck’s name off the surrogate list, and I will FUCK him in ’16!… fuck. Somebody wake up Sununu and get him ready for CNN Wednesday night.”
.
Everybody got it? The MBA CEO numbers guy turnaround artist who knows the economy and knows how to create jobs is no fucking CPA!
MikeJ
@trollhattan:
I saw it take off from Boeing:
https://picasaweb.google.com/111705631802001462510/AF1?authuser=0&feat=directlink
trollhattan
@cathyx: Heck, that’s Chris. They wouldn’t let li’l Paulie within five miles of Mike. If he were alive, that is.
cathyx
@trollhattan: Duh, I knew that. (I’m bonking my head)
Amir Khalid
@Linda Featheringill:
Is good question. It’s hard to imagine an edjamacated person believing any of Ryan’s or Mitt’s “economic” claptrap for a second, although one can’t quite rule out the possibility that they themselves do. Then again there’s also the possibility that whether they believe it is beside the point to them — i.e. that they’re just slinging bullshit policy points, supported by bullshit data and bullshit reasoning. given Mitt and especially Ryan’s notably estranged relationship with the truth, I tend to think the latter.
trollhattan
@MikeJ:
Dang, you were close.
Can’t begin to imagine how much technology is packed into that plane. It’s a wonder it can even take off.
Ash Can
@Linda Featheringill: The saying goes, “If you can’t dazzle ’em with brilliance, baffle ’em with bullshit.” Ryan’s so incompetent he can’t even do the bullshit part right.
raven
This Ryder Cup is wild. I caddied at Medinah almost 50 years ago, my first summer job.
Narcissus
@AA+ Bonds: Is this worth subscribing to?
Even when we’re “winning”, left-ish politics and media in the US is largely a rear-guard action trying to protect advances made 50-100 years ago, and generally not all that well.
If this is actual honest-to-god-left-radicalism being pushed into the mainstream I’d like to support it.
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
See, the CEO is supposed to be a big picture guy. He understands problems holistically, and can solve them by going after big picture solutions. It’s the job of a bunch of boring CPA types to dig through all the little numbers and make the CEO’s big picture solution work. That way, when it works it’s the CEO’s vision that created success, and when it fails it’s the CPAs’ fault for failing to make the CEO’s brilliant plan work.
scav
@Amir Khalid: edjamacated? Or, anyone that’s ever listened to a 3rd grader explain how they’ve totally done their homework, in fact, there isn’t any, and in fact their teacher told them they needed to get outside more, honestly.
trollhattan
@cathyx:
Figured as much, but couldn’t resist anyway. It’s just that when the FoxBots can’t even polish the turd, the level of November Fail may be “epic” (channeling my kid, just then).
Am also taking vast pleasure knowing the True Believers all think this is going to be Ryan’s launchpad for ’16.
Yes, please.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Ryan: No, but you…well, I don’t have the time. It would take me too long to go through all of the math.
Didn’t Bernie Madoff go to jail after making these sorts of comments?
shortstop
@Amir Khalid: I’ve seen many cases of someone repeating a lie so often that he begins to believe it, and it has little to do with natural intelligence. I have no trouble thinking Paul “Look How Earnest I Am” Ryan has done this.
nellcote
But I thought the Ryan plan didn’t matter anymore because Rmoney’s at the top of the ticket and they’re going with the Rmoney plan. Whatever that is.
MikeJ
@Phoenician in a time of Romans:
Fermat’sRyan’s last theorem.wrb
@trollhattan:
In May or June I taxied right next to the shuttle and the plane it was atop.
The shuttle seemed very small.
LanceThruster
He can at least inform us that the first step is to gather underpants, even if we can’t fathom the lofty concepts involved in steps 2 & 3.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@PreservedKillick:
Huh. So I’m a VSP now? I’ve advanced enough now that PowerPoint is my last remaining technical skill, sad to say. No more hydrologic modeling (sniff).
Anya
@cathyx: I find Chris Wallace is much better than Dancing Dave and other Liberal Media types. Sometimes he asks reasonable questions.
