Wealthy men in tights
Jamie Bouie over at The American Prospect points out what a disaster the Romney plan to cut taxes on the rich by raising them for everyone else can become now that Team Obama is holding on to this message and refusing to let it go. Simply stated
"It’s hard to overstate the potential damage of this"
You want a disaster? How about the fact that President Obama now holds a lead on the issue of taxes. The GOP should be crushing the President on taxes if they hope to take back the Presidency, but they are not, and considering that their number one issue is taxes, how high they supposedly are and how deeply they should be cut, the fact that Obama has a lead over the GOP on taxes is nothing short of a truly unmittigated disaster for the Republican party.
In short, this is the price you pay for making tax cuts for the rich a priority over everything else and then running a clueless multi-millionaire for President.
Here's what Jamie wrote for some more depth, but I strongly urge you to read the whole article . . .
But these implausibly optimistic assumptions aren’t enough to square the circle of Romney’s tax plan. The only way Romney can keep the Bush tax cuts, cut taxes by 20 percent on top of that, and keep revenue at its current level is to borrow huge sums of money or raise taxes on the vast majority of Americans. If he’s unwilling to take either route, then he’ll have to make huge cuts to existing social services—which, for many Americans, will amount to a tax hike.
It’s hard to overstate the potential damage of this. Obama’s attacks on Romney’s financial life—Bain Capital, his tax returns, his ostentatious wealth—are meant to present the former Massachusetts governor as an unscrupulous plutocrat, indifferent to the lives of ordinary Americans. But the goal of that is to soften Romney for the main event—an all-out attack on his economic plan. Had Romney stuck to a more moderate plan, similar to the one he initially unveiled, the absence of radicalism would have made this a tough sell for the Obama campaign.
As it stands, Romney has spent the last year pandering to the most extreme supply-siders in the Republican Party. He really does plan to raise taxes on the vast majority of Americans in order to lower taxes for the wealthiest people in the country. And because this has been confirmed by independent analysis, it’s much more difficult for Romney to deflect the charge. Obama has also taken a real advantage on the issue of taxes—46 percent of Americans trust the president to handle tax policy, as opposed 45 percent for Romney. When you consider that Republicans have built their entire brand on taxes and handling federal expenditures, it's not good that the Republican nominee—whose has made his business experience key to his campaign—is running even with the president.
Bold text added by the diarist
Despite years and years of making this the center of their party the GOP is losing to someone who they refer to as a socialist. Why? Because it is obvious to everyone who isn't a dittohead that Republicans only care about cutting taxes for the rich, whereas Obama has staked out the more popular position of ending the Bush Tax cuts for the rich. Romney wants to not only double-down on George W. Bush's Tax Policy, he wants to make everyone who isn't a millionaire foot the bill for it. The fact that President Obama is beating these guys on their number one issue despite being painted as an anti-business socialist for years is a total disaster for the GOP. One might call it an un
mittigated disaster.
un·mit·i·gat·ed (n-mt-gtd)
adj.
1. Not diminished or moderated in intensity or severity; unrelieved: unmitigated suffering.
2. Without qualification or exception; absolute: an unmitigated lie.
Absolute. With no moderation. That could easily describe the intense far right pandering Romney and every other Republican must go through to energize the mouth-breathers in the GOP's far-right base. The problem for the GOP is they are losing everyone else.
More below the fold . . .
Case in point, last night Mittens went on the Sean Hannity show on Fox to respond to mean-ole Harry Reid, and if you are diehard Hannity viewer that is great, but what about everyone else? This is the downside to communicating solely through kid glove friendly conservative media hacks, no one else can hear you. Obama is trying to communicate to all of America, whereas Romney refuses to answer questions from anyone who isn't at least as Conservative as Sean Hannity, and thus Obama can frame Romney to a wider audience than Romney can frame Obama in front of. Romney's campaign seems to solely consist of preaching to the choir.
Romney thinks middle class is the one on the plane behind VIP class
This insular extremism is resulting in a GOP that can win in the south and south west consistently, but they can't win the Presidency like this. They can keep a 40 man filibuster in the Senate, they can win a gerrymandered House of Representatives, they can win rural red states, but they can't win the Presidency with this strategy of only speaking to Republicans. After the Bush years, the Republican brand is still broken and Team Romney seems to believe that they can win by keeping their delusion base at a pitched frenzy and making it harder for everyone else to vote at all. That might work, but it requires the GOP to win every single GOP voter and a few independents, and I don't see how they win a few independents when they are so extremely right wing, and now they are starting to lose the tax debate
because they were dumb enough to try to raise taxes on the middle class so they can cut taxes for the rich. Not only is this brazenly risky, as long as Romney communicates only through discredited right wing propaganda outlets I don't see how Romney wins the messaging war with anyone outside his base who doesn't hate Obama more than they love America already.
In reality, President Obama has not raised taxes on the rich and he has cut taxes for 95% of Americans. The Taxed Enough Already party doesn't know that, but what the Tea Party doesn't know could fill the Grand Canyon. Mitt Romney would raise taxes on 95% of Americans during a depression so he can cut taxes on rich people. It used to be that Republicans would pretend they are cutting taxes for everyone, but we have seen too many instances over the years since Bush was appointed where the GOP only cares about cutting taxes for the rich and can't manage the federal or state budgets worth a damn. They have no credibility outside of right wing media, nor should they. As Greg Sargent notes . . .
Either Romney’s plan would have to increase the tax burden on the middle class to pay for tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the rich, or it would explode the deficit. There is no other way to make the numbers work, and this should be made clear in the news coverage of the Obama and Romney camp dispute over his plan. The Tax Policy Center analysis of Romney’s plan — and Obama’s ad attacking it — are accurate, and the Romney camp's objections to their conclusions about what his plan would mean for middle class are baseless. Unless all that stuff about paying for the tax cuts is just empty talk.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Exactly, its' just empty talk, and the only people who don't know that yet are Republicans, the official Know-Nothing Party of 2012.
Listen, if you take away taxes the tax debate from the GOP what other reason for voting for them is left other than racial and sexual hatred, xenophobia, fear of the "other" and the like? Prince Romney has no clothing. Romney hopes that by being a vague chameleon, or a Chamillionaire if you prefer, Romney might focus all the blame on Obama without expressing any specifics on how a President Romney would govern because Team Romney knows that if Romney disclosed his tax records or his governing plan he would lose in a landslide. So you have the Taxed Enough Already people voting for a rich guy who got a wall street bailout, can't prove that he pays taxes, and wants to raise taxes on the non-millionaires so he can cut taxes for the millionaires while making the deficit worse. Frankly, these Republicans are idiots who deserve to lose, and Obama is about to drink their milkshake on their number one issue, taxes. Why? Because the Republicans have nothing else to offer America but hatred of this President and everything he does and a revamped version of the George W. Bush agenda. The failure of the GOP to do anything but hate Obama and pander to their delusional far right base, the failure of the GOP to field a better Presidential candidate that has President Obama with a narrow edge on who Americans trust more over taxes, well, it really is hard to overstate the potential damage this may have on the Republican party.
The only reason Obama can drink the GOP's milkshake on taxes at this point is because only Republicans who watch Fox News believe the Republican party on taxes anymore. Everyone else knows it's bullshit.
One milkshake to rule them all
At this point, the Romney campaign slogan should be "A sucker is born every minute, and we're depending on it"
On a side note, stock in popcorn futures are surging on the Wall Street trading floor over the past few months.
Peace and love to all.
You can follow me on Twitter @JesseLaGreca