What is it

About the idea of cutting taxes that pisses them off so badly?

I’ve been watching the shitstorm froth up in the leftosphere over the possibility that 40% of Obama’s proposed “Stimulus Plan” is dedicated to cutting taxes for businesses and citizens.

It started with Aravosis last Tuesday

The first handout didn’t do much because it was too much money in one fell swoop, leading people to use it to pay off debts, rather than buying goods and services, which is what we want them to do in order to help the economy (reportedly, only a third of the earlier $300/person handout was actually spent). This time, the money will be spread out throughout the year in the form of a reduction in your withholding taxes (actually this would be a permanent tax cut). So I did the math. Say you get a paycheck every two weeks, so over a twelve month period that makes 26 paychecks. If you spread the $500 per person tax cut over 26 paychecks, that puts $19 more in your pocket per paycheck.

Aravosis argues that under $20 per paycheck won’t do anything as most folks wouldn’t even notice it. He is only partially worng there.

Sure, a lot of upper income earners might not notice $20, but if you ask people if they want a tax cut as opposed to more government spending, I think you can guess what their answer would be.

And since his first angry post on the subject, Obama has more than doubled the amount of the stimulus that will go to cutting taxes from $140 billion to $300 billion, or about $82 a month of my earned wages staying inside my bank account and out of the hands of the dotfed.

I don’t care who gives it to me, I’m liking that idea. It also makes me happy that Aravosis is nearly made to weep at the thought of it.

Even the more level headed than most leftist bloggers, Josh Marshall, is just about to froth at the idea (which is also giving me warm fuzzies)

But Obama seems to be telegraphing that to a significant degree the fundamental structure of the legislation is being built around accommodating the concerns of Republicans — members of a political party that are about as unpopular and weak as you can get at the moment. And that sounds a lot like he’s negotiating with himself, something that will embolden opposition and invite Republicans to up the ante even further.

It is as though he is purposely forgetting that the reason the Stupid Party is “unpopular” is because of their spending habits. I don’t mind that he wants to make the Democrats the new Big Spender party, but he could at least be honest about it.

Yeah, right. I know.

And just so you don’t feel left out, courtesy of FDL’s own wannabe econ-master, Ian Welsh, here is what the leftosphere wants an Obama stimulus bill to look like: New Deal Part Douche!

Stimulus at this time should not be tax cuts, it should be spending. Rewire the country’s energy infrastructure, make every building energy efficient, rebuild roads, build high speed train corridors on the west and east costs, then connect them to each other. Give cities money to build the trams or subways they’ve been wanting to build. Push high speed internet out to everyone, and at the same time increase its speed to international standards (i.e. 10x as fast as the crappy “high” speed internet North Americans get). Move to single-payer healthcare and buyout the health insurance companies. Extend UI to 12 months, and create a bunch of programs that folks can work in as was done in the Great Depression.

But the stupidity doesn’t stop there!

The past 30 years have been tax cut after tax cut. And they have led us here. The solution is not more tax cuts, no matter who they’re meant for. It’s to stop thinking that tax cuts are the solution, or that “high” tax rates are the problem. They aren’t, low tax rates are the problem. The US has cut its tax rates into the verge of a depression. And the solution the geniuses, like Larry Summers, who brought us this disaster, are proposing is more tax cuts? More of the same?

Yeah, Ian. Never mind that government spending has multiplied faster than the intake of tax dollars. Never mind that most folks just want to keep more of their own money. And never mind that the plan he proposes was tried by FDR and was proven to have not only not help America out of the Great Depression, but to have actually lengthened it.

Oh, and never mind that the past 30 years have been some of the most prosperous in our nation’s history.

Whereas tax cuts bring in $3 for every $1 returned to the taxpayer cut, so if they cut taxes $82 per month, there will be approximately $246 per month per taxpayer injected into the economy.

You can almost see the guy’s little “Reality Based” world come crashing down around him.

I’m laughing heartily and so should you.