Roy Blunt, the majority whip and a candidate to succeed Tom DeLay as majority leader, spouts supply-side nonsense on the Wall Street Journal op-ed page:
[T]he tax cuts have even helped reduce the federal budget deficit through record revenue growth fueled by an expanding economy.
But as I pointed out, revenues are way down as a result of the tax cuts, not up. The recent mini-surge in tax collections still leaves revenue levels far below what they would have been if we had never passed the tax cuts in the first place.
This is, of course, the same tactic used by President Bush and the WSJ editorial page. Any suggestions for a good analogy that would explain the fallacious reasoning behind this claim? (I'm struggling for something catchy and succinct.)
I think Blunt implies that revenues are higher than they otherwise would have been, absent the impact he claims that tax cuts had on growth.
Things get complicated and easily malleable here however.
Posted by: Bill | January 19, 2006 at 09:27 AM
There is nothing catchy to it but I call it Republican Say Anything Politics. If it's a small thing they outright lie, if it's a big thing they dissemble and obfuscate, and attack. For example - how is it that Al Gore "tends to like or enjoy grabbing headlines.?" We hardly ever hear from him. He sceduled the speech with nothing fancy. Where's the "grabbing" Where's the "like or enjoy?" McClellan compares the single disputed search of Aldrich Ames to wholesale vacuuming up of massive amounts of data, whether Al Gore is entirely in the wrong or not, and claims that Gore's "hypocrisy knows no bounds?" That's 'Say Anything Politics' or perhaps 'Say Anything That You Can Get Away With Politics'
Posted by: C.P.T.L. | January 19, 2006 at 02:09 PM
I've been noodling this over for a day now, and nothing: but I do refer you to Carpetbagger, who likens Bush's speech to "an arsonist lecturing us on how best to put out fires." Now THAT'S an analogy to take home to mother.
Posted by: DJ Ninja | January 20, 2006 at 10:58 AM
He sceduled the speech with nothing fancy.
Actually even before opening this page I'd been wondering what kind of PR work got Al Gore's speech quoted on blogs and attacked by the White House. People like Barack Obama give speeches all the time and I don't hear about it. Do they just generate buzz, do they leak it to strategic blogs, what?
Posted by: Noumenon | January 20, 2006 at 01:36 PM
Analogy for tax cuts helping a bankrupt economy.
Its like the farmer punching holes in his pail and bragging about how much easier it is to carry water this way.
Posted by: Marty B. O'Malley | January 20, 2006 at 10:32 PM