Times Economist: Fair Share For the Rich is a 91% Tax Rate
How can liberalism’s favorite economist know so little about the topic he is known for? New York Times economist, Paul Krugman had this to say in today’s op-ed regarding the Twinkie situation…
Consider the question of tax rates on the wealthy. The modern American right, and much of the alleged center, is obsessed with the notion that low tax rates at the top are essential to growth. Remember that Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, charged with producing a plan to curb deficits, nonetheless somehow ended up listing “lower tax rates” as a “guiding principle.”
Yet in the 1950s incomes in the top bracket faced a marginal tax rate of 91, that’s right, 91 percent, while taxes on corporate profits were twice as large, relative to national income, as in recent years. The best estimates suggest that circa 1960 the top 0.01 percent of Americans paid an effective federal tax rate of more than 70 percent, twice what they pay today...
… Along the way, however, we’ve forgotten something important — namely, that economic justice and economic growth aren’t incompatible. America in the 1950s made the rich pay their fair share; it gave workers the power to bargain for decent wages and benefits; yet contrary to right-wing propaganda then and now, it prospered. And we can do that again.
Yes, because business will certainly prosper with an added burden of a 91% tax rate on the wealthy, and a corporate rate double what it is today. It will surely create a scenario where wealthy business owners and small business owners alike will announce thousand upon thousands of job openings.
It’s no wonder Krugman is heralded as an economic hero in liberal circles. Reality however, offers a different vantage point.
Pollsters Really Want You to Believe Obama is Winning Big, Problem Is They Don’t Believe It Themselves
A new poll released by the New York Times seems to be very dreadful news for the Romney campaign.
For weeks, Republicans in Ohio have been watching with worry that the state’s vital 18 electoral votes were trending away from Mitt Romney. The anxiety has been similar in Florida, where Republicans are concerned that President Obama is gaining the upper hand in the fight for the state’s 29 electoral votes.
Those fears are affirmed in the findings of the latest Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News polls of likely voters in both states, which show that Mr. Obama has widened his lead over Mr. Romney and is outperforming him on nearly every major campaign issue, even though about half said they were disappointed in Mr. Obama’s presidency.
Upon further review, the poll is just another example of how the media is intentionally manipulating numbers in an attempt to keep Romney voters discouraged, and by extension, from showing up to the polls.
Jamie Wearing Fools explains just how the Times ended up with their numbers, and why the reality is that those swing states appear more as a dead heat right now, than a landslide victory for the President.
So Obama allegedly is up 10 in Ohio, 9 in Florida and 12 in Pennsylvania? Sure.Here’s the sample they use.So Obama is up 9 in Florida with a D+9 sample, up 10 in Ohio with a D+9 sample and up 12 in Pennsylvania with a D+11 sample. I notice in all the orgasmic news reports this morning none of them mention the ridiculous skew to the polls. But all you will hear all day is how big a lead Obama has.
Here’s the real kicker though. The Assistant Director of Quinnipiac Polling, when asked about the sampling data used in a previous similarly skewed poll stated that even he didn’t think the numbers matched up with the likely voter turnout come November.
From Da Tech Guy:
By an odd coincidence the last time this poll came out Hugh Hewett questioned Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac Polls and asked him about this (emphasis mine):
Hugh Hewett: But I don’t know how that goes to the issue, Peter, so help me. I’m not being argumentative, I really want to know. Why would guys run a poll with nine percent more Democrats than Republicans when that percentage advantage, I mean, if you’re trying to tell people how the state is going to go, I don’t think this is particularly helpful, because you’ve oversampled Democrats, right?
Peter Brown: But we didn’t set out to oversample Democrats. We did our normal, random digit dial way of calling people. And there were, these are likely voters. They had to pass a screen. Because it’s a presidential year, it’s not a particularly heavy screen.
HH: And so if, in fact, you had gotten a hundred Democrats out of a hundred respondents that answered, would you think that poll was reliable?
PB: Probably not at 100 out of 100.
HH: Okay, so if it was 75 out of 100…
PB: Well, I mean…
HH: I mean, when does it become unreliable? You know you’ve just put your foot on the slope, so I’m going to push you down it. When does it become unreliable?