Downpuppy
It’s nice to see some pure farce. I’ve been having a worse weekend than Geno Smith.
cathyx
@Anya: Or maybe he doesn’t want to be embarrassed again if he ever goes on Jon Stewart’s show again.
Hill Dweller
@raven:
This will be a monumental choke if the US loses.
NonyNony
@Anya:
Not having watched the interview, just reading the transcript segment posted at TP, those are some amazingly softball questions. The fact that Ryan can’t answer them is simply astounding. He should have decent non-answers prepared for those questions, not just “oh we don’t have time to get into that now”. That’s an obvious non-answer. He should actually be able to spout out a non-answer that at first glance LOOKS LIKE an answer, but in fact isn’t.
Truly amazing. This guy is the best and brightest of the GOP policy “wonks”, huh?
Chris T.
It really is pretty simple.
The guy making roughly 50k per year, he’s got a nominal Federal income tax (pre-deductions) of about $7500 or so (filing as “head of household” it’s actually $7274, it’s higher if single but lower if married filing jointly and higher if married filing separately).
The thing is, he has deductions and credits out the wazoo, because of the house and 2.1 kids. So his actual tax, after applying all these things, is much lower. If the family qualifies for the earned income tax credit it’s possible that his tax is lowered to $0. Even if not, it’s probably under $5k (there’s $1k per child, plus the deductions for mortgage interest and any cash given at church and so on).
Ryan would lower his “marginal” tax rate a bit, so that instead of owing roughly $7500, he’d owe roughly $7000 … and then eliminate all the deductions, so that in the end, instead of owing roughly $5k (no EITC) or $0 (EITC), he’d owe … roughly $7000. Look at the huge rate reduction! Never mind the fact that he’s paying at least $2000 more!
Meanwhile, some guy named Ritt Momney earns $250 million that year. His marginal rate also goes down a bit, so that instead of owing $30 million, he would owe $28 million. Now, his deductions also go away, so actually he owes $29 million. Look, he has the same rate reduction! It’s totally fair that he saves $1 million while Joe Average ponies up $2k more!
cathyx
@Chris T.: That’s way too much math for us.
NotMax
40 years after Watergate and we are right back to “modified limited hang-out.”
raven
@Hill Dweller: Uh, yea.
quannlace
Ryan. The Flim-Flam man of 2012
raven
@quannlace: Great movie.
Hill Dweller
@raven: It’s not just the nearly impossible task numbers-wise to start the day for the Euros. They’re doing it in singles, which has always been the US’ best format, and after trailing a few matches coming into the last two holes.
quannlace
Okay, if it would take too much time to do the math….how about some basic arithmetic?
X plus X minus Y equals Budget!
raven
@Hill Dweller: I must admit, even though I caddied and played, I have no idea how this is scored!
Lurking Canadian
It is entirely possible that Ryan believes what he’s selling. His original plan made standard wingnut assumptions that as soon as taxes were cut on the job creators, the magical supply side gold-shitting unicorn would appear and aide unemployment to fall to 4%. He is just devout enough that he might believe his 20% tax cut will cause a 20% growth rate in GDP, thus “revenue neutral”.
So, probably fraudulent, but possibly just batshit.
scav
They’ll dig deep and break out the Venn diagrams any minute now.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: That’s terrible! I love hydrologic modeling.
drlemur
I’ve been wondering this since the beginning, but if it’s “revenue neutral” it’s not actually a tax cut. If your rate is lowered but your deductions eliminated so that your bill is exactly the same… who the fuck cares? How is this even a policy? It literally doesn’t do anything.
The math doesn’t add up, but this “proposal” was a farce from the first moment. Once you say “revenue neutral” you are either cutting for some people and raising for others or you aren’t doing anything at all. When you say “broadening the base” you imply somebody will pay more, but to have a policy, you’d have to identify who that would be.
