One hopes this stance will continue. President Obama seems pretty firm that no more tax cuts for those who don't need them is a good idea.

The Clinton tax cuts for the middle class of 1993-1994, and concommitant tax hike on the wealthy created a gross domestic product (economic activity) of 3.8% per year on average. The Bush tax cuts, of which nearly all went to the wealthy, created a GDP of...well, 2.7% from 2001 to 2005 (he did inherit a brief recession) and a -0.002% from 2006 to 2009. This, despite blowing the budget surplus out of the water and creating the single largest deficit in world history (matched and exceeded only by the emergency stimulus package under President Obama).

So you tell me: which makes more sense? Giving a bunch-o-bucks to Paris Hilton to buy heroin, or a smaller sum to the family trying to choose between paying the mortgage or the car loan? Which is going to generate more economic activity?

History suggests that raising taxes on the rich has always, always, been the smarter move. As Harry Truman put it, "If you want to live like a Republican, vote Democratic." Historically, the largest spikes in economic activity have begun under Democratic presidents. The lone exception in the past 60 years was the Reagan "growth", which as it turns out was a roll of the dice on lower taxes across the board, but in reality was created by the deregulation of banks started under President Jimmy Carter which saw, much like this recent collapse, banks get too big and too greedy for their own good, and created an economic collapse that more than swamped the growth the expansion realized. So much for Reaganomics.

American history is filled with tales of, "if you just put money in the hands of the working and middle classes, things will get better." Give them Social Security, the elderly live longer, more productive lives. Allow them unemployment insurance, recessions become milder and shorter. Give them a tax cut, like Clinton did, and watch the economy soar, despite the fact that Clinton took the reins at a time when the economy was shakily returning from another Republican recession.

Those who take the most from a society have the patriotic duty to give back to that society that provides such strong support. The army and police departments protect them more, because the rich have more to lose. The roads are better in rich neighborhoods, because the rich have the resources to complain and the connections to complain effectively. Fires are fought faster in wealthy communities because firefighters are better paid, better trained and get better equipment. I could go on.

The price of premium service is to pay a premium price. If you have an expensive sports car, you don't put cheap gas in it, at least not if you want it to last. You use premium from a reputable service station. You'll pay more for parts and service, but you're getting better quality of both.

And one pays a premium in taxes because no one gets rich on their own. One takes advantage of government programs, and one reaps the benefits of government research. One gets back much more in return for the extra money one pays.

This isn't brain surgery. The rich should pay more.

No matter how much this week's Pulitzer Prize triumphalism hides it, the fact remains that journalism these days is "a disaster," as Ted Koppel said recently. And unfortunately, retrospection dominates the news industry's self-analysis. Like dazed tornado victims, most media experts focus on what happened and why, oh lord, why?

The queries are important, though just as critica ...

Updated: Fri Apr 16, 2010

For much of the last year, a group of policy experts, scholars and practitioners have been meeting to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, with the hope of of charting a "New Way Forward," for America's longest war.

TWN Publisher Steve Clemons and a select group of others have crafted a report (AVAILABLE HERE) of findings and recommendations for U.S. policy in Afghanistan, which will be released in an event TODAY at the New America Foundation, from 12:00 PM - 2:00 pm.

The event will livestream here at TWN, with Steve Clemons moderating an all-star expert discussion featuring the following:

PAUL PILLAR
Director of Graduate Studies, Center for Peace & Security Studies, Georgetown University
Former National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia

MATTHEW HOH
Former Afghanistan-based official with Department of State and US Marine Corps
Director, Afghanistan Study Group

STEVE COLL
President, New America Foundation
Author, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
Contributing Editor, The New Yorker

BRIAN KATULIS
Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress

CHARLES KUPCHAN
Whitney Shepardson Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations
Professor of International Affairs, Georgetown University
Author, How Enemies Become Friends

DARCY BURNER
Director, American Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation

ROBERT PAPE
Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago
Director, Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism
Author, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism
Co-author of the forthcoming, Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It

session chair
STEVE CLEMONS
Director, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation
Publisher, The Washington Note

If you are in Washington and would like to attend the launch event, please RSVP here.

-- Andrew Lebovich

Other people have noted this elsewhere, but I would like to co-sign:

It's almost certain that if Republicans win the House or Senate or both in November, they will do everything in their power to crash the economy. Certainly I would if I were them: all the blame will accrue to Obama. Most obviously, this will take the form of shutting down the government or stopping any kind of further stimulus. But there's also a real chance of an acute crisis between now and 2012 (as opposed to the current chronic, grinding crisis) that requires massive congressional action.

And there's no way Real World Obama could beat them, despite the fact he'll understand it will gravely imperil his reelection campaign. Even Liberal Fantasy Obama probably couldn't beat them at this point, given how profoundly the Real World version has encouraged his opponents and demotivated his supporters.

So we may get a chance to find out just dreadful it is to have a worldwide depression, followed by three new wars in the mideast led by President Palin, followed by an even greater depression. If we're lucky we might also get an Early Christmas global warming catastrophe somewhere in the process.

I have to admit, I may have once again underestimated the ability of the Democratic Party to make the world a much, much worse place.

Well, it least it will be exciting!