PB: Like the Supreme Court and pornography, you know it when you see it.
HH: Well, a lot of us look at a nine point advantage in Florida, and we say we know that to be the polling equivalent of pornography. Why am I wrong?
PB: Because what we found when we made the actual calls is this kind of party ID.
HH: Do you expect Democrats, this is a different question, do you, Peter Brown, expect Democrats to have a nine point registration advantage when the polls close on November 6th in Florida?
PB: Well, first, you don’t mean registration.
HH: I mean, yeah, turnout.
PB: Do I think…I think it is probably unlikely.
This is the man conducting the polls saying essentially that he doesn’t think the oversampling of Democrats used in the poll will be representative of the turnout in November.
There’s still plenty of work for Romney to do to win these swing states, but Republicans need not nearly be as concerned as the media would like them to be.
Romney Campaign Launches Rapid Response Efforts to Combat Biased Media
You may have heard the news recently about a Romney spokesman telling reporters to “kiss my a**” and to “shove it”. The aide, Rick Gorka, was responding to a disrespectful barrage of media questions at a Polish holy site. What you probably won’t here about are the actual litany of inane and biased questions from the media that drew Gorka’s ire. Here is a sampling:
CNN: “Governor Romney are you concerned about some of the mishaps of your trip?
NYT: “Governor Romney do you have a statement for the Palestinians?
Washington Post: “What about your gaffes?
NYT: “Governor Romney do you feel that your gaffes have overshadowed your foreign trip?”
CNN: “Governor Romney just a few questions sir, you haven’t taken but three questions on this trip from the press!
Gorka: “Show some respect”
NYT: “We haven’t had another chance to ask a question…”
Gorka: “Kiss my ass. This is a Holy site for the Polish people. Show some respect.”
Acosta added: Moments later, Gorka told Jonathan Martin, a reporter for Politico, to “shove it.” About a half-hour later, the aide called reporters to apologize.
The news media would be crucified if they treated Barack Obama this way (they never would, of course.)
No doubt. Has the media ever asked a question about Obama’s gaffes? Ever? Joe Biden commits two or three gaffes every time he exhales, and do they call him out on it?
In a direct response to this media bias, the Romney campaign has decided to fight back through the power of social media. Last night we received this e-mail from the campaign:
The Romney campaign’s rapid response team is launching a new, branded twitter handle and tumblr page to fight the mainstream media and the Obama campaign’s distractions, and to get the facts straight.
Gov. Romney’s trip abroad is yet another reminder that the mainstream media is determined to create gaffes and slanted coverage of him and his campaign. While the national media continues to blow up non-stories and gin up non-controversies, online conservatives are inspired by the actual events going on the ground. As Gov. Romney pointed out this morning, it’s becoming clear the mainstream media are going to attempt to distract voters from the real issues of this election. We’re tired of it, and we’re going to strike back.
Tomorrow morning at 7 am, we will be launching our new twitter handle, @RomneyResponse, and its accompanying Tumblr site, RomneyResponse.tumblr.com.
Here’s a video clip of Romney responding to the media’s attacks…
Shareholder to New York Times: “You’re Willing to Offend the Catholics Because They’re Not Going to Come and Kill You”
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| New York Times Chairman, Arthur Sulzberger |
Last month, the New York Times accepted and ran an advertisement which bashed religion, and asked Catholic readers to consider leaving the church. Such an advertisement in itself does not show the Times religious bias. What does however, is the fact that the same newspaper refused to run a similar ad that asked practicing Muslims to do the same.
Via Fox News:
The New York Times is being accused of having a double standard when it comes to questioning religion, after it ran an ad calling on Catholics to leave their church, but nixed an ad making the same plea to Muslims.
The newspaper published an ad from Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation on March 9 which asked Catholics, “why send your children to parochial schools to be indoctrinated into the next generation of obedient donors and voters?” The ad went on to call loyalty to the faith misplaced “after two decades of sex scandals involving preying priests, church complicity, collusion and cover-up going all the way to the top.”
But in a story first reported by The Daily Caller, when Pamela Geller, a blogger and executive director of Stop Islamization of America, offered the same $39,000 for the Old Gray Lady to run an ad making a similar appeal to Muslims, the newspaper passed.