Actual policies are things like cutting spending (and require explaining what) or even cutting taxes and hoping for the magic supply-side/confidence/Laffer fairies to grow the economy enough to compensate. Those are bad policies, but they are at least policies. A “revenue neutral tax cut” isn’t anything at all.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
I propose that in the VP-debates, Biden announces the Romney-Ryan-Biden plan.
In this plan, Biden promises that, if reelected, Obama will announce a budget that does EXACTLY what the Ryan budget does, plus give everyone a free flying unicorn.
What are the Republicans going to do – say that it’s unrealistic? Grounded in fantastic impossibilities? An outright lie with no basis in reality?
Smiling Mortician
@drlemur: Redistribution, baby. It’s “revenue neutral” in the aggregate — as in, the government takes in just as much in taxes, but it does it by having me (and you and pretty much everyone else) pay a couple grand more per year and giving Mitt and his friends another million or so a year. See?
Except, of course, even the aggregate revenue-neutral part is a lie. It would increase the deficit and screw the middle class. It’s a floor wax and a dessert topping.
burnspbesq
@xian:
He’ll say “no,” regardless of whether it’s true or not. Or he’ll say it’s not relevant, which would be a huge miscalculation.
SenyorDave
Ryan’s explanation should be a campaign ad – it speaks for itself.
Jamie
“Vote for me, I’m too busy to explain why”.
Looks like the proles asking questions are getting all uppity. The next stop is when he loses his temper.
jwb
@burnspbesq: Which one would hurt him more? Saying “no” and then having the returns released that showed he did; or saying it’s not relevant? The way Romney rolls, he’ll inevitably chose the worse option.
cckids
@Paul:
Isn’t Halperin also the orginator of the “good news for John McCain” meme? If so, THAT is when he became/remained a joke.
dance around in your bones
The math, how does it work?
scav
speaking of ads, anyone seen something along these lines?
He did say “the room is intimate,” there, no? Seems an obvious one to me, at this point, the photo alone should be iconic enough.
Hill Dweller
Biggest choke in Ryder Cup history.
rlrr
It would take me too long to go through all of the math.
Then maybe there should be a web site which spells out the math in detail. If there isn’t, then you’re full of shit.
rlrr
Mitt Romney’s new ad…
lahru
P.T. Barnum would be proud
xian
@burnspbesq: that’d be fine. if he’s lying, we’ll find out.
bemused
It would take too long to explain THE math to you people.
Mike G
@rlrr:
Math has a well-known librul bias.
Dee Loralei
@rlrr: Funny! and good catch. I tweeted it!
Hill Dweller
Apparently Dubya visited the US Ryder Cup team yesterday afternoon, which was about the time things went sideways.
zattarra
@Paul: The truest sign Halperin is a useless tool is the fact that he writes an opinion page without a comments feature. The sign of an intellectual coward and hack.
catclub
@drlemur: Actually, there are often GIANT assumptions that THIS tax change will also spark the economy to double, so the lower tax rate will collect just as much in taxes.
In the first AEI predictions of what would happen with the Ryan plan, they forgot to proofread the end year results. I think it included something like 1% unemployment, but naturally no inflation.
It is possible for different tax structures to do less or more harm to the rest of the economy, but AEI is not an honest judge of those effects.
scav
Unlike people, that always tell the truth under torture. Odd world, theirs.
debbie
Am I the only one hearing echoes of Sarah’s struggle to name a single newspaper she’d read?
gogol's wife
@scav:
That is amazing. What a lack of self-awareness.
LanceThruster
So the rAyn/Rmoney tax plan is nothing but an empty chair?
WereBear
When you consider that the Republican party has devolved into a brain that is bent on cutting millionaires’ tax rate to zero, guts that scream and evacuate at the drop of a forwarded email, and an empty cavity where the heart should be; it’s a wonder it lives at all.
Paul
@cckids:
Yup. As I recall, when John McCain couldn’t recall how many houses he owned, Mark Halperin “wisely” claimed that this was good news for McCain.
