Shorter Fred Barnes:

Obama doesn't know what he's talking about because he doesn't agree with the thoroughly disproven supply-side model I still believe in for ideological reasons but don't really understand.

i agree fred barnes is a cartoon character of an arrogant and very stupid buffoon -- good teevee, evidently.

but i also think the banks are rotten to the core -- facades are up these days, not healthy business.

I know I would take my macroeconomic advice from someone who helped guide the team that crashed the economy to begin with.

Fred Barnes is accurate in his analysis. Yes, The Chosen One is an obvious economic illiterate!

Everyone knows that jobs are created by the investments of the wealthy. Therefore, using John McCain's definition of the wealthy, all taxes should be eliminated for those making more than $5 Million a year.

Everyone knows that the long term economic problems of our country are because of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Therefore, Medicare and Medicaid should be eliminated. As, unfortunately, there is not the political will to eliminate Social Security, the answer to fully funding of it is to raise the age at which the parasites can start receiving it and to raise the taxes on the future parasites making under $100,000 a year.

Everyone knows that the only problem in existence with our health care delivery system is government interference and overuse of the system. Therefore, the medical insurance and pharmaceutical industries should have no barriers placed on their activities. Therefore, everyone who does not have medical insurance or the financial means of providing for their own care should be barred from receiving medical treatment. The free market system will work perfectly if it were not for government interference and the presence of freeloaders intruding on the system.

Shorter Fred Barnes: I've got mine, f*ck you!

Ah, Britt Hume and his "All-Stars", including Fred Barnes, Juan Williams and the Kranky guy.

I assumed I was watching the Washington Generals of politics practicing.

plus ce change plus c'est la meme chose.

What an ass. What kills me is this BS meme that it's the wealthy who create jobs. The middle class create jobs. The wealthy are more like parasites who hoard wealth and bleed the economy because of it.

Like them or not, millionaires are the folks whose investments create growth and jobs -- which are, after all, exactly what the president is hoping for.

It never seems to occur to these guys that if nobody is buying, it doesn't matter one whit what the millionaires do. In fact, that very imbalance between the rich and the poor helped contribute to the housing bubble and the current economic crisis.

Yet another classic 'Rovian' couple of moves:

1) Accuse others of traits exhibited by yourself and/or those you support (in this case, i.e., that Obama is 'economically illiterate' and is a 'know nothing in Chief, as if Barnes' hero Bush was a paragon of intelligence). Not to mention that the accusation is demonstrably false as Steve outlines.

2) #1 puts you on the defensive, and when you point out how wrong it all is, you are then labeled as 'angry.' And it is the 'angry' meme that the MSM then runs with (e.g., 'liberals are angry).

This is tired, and worn. We should dismiss such missives whenever they are identified -- e.g., 'that's Rovian' and move on. Not even legitimize such drivel with a response.

Mr. Barnes is tied in to this C-Street, Fellowship crap!!!

One to talk!!!

And what was Obama's first job out of undergraduate?

Yes, Mr. Barnes, let's keep cutting those taxes for you fat cats.

Todd Tiahrt, that said Obama should have been aborted, a resident of C-Street

He was a Aerospace Executive at Boeing that worked on numerous government contracts.

Oh, he sits on the Subcommittee on Defense!

Oh, the Food for the Hungry (FH) program, one of the many C-street subsidiaries or partners, has the federal government contract for distributing food to other countries.

>"Like them or not, millionaires are the folks whose investments create growth and jobs "

Heh. That attitude is so 1800's... the wealthy now buy derivatives and other financial instruments rather than invest in productive enterprises. (unless they are in a third world country)

Um ... maybe someone could ask Barnes how the 1950s were one of the most prosperous in our nation's history -- after all, the top marginal rate was 90% under that bastard commiesocialifascist ... um ... Eisenhower.

