Rick Perry hires Tim Pawlenty’s ad guy: Tim Pawlenty didn’t have a lot going for him in the 2012 race, but one thing that was a definite ace in the hole was his ultra-over-the top campaign ads, which evoked the ultra-over-the-top movies of Michael Bay. Now that Pawlenty’s out, guess who hired Lucas Baiano, the guy who made all those ads? That’s right, Rick Perry. Watch his first creation above. What do you think?
Seems like a sequel for that blockbuster, The Bush Years.
(And we all know the sequels are always worse than what came the first time around.)
I refuse to believe corporations are people until Texas executes one.
Ara Rubya via @DanonNewsNet (via soupsoup)
Two-thirds of an actual exchange at last night's GOP debate, Pt. 1.
PERRY: Michael Dukakis created jobs three times faster than you did, Mitt.
ROMNEY: Well, as a matter of fact, George Bush and his predecessor created jobs at a faster rate than you did, Governor.
PAUL: For God's sake, get a room.
I. Can’t. Even.
Question all widely-accepted peer-reviewed modern science because over 400 years ago a heliocentric universe was considered impossible.
-Joe
and of course the irony that it was an oppressive Christian theocracy that punished Galileo Galilei and Copernicus.
Will the corporations and the free market put out these massive fires? Maybe deregulation or cutting volunteer firemen budgets will put them out?
The New Resentment of the Poor
Representative Michele Bachmann noted recently that 47 percent of Americans do not pay federal income tax; all of them, she said, should pay something because they benefit from parks, roads and national security. (Interesting that she acknowledged government has a purpose.) Gov. Rick Perry, in the announcement of his candidacy, said he was dismayed at the “injustice” that nearly half of Americans do not pay income tax. Jon Huntsman Jr., up to now the most reasonable in the Republican presidential field, said not enough Americans pay tax.
Representative Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, and several senators have made similar arguments, variations of the idea expressed earlier by Senator Dan Coats of Indiana that “everyone needs to have some skin in the game.”
This is factually wrong, economically wrong and morally wrong. First, the facts: a vast majority of Americans have skin in the tax game. Even if they earn too little to qualify for the income tax, they pay payroll taxes (which Republicans want to raise), gasoline excise taxes and state and local taxes. Only 14 percent of households pay neither income nor payroll taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center at the Brookings Institution. The poorest fifth paid an average of 16.3 percent of income in taxes in 2010.
Economically, reducing the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit — which would be required if everyone paid income taxes — makes no sense at a time of high unemployment. The credits, which only go to working people, have always been a strong incentive to work, as even some conservative economists say, and have increased the labor force while reducing the welfare rolls.
The moral argument would have been obvious before this polarized year. Nearly 90 percent of the families that paid no income tax make less than $40,000, most much less. The real problem is that so many Americans are struggling on such a small income, not whether they pay taxes. The two tax credits lifted 7.2 million people out of poverty in 2009, including four million children. At a time when high-income households are paying their lowest share of federal taxes in decades, when corporations frequently avoid paying any tax, it is clear who should bear a larger burden and who should not.
-The New York Times. Without a doubt, this is the best editorial I have read all year. Read the entire piece here.
I made a chart (with the great Celine Nadeau) comparing Social Security and a Ponzi scheme. They don’t have much in common.
Perry’s Texas Jobs Boom: The Result of Big Government
That awkward moment when facts refute everything you’ve said.
I love when GOP/Conservative politicians, who are on the “socialist” public payroll, who spend their waking moments trying to badmouth how bad Government is, have, in perpetiuty, zero guilt when their rhetoric rings false and the exact opposite of what they preach is the truth.
(Source: mimesandpunishment)
I was praying Perry would get in the race,
[A] former White House aide closely linked to Obama’s campaign. - Obama 2012 team would prefer to run against Rick Perry (via brooklynmutt)
The Bush comparisons are so easy to make.
Plus most of the jobs he “created” are due to receiving federal aid.
Walk in the park.
Perry and the Stimulus: It's Complicated — 2012 Presidential Election | The Texas Tribune
“Washington’s insatiable desire to spend our children’s inheritance on failed ‘stimulus’ plans and other misguided economic theories have given us record debt and left us with far too many unemployed,” Perry said in his announcement speech in South Carolina on Saturday.
In his 2010 book, Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America From Washington, Perry wrote this: “We are fed up with bailout after bailout and stimulus plan after stimulus plan, each one of which tosses principle out the window along with taxpayer money.”
But the reality of Perry’s relationship with fed-stim is complicated. Through the second quarter of this year, Texas has used $17.4 billion in federal stimulus money — including $8 billion of the one-time dollars to fund state expenses that recur over and over. In fact, Texas used the federal stimulus to balance its last two budgets.
It is true, as presidential candidate Perry says, that the state turned down some of the money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 because it had strings attached. Texas didn’t apply for education grants that came with conditions, and the governor famously refused $556 million in federal stimulus funds for the state’s unemployment insurance program, saying the conditions that came along with the cash would increase the long-term costs of the program.
But Texas happily accepted the rest.
