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- In an ideal world, tax cuts would be extended for people who would actually benefit from it, rather than rich people. But since the sociopaths in the GOP (and their enablers in the conservative movement) only care about making the rich slightly richer, and Democrats have bafflingly punted on this issue until the 11th hour, we're stuck with the unsavory option of extending all the tax cuts in the hope of getting a concession on UI and the debt ceiling from the GOP. I wouldn't call this a hostage situation; it's more like one of those Chinese finger traps.
- I share Kevin Drum's exasperation: We need vast public investment on infrastructure, a structured tax hike/spending cut response to rein in deficits, an end to militarism, etc., and we're not going to get any of it. We're not even going to try. Instead we're going to worry whether our civilization can withstand creeping Sharia law or whether rich people need tax breaks or whether gays are "destroying" marriage or any number of things that ignore our stagnant economy. Heckuva job, elites!
- One reason I have a hard time taking the majority of conservative economists seriously is that their critiques of liberal economists reveal a fundamental lack of understanding about what liberal economists actually believe. For instance, Veronique de Rugy agrees with her ideological colleagues that liberal economists are primarily motivated by a desire to receive government largess, and thus design "pro-government" economic solutions accordingly. That's it! When your understanding of the political opposition is that shallow and simple-minded, how am I to be expected to take anything you say seriously?
- Remainders: This neatly captures the self-absorbed nature of elite news reporting; I'm eagerly awaiting the response to this from the right wing; this is one of the crankier conservative rants I've read in a while; Mike Huckabee's Jesus is like something out of a 1980s Charles Bronson vehicle; and I'm glad Bruce Bartlett has finally realized that Mike Pence is a profoundly ignorant man.
--Mori Dinauer