And lord knows that money can never be used for anything good. Like, say, the GI Bill that sent millions to college and created a vibrant middle class ... or the highway system ... or phone service everywhere ... or ...

well, you get the point: Barnes' economic knowledge is about as strong as my 4-year-old's grasp of particle physics.

If I had made as many mistakes as Barnes has on major issues this country has to deal with, I would re-evaluate my position on the issues, but of course, I live in a reality-based world.

Tax revenue from millionaires doesn't simply vanish from the economy; it is, shall we say, invested. True, the government decides what to invest in. Barnes' disagreement, then, is over what that investment is and who gets to decide. He could better spend his time arguing those points.

Does Fred think that the Keynesian Defense budget is uneconomic? Hmph, who would have guessed?

Yes, Obama is an economics genius. We know this because of his outstanding track record of creating budgets, governing states and running businesses.

Oh, that's right, Obama has done NONE of those things. He was , um, a "Community Organizer". Do they even have budgets?

And the one multi-million budget Obama was involved in (that schools thing) was a complete, ringing failure.

Is being a reflexive critic like Fred Barnes any worse than being a reflexive sycophant like Steve Benen?

Ok, I have a challenge for Obama supporters (what few of you there are left):

Here it is. In this space, name me 3 things Obama has done in his career prior to becoming POTUS that in any way qualify him to know the first thing about economics? How about 2 things? Ok, 1 thing. Name me just 1.

It would be safely said that Obama has NO practical economic experience whatsoever. Should it surprise anyone that he now seems so badly in over his head?

The problem with Messiahs is that they usually end up crucified. Obama's popularity was based all on smoke and mirrors and hope n' change. The emperor has no clothes.

Insurance is not a cash and carry business. It's a portfolio investment business and an underwriting business. Insurance companies invest to produce "profits", most of which stays on the balance sheet and comes back to policyholders to pay claims.

Insurance company investments are among the most conservative of any breed of financial institution. (No, I'm not talking about AIG and other players in reinsurance and exotic securities.) Such portfolios have drastically outperformed those of the bank holding companies into which tax dollars have been shoveled by the federal government.

Now Obama is critical of the insurance companies for their "profits"?

Obama certainly shows economic ignorance, he's the one with the dunce cap on sitting in the corner, folks. But I guess he'll say anything to sell a bill that makes insurance underwriting illegal in the U.S.A.

Underwriting by pre-existing condition is outlawed on the "exchange". All that's left is age and location.

The Obama healthcare plan legislates a maximum "2-to-1" ratio based on age underwriting. That means that, even supposing the "public option" brings down costs, those under 30 will see their premiums double or triple immediately under the Democrats plan. *And* they'll be forced to buy insurance, otherwise paying an equivalent amount in tax surcharges.

If you consider anything the government does to increase your costs a tax increase, the Obama healthcare plan will be the largest tax increase on young adults in history, and singling them out. At the same time, it will put enormous pressure for cost cutting on seniors, precipitating the biggest cuts ever in Medicare.

Right now, the average ratio of premiums between the old and young is 5-to-1, which demonstrates the magnitude of the insurance premium (and/or tax) increases that adults under 30 will suffer immediately, with a by-law maximum 2-to-1 differential.

Interesting, there is no such ratio imposed on location. This is a sop from the Democrats to the trial lawyers, allowing the preservation of huge differences in premiums based on widely divergent local standards in medical malpractice.

Young adults take a huge hit, trial lawyers get fully protected.

And Obama still sits in the corner, the economic dunce.

Gee......nonsense questions like what "economic" experience does Obama have ?

Hey..how about the fact that George Bush failed at every single business he tried. Also, as the "first MBA" president failed miserably and doubled the nation debt like Ronnie Raygun.

Obama is an extremely bright individual who has selected capable people to advise him on economic matters. Can't say I agree with all of the strategies, but we'll get through this.

The bill bans underwriting by pre-existing conditions, even as it creates a "public option" in which a commission will determine the minimum standard for insurance coverage.