Of course, we all know how it turned in 2008. I can’t fathom why he is on TV spouting his “wisdom”.
lahru
60 minutes is now just an informatial for celebrity books
Ahrnold has a child with the house keeper with big tits and we are suppposed to care? tick tick tick
AA+ Bonds
@Narcissus:
I like Jacobin a lot and fully support reading it. I would highly recommend issue 6, the issue right before the one I linked, particularly the articles on Keynes and European social democracy.
Cain
@cckids:
You should have put down a carpet and prayed to Allah.
Lojasmo
@trollhattan:
Have a friend in DC who just took a ride in AF1. Top secret stuff, though, I guess.
Cain
@MikeBoyScout:
Dude so awesome.. really jealous! Say hi from the Balloon-Juice and tell her and Obama to point their browsers our way for Tunch action.
The Other Chuck
We do not owe You People any explanations.
gelfling545
@PreservedKillick:
In my world people who use ppt are regarded as a nuisance.
opie_jeanne
@Violet: You remember those dolls? Our girls were in elementary school and thought that line was hilarious.
opie_jeanne
@trollhattan: We feel the same way, even if I did curl my lip at the mention of W.
We got to see Nixon arrive in Riverside for his aunt’s funeral. We were stopped in traffic near a helipad at the north end of Riverside, CA, cops had shut everything down, and it was fascinating watching the precautions taken.
The cop standing near our car was grumpy, said, “now you’ve seen the president, big deal.” Well, it was a big deal.
PurpleGirl
@trollhattan: It was JFK’s birthday celebration but I don’t remember him. I do remember seeing Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President.” The rally was hosted by the NY Central Labor Council (AFL-CIO) and my father got the tickets from his union. Yeah, we were up in the nosebleed seats of the old Madison Square Garden on W. 48th Street.
Dexter's new approach
I was having a great day. Perfect weather “hiking” at Starved Rock. My dog Lola running free on the trails. The colors already popping. A free Paulaner at the end at the lodge with a German band to remind us of our summer trip to Bavaria. Then great Cajun food at a hole-in-the-wall place (Cajun Connection.) I ignored football. I looked into my girlfriend’s eyes and told her I could not be more happy; this is one of those perfect little days where everyting is right.
I come home and find the US choked the Ryder cup and P90X-Revenue-Neutral fool is forcing me to open Excel. Now I’m angry.
I can’t make his math work. It’s just not even close. The only thing they have is mortgage interest, but that’s almost nothing after the rich get their accountants on that. It’s all based best US GDP growth ever + 2% forever. So with ~50% lazy and unmovable, the Galts will have to work 98 hours a day.
Original Lee
Every time either Rmoney or Ryan says something so abysmally stupid that one has to wonder if they left their brains on the nightstand, Original Spouse sends $50 to Obama. I’m glad the campaign is over soon, because I’m not sure how much more of this we can afford.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@catclub:
It is possible for different tax structures to do less or more harm to the rest of the economy, but AEI is not an honest judge of those effects.
Not just that – spending too. Look here
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/imf-austerity-boosts-unemployment-lowers-paychecks/2011/09/12/gIQAl5ebPK_blog.html
“More specifically, an austerity program that curbs the deficit by 1 percent of GDP reduces real incomes by about 0.6 percent and raises unemployment by almost 0.5 percentage points. What’s more, the IMF notes, the losses are twice as big when the central bank can’t cut rates (a good description of the present.) Typically, income and employment don’t fully recover even five years after the austerity program is put in place. ”
A back-of-an-envelope calculation suggests “a balanced budget” means an unemployment rate of 18% and an 11% drop in GDP.
West of the Cascades
@Anya: Sometimes Chris Wallace forgets who signs his paycheck and remembers that he is Mike Wallace’s son. When that happens, it makes the corporate masters very nervous.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Yep, me too. Started out with SWMM, had to dumb down to TR-20 ’cause that’s what the agencies wanted to see. Even though it has a pig-igorant kinematic wave algorithm for flow and not the elegant St Venant equations that SWMM’s got that calcs backwater and what all.