“This shows the hypocrisy of The New York Times, the “gold standard” in journalism, and its willingness to kowtow to violent Islamic supremacist intimidation,” Geller told FoxNews.com.
Responding to the heat brought on by the blatant hypocrisy, the New York Times claimed that they opposed the anti-Muslim ad because it could jeopardize the safety of American troops.
Fox News host Trace Gallagher reached out to the Times for comment, receiving the following explanation:
“The fallout from running this ad now could put U.S. troops and/or civilians in the [Afghan] region in danger.”
Now however, one shareholder at the New York Times has openly criticized their double-standard operation by suggesting that it is the company’s own safety they are looking out for.
Cliff Kincaid, Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism, and a shareholder in the company, confronted a group of executives at the Times annual shareholders meeting, accusing them of running the anti-Catholic ad because:
“You’re willing to offend the Catholics because they’re not going to come and kill you.”
That’s it in nutshell, is it not? The media is willing to report negatively about other religions, but refuse to cast a negative shadow on Islam. And fear is the overwhelming factor.
What the media should be doing is an introspection, asking themselves why they are afraid of offending Muslims. When they find that answer, maybe they can more accurately report on the events involving Islamic extremists.
Here is a larger excerpt from Kincaid’s report:
Speaking at the April 25 New York Times annual meeting, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of The New York Times Company, tried to justify the rejection of an ad calling attention to the alleged oppressive nature of the Islamic religion and the “vengeful, hateful and violent teachings” of Islam’s prophet. He said the ad might incite violence in the Middle East.At the same time, he justified the placement of an anti-Catholic ad in The New York Times by saying, “We take political ads that we do not agree with. That is the nature of advocacy advertising.”Representing Accuracy in Media, a shareholder in the company for the purpose of getting access to the annual meetings, I told Sulzberger, his executives and other Times shareholders, “You’re willing to offend the Catholics because they’re not going to come and kill you.”The full-page, anti-Catholic ad ran on March 9 under the title “It’s time to quit the Catholic Church” and was sponsored by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. It showed a cartoon of a Catholic Bishop going berserk over a birth control pill and urged Catholics to leave the church.The ad against radical Islam, designed to test the paper’s commitment to fairness and freedom of expression, had a cartoon of a radical Imam upset over a smoldering Koran. It was sponsored and signed by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer of Stop Islamization of Nations and the American Freedom Defense Initiative.
Please read more details from the meeting here…
Learn more about the New York Times pro-radical Muslim reporting here…
Cuomo Administration Caught Trying to Silence Whistleblower
Apparently, quashing dissenting opinions is a staple of New York government…
From the AP, via the Troy Record:
The Cuomo administration tried to keep a whistleblower from a Senate hearing on the state’s care for the disabled, where speakers Monday recounted stories of daily abuse in a system portrayed as unable to keep even repeat abusers away from the victims.The whistleblower is Jeffrey Monsour, a state worker and outspoken critic of the system that provides care to thousands of people. Monsour’s invitation to speak at Republican Sen. Roy McDonald’s “round table” was withdrawn Saturday after a call by the administration of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, but Monsour was invited again after The New York Times prepared to reveal the decision.
Courtney Burke, commissioner of the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities, told reporters it was “a misunderstanding,” but wouldn’t explain. She then said in brief comments to the panel that the Cuomo administration has made “tremendous” strides in protecting the disabled in the state system, while recognizing it wasn’t enough for some advocates. She left after making her remarks.
McDonald wouldn’t detail his discussions with the administration representatives who called his office about Monsour. Later McDonald said he wouldn’t “make enemies” in the administration or Legislature who could keep him from making legislative changes in the system.
Wait, what ever happened to the courageous Roy McDonald? The one who just says “f*** it … I’m trying to do the right thing“? That guy has gone from Johnny Bravo to tap dancing for the Governor?
Cuomo tries to strong arm a whistleblower out of an open invite discussion on abuse in the system, gets caught red handed by the New York Times, and then has to back off. How very transparent and open of the Governor.
Mental Recession 