But it is not only a minimum, it is a **maximum** standard, the way the exchange will operate.

As insurance companies cannot "discriminate" on the basis of pre-existing conditions, citizens (directly or via their employers) will have the right to change from one private plan (or the public plan) to any other option available on the exchange.

So any plan that offers enhanced coverage for cancer, AIDs, cardiovascular condition -- any example you can imagine of grave or morbid illness or disability -- would have to be open to all comers.

So, if one plan were more generous than the public option for a particular ailment, people could sit in the public option until suffering the ailment, then transfer to the most generous plan on the market.

This makes conventional private underwriting -- where insureds pool the risk of morbid illness or disability -- impossible. Any plan with a package of benefits exceeding the public option will attract more sick individuals and drive off healthy ones (suffering from adverse selection).

Indeed, the federal "minimum" is also in reality the establishment of a "maximum". It will, effectively, be illegal in the United States to offer a sustainable plan any more generous than the federal standard.

You're propogating economic ignorance to suggest anything else.

Barnes sort of sounds like you. You can't disagree with someone without impugning their intelligence. The left has this as a reflex for years. It seems to be catching.

Apetra, thank you for demonstrating Benen's complaint with your repeated insults to Obama and everyone who supports him while mindlessly repeating right-wing talking points.

I have neither the time nor the energy to debunk all of the garbage you have spewed here, but will give one quick example of the dishonesty of your sources.

According to http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/downloads/2004-age-tables.pdf, the ratio of health care expenditures between the youngest working class age group tracked (18-44) to the oldest (55-64) is 2.3 to 1.

So either your source is including children on one end or those eligible for medicare on the other end, or else premiums do not closely track total expenditures or else those figures were simply pulled out of their asses.

P.S. To get a ratio of 5-1 or greater in per capita health care costs, you have to compare the 0-18 age group which doesn't buy individual coverage to the 65+ aggregate group which is eligible for medicare.

BARNES: "At his press conference, Obama endorsed a surtax on families earning more than $1 million a year to pay for his health care initiative. This is no way to get the country out of a recession. Like them or not, millionaires are the folks whose investments create growth and jobs"

No, they are not.

That is failed RightWing Supply-Side economic theory. We have a DEMAND-SIDE national economy, comprised 72% of consumer spending. It is exactly why RightWing economic policies have failed every time they were enacted.

"Obama, he says, needs to cut corporate taxes."

Most corporations don't pay ANY corporate taxes now.

I guess Barnes has never heard of the Laffer Curve.

look...investments didn't suffer after clinton's modest increase on the top marginal rates and they didn't increase in any major way after bush's tax cuts....

Here is a quote from the USNews:

"What seems most unsettling to voters is that unemployment keeps going up. It is now at 9.5 percent, the highest in more than 25 years, and the rate is expected to climb to 10 or 11 percent in the next few months. Obama advisers had predicted that his stimulus package would hold unemployment at or below 8 percent."

How can anyone feel confident that President Obama knows what he is doing?

Vaillon posted:

"What seems most unsettling to voters is that unemployment keeps going up. It is now at 9.5 percent, the highest in more than 25 years, and the rate is expected to climb to 10 or 11 percent in the next few months. Obama advisers had predicted that his stimulus package would hold unemployment at or below 8 percent."

That projection was prior to the release of the 4th QTR GDP data, which showed the national economy was already contracting by 6%, as a result of the failed RightWing policies of the Chimpy administration.

In the world where the grown-ups live, the surtax, if passed, wouldn't kick in until 2011.

Which (in the world where "thinking" grown-ups live), simply gives people 2 years to alter their compensation to avoid being affected by the tax.

5% of $10 million is $500K... I think my accountant could find effective mitigation strategies for a bit less than that.

This comments page is a tribute to superficiality, triviality and banality. Triple winner! Way to go!

