Willard Romney’s budget has a couple problems. They are math and misanthropy. Every time anyone asks him or his boy wonder to explain the budget, they change the subject. They do so, because voters would turn away in disgust, if they understood what Romney and Ryan intend. The math problem is that their numbers do not add up. The misanthropy problem is how they intend to make up the difference by shafting the burden to the 99% of Americans, who would not benefit from the huge tax cuts for the 1%.
…The Claim: Romney’s tax plan can’t add up, Obama said. “It’s math,” he said. “It’s arithmetic.”
The Background: Romney has proposed reducing income tax rates by 20 percent and eliminating the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax. He says his plan would boost growth, while avoiding an expansion of the federal budget deficit because he also would curtail deductions, exemptions and credits. He says there are enough tax breaks for top earners that he would eliminate to avoid shifting the burden to the middle class.
The Facts: Romney’s tax plan can’t add up under congressional budget-scoring rules that don’t let him assume that economic growth will generate higher tax revenue.
Obama’s argument rests on an August analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington. That group sought to see if it was simultaneously possible to meet all of Romney’s principles: Cut tax rates, avoid shifting the tax burden to the middle class, don’t increase the budget deficit, and keep tax benefits for savings and investment.
The study found that, in 2015, $86 billion of the tax burden would be shifted to the middle class to keep the plan from increasing the deficit…
Inserted from <Business Week>
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Martin Bashir discussed the math and the misanthropy with Jared Bernstein and Jeffrey Sachs.
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The Romney plan leaves $1 Trillion to stick on the poor and middle classes, if and only if he takes every single penny of deductions from the 1%. The notion that Romney would do so to his vulture capitalist cronies is fertilizer for your veggies, so it will be far worse than $1 Trillion. Their answer will be to gut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Education, and everything else that does not benefit the 1%.
Moderate Mitt = Myth!
6 Responses to “The Mathematics of Misanthropy”
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Jeffrey Sachs, PhD. is a brilliant numbers man but some people just don't like listening to him. I've seen Joe Scarborough become apoplectic when he is explaining economics on his show.
Former President Bill Clinton explained all of this at the Democratic National Convention and was applauded and the Republithugs were stepping all over themselves to explain otherwise. When President Obama says the same thing that it's about the math, they say he's lying or making things up.
Obviously, they all flunked basic arithmetic in grammar school and just skated by in higher education by cheating or avoiding all math classes.
LOL! I think they have done the math and know exactly what it means.
Yes Arithmetic and only Arithmetic– no fancy statistics or formulas —
No rocket science needed!
A few key phrases from the Martin Bashir segment —
Medicare and social Security changes = cut them [the poor, disabled, elderly] off at the knees
Ryan's budget = massive Robin Hood in reverse
Ryan's budget and Rmoney's plan is radicalism disguised as moderation; a scam
As someone who has dealt with numbers for 40 years, looking at financial statements, budgets, and investments etc, I can tell you that the average person's eyes glaze over quickly, and understanding goes right out the window. It is hard enough for some to just deal with figuring out a personal budget. So figures on this magnitude, and economic principles . . . well they don't have a chance. But most of the time, it comes down to the math. But one thing that Sachs said, which I quite liked (especially from an economist) is the people aspect. In other words, each of those numbers has a face attached to it and government has a responsibility to the faces along with prudence towards the numbers.
There are times when 1 + 1 = 3!
I could not have said that better!