Clifton's comment was insulting, snarky and completely lacking in any positive contribution to the discussion. Triple Winner! Way to go!

@ILikeToUseMyPostingNameToWarnEveryoneToIgnoreMe at 8:50 PM, you sound like the client in The Firm who doesn't mind paying several hundred thousand in legal bills but is furious at paying a fraction as on his millions in income.

It may be 2 in the morning but this can't be said enough....WE MADE THE WEALTHY WEALTHY...it didn't just appear out of thin air. Plus this is nothing new...it is how it used to be when things worked in the economy...roll back the Reagan tax cuts and the economy would be healed with enough money to pay for HC and infrastructure.

Start enforcing the anti-trust laws, bring regulation back to the financial markets, increase corporate taxes, roll back the Reagan tax cuts...not just the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans and watch how quickly America recovers...just the opposite of Barnes' stupidity.

We've allowed the wealthy to milk us through the legislature and rather than invest for the good of the economy or America, the greedy bastards pocketed as much as they could carry and paid out huge bonuses to to their CEOs. They forget they got wealthy off of us...we made them wealthy...our laws...our people...our nation.

We've been more than generous to these bastards and they have given nothing back. End all these tax cuts for the wealthy, bring back regulation and watch America thrive again.

If a person makes 12/mil/yr they will not give up what they are doing because now they only make $8mil/yr with $4 going to the treasury. Barnes is a maggot feasting on America's wounds. His bought and bribed idiocy should get him thrown out of the country for the poison he drivels. Not a clue on how to keep a democracy thriving and completely blinded by greed. A psychotic economic sociopath.

Posted by: apetra on July 25, 2009 at 12:16 PM |

The trolling insulting misinformation specialist appears...Obama walked into the worst economic disaster since the great depression and you're claiming he's the dunce in the corner. All the things Barnes suggests is exactly what got us into this mess...tax cuts...deregulation...monopoly price fixing...oh yeah everything Barnes suggests has been tried and failed miserably.

btw...some more dedicated caring people do not jump into businesses to make profiteering a goal...they work with all those who have been left out or destroyed by those business models seeing the results of businesses gone off the greed cliff.

Take the word "community" out of community organizing and maybe you'll get the picture...It's the "organizing" that fits all the areas affecting the country including *economic* organizing so it runs right again, defense and security organizing etc....hell Bush wouldn't even listen to educated people cause they were so uppity...thinking because they were educated they were better than everyone else. The genius comes with the "organizing". One doesn't have to 'drive' a race car to "organize" the INDY 500.

Seems you have to take up a lot of space to demonstrate how pathetic you are in your attempts to demean the president. You sure showed us huh?

We aren't buying it pal. Been around long enough to know Benen is dedicated to truth and integrity, so piss off with your insults of what is surly to be one of the greatest presidents we've had in decades as the disastrous results the last 30yrs of Reaganomics collapses all around us. (btw...yours did nothing to reform anything when they were in power so STFU while we attempt to straighten out the results of your failed ideology)

From Joe: "That is failed RightWing Supply-Side economic theory. We have a DEMAND-SIDE national economy, comprised 72% of consumer spending. It is exactly why RightWing economic policies have failed every time they were enacted."

Such as President Kennedy's tax cuts? The concept of filtering money (e.g., tax cuts) through the government then back out to affect any positive economic change is insipid. We currently have a plethora of examples (government runs public schools resulting in an ignorant population, and if you are looking forward to government controlled healthcare, GM, etc, just take a look at Amtrak). Joe, you are poorly read - tough to get any kind of intellectual stimulation from the comics, huh?

From Joe:

"Obama, he says, needs to cut corporate taxes."

Most corporations don't pay ANY corporate taxes now."

Never read a corporate annual report, huh? You have the inquisitiveness and understanding of a bowl of pudding. Consider lightening up on the HuffPo and actually learn to think for yourself. There are explicit metrics on reporting tax outlays by all traded corporations. How's the clown music in your head, Joe?

xandar,

"Such as President Kennedy's tax cuts?"

A) What the American RightWing likes to call the "President Kennedy's tax cuts" are a myth, as they were enacted in 1964 and JFK was shot dead in 1963.

B) As a result of the 1964 tax cuts which overwhelmingly favored the wealthy, the national economy experienced a dramatic slow-down in 1966, less than 18 months after federal income tax rate cuts were enacted into law, with GDP going over a cliff from 10.1% down to 1.4% (note that the previous high levels of GDP occurred while the top marginal rate of individual income tax was 91%).

"We currently have a plethora of examples (government runs public schools resulting in an ignorant population"

* High school completion rates (which are now at roughly 90 percent) and college graduation rates are the HIGHEST IN HISTORY.

* One in four adult Americans has at least a bachelor's degree, which is the highest percentage IN THE WORLD (and the percentage keeps getting higher).

* A larger percentage of twenty-two-year-olds receive degrees in math, science, or engineering in the United States than in any of our nation's major economic competitors.

Therefore, where we are willing to spend the money and resources, we can and do have the best public schools IN THE WORLD.

"Never read a corporate annual report, huh?"

GAO: MORE THAN TWO-THIRDS OF CORPORATIONS PAY NO TAXES

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/11/AR2008081102324.html

"How's the clown music in your head, Joe?"

I don't hear anything. It must be you that is hearing starnge music.

Joe, you ignorant slut...

You're a lightweight.

"A) What the American RightWing likes to call the "President Kennedy's tax cuts" are a myth, as they were enacted in 1964 and JFK was shot dead in 1963."

You insipid fungus, Kennedy proposed the essential tax cut rationale 14 Dec 62 which led to the enactment following his timely death.

"B) As a result of the 1964 tax cuts which overwhelmingly favored the wealthy, the national economy experienced a dramatic slow-down in 1966, less than 18 months after federal income tax rate cuts were enacted into law, with GDP going over a cliff from 10.1% down to 1.4% (note that the previous high levels of GDP occurred while the top marginal rate of individual income tax was 91%)."

Brilliant, really good with systems, cause and effect, huh. That cut, in part focused on managing the "surplus" coupled with monetary policy (particularly money supply, M1) actually helped to reinforce an expansion through 69.

"* High school completion rates (which are now at roughly 90 percent) and college graduation rates are the HIGHEST IN HISTORY."

You fail to grasp the subtle aspects: those rates have essentially been stagnant for decades - roughly 3% since 1979, despite significant per capita increase in spending - wasteful but we'll break the teacher's unions soon; CA will help a lot as we are greatly enjoying the pain to the welfare, poor, and labor unions. Another round of offshore drilling to eliminate some of those pesky bugs and animals and there will be fewer endangered species to worry about.

"* One in four adult Americans has at least a bachelor's degree, which is the highest percentage IN THE WORLD (and the percentage keeps getting higher)."

Simpleton, thank you for proving the point; vast majority of higher education is in no way under Federal Government control.

"* A larger percentage of twenty-two-year-olds receive degrees in math, science, or engineering in the United States than in any of our nation's major economic competitors."

See above.

"GAO: MORE THAN TWO-THIRDS OF CORPORATIONS PAY NO TAXES

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/11/AR2008081102324.html"

You are quite impressive with Google, but not reality. If you read the actual study, which I have, and not the Washington Compost version of it, the fact is that more than 66% actually had no tax liability for individual years, as opposed to the headline grabbing (and incorrect) statement that over that time period they paid no taxes. I'd have to school you in profit versus revenue, the concepts behind carryforwards versus carrybacks, and the fact that the IRS code specifically allows for low pass filtering of tax liability (look it up, you'll figure it out).

Go home little boy. And may a rich person decide not to give you or your family a job while the safety net is gutted. Eventually we'll have an appropriate voting structure where people vote based on the amount of income they earn