—Jonathan Schwarz

Leave it to somebody from the American Enterprise Institute to figure out what's really wrong with the economy. Kevin Hasset, AEI's director of economic-policy studies, was an adviser to John McCain in his bid for the presidency. He writes, Your Fat Paycheck Keeps Your Neighbor Unemployed:

So here comes the leap into ice-cold water: The biggest problem with the labor market right now is that wages are too high. As Washington again turns to government spending as a cure for unemployment, some against-the-grain thinking is in order.

Economics teaches that full employment would be reached if wages adjust downward, to a level that better reflects current circumstances. At lower wages, employers would desire more workers. Labor markets generate persistent unemployment only if wages are sticky, failing to fall as demand declines.

So why aren't American workers eagerly joining this race to the bottom, according to Hasset? Because of the minimum wage. Because of the damned unions. Because of extended unemployment benefits. Because of an unwillingness to pull up stakes and move. And, besides not understanding Economics 101, all those silly people have psychological issues:

...the natural reluctance of workers to accept lower pay is amplified by how their wage helps define their identity. A $60,000-a-year office worker might have an extra-hard time coming to terms with becoming a $40,000-a-year worker.

Hasset fails to point out how many workers have already taken pay-cuts, often in the guise of furloughs. Nor is he volunteering to take a one-third cut in his pay. Nor, you'll notice, does he have anything to say about big-time CEOs or others among the top 10 percent taking a hit on their paychecks at a time when income inequality has given the United States a rich-poor ratio of a banana republic. No surprise. As a colonel in the class war, providing philosophical protection for the top tier is in his job description. No matter how disastrous actually carrying out his prescription would be.

As Tom Petruno at the Los Angeles Times points out, the plan would lead to deflation with consumers buying less than before at the very time that small businesses note that their biggest problem is weak sales. Which is why they're not hiring.

Does Hasset actually want to worsen the vicious circle? Who knows. At least he's not proposing another tax cut for the rich as a solution to the deficit. Gotta save that for next week's column.

I picked up on that in my diary, "What happened???" where I compared the 1956 and 1964 presidential election maps, and wrote:

Of course, Barbour was lying through his teeth.   Integration was barely getting started when he was in college, and he placed his own children in private academies that were all-white until the last year his eldest son was in attendence.  Her guest, Eugene Robinson, outdid himself, and even pointed out the unusual nature of the 1964 election in which Goldwater, who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, only carried five Deep South states plus his native Arizona.   But he didn't bring the full weight of this fact to bear, which I think can only be gained by comparing the 1964 map with the 1956 map.  The 1956 map was the most stripped-down version of the Democratic "Solid South" which can be found from 1876 onward (except for the Dixiecrat Revolt eleciton of 1948).  And the 1964 map, just 8 years later, was an almost exact mirror image.  Taken together, the two maps are perhaps the most dramatic representation of the overwhelming power of race in American politics you will ever find.

This week, Barbour's working the other side of that Rovian strategy.  He's still trying to play the "reasonable" "post-racial" card, so he doesn't embrace the wild-eyed anti-Obama position.  Instead he tries to "explain it"--having it both ways, as a "responsible" "grown-up" who still advances the undermining of Obama's legitimacy as an American president. It's a very sophisticated strategy.  Too sophisticated for Barbour to have come up with by himself.  It's part of a larger plan, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Rove had had a personal hand in it--though that's just sheer speculation at this point.  What matters is that people recognize it for the kind sophisticated Rove-style bank shot that it is.

Here's TPM  on an brakfast/interview he had hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, with just the sort of soft lede he would have wanted, as Barbour explains we don't know much about Obama, compared to George Washington chopping down a cherry tree (which, of course, he didn't do) or Ronald Reagan (whose been even more deliberately mythologized):

Barbour: 9/11 Koran Burning A Bad Idea
Christina Bellantoni | September 8, 2010, 10:12AM

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said today that he opposes a Florida church's plan to burn copies of the Koran on Sept. 11, and said he accepts "totally" that President Obama is a Christian.

"I do not think well of the idea of burning anybody's Koran, Bible, Book of Mormon or anything else," Barbour told reporters at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

"I don't think there is any excuse for it," Barbour said. "I don't think it's a good idea."

A reporter followed up to ask Barbour for his opinion as to why so many Americans (wrongly) think Obama is a Muslim.

"I don't know why people think what they think," Barbour said. He paused and then added, "This is a president that we know less about than any other president in history."

Barbour said that Obama has said that he is a Christian "throughout his public life" and added, "I accept just totally at face value that he's a Christian."

He was then asked if it is a vast right-wing conspiracy that polls show so many voters don't agree. "No, ma'am," he said....

After the breakfast, several reporters asked Barbour to clarify what he meant by Obama's history being so unknown. He specified that Obama's college-age years are a question mark, and admitted he has not read the president's "Dreams from my Father" memoir outlining his childhood.

"There's not much known about his, in college, or growing up ... we don't know any of the childhood things," Barbour said. "Part of it is the fact that he'd only been in public office a brief period of time."

Barbour said Americans know plenty about Ronald Reagan, or that George Washington "chopped down a cherry tree," and that it's his observation they know "a whole lot more" about other presidents than Obama. "I don't say it as an insult as anything other than just an observation," Barbour said.

Reporters asked if Barbour believes Obama was born in the United States. "As far as I know," he said. He added that, "I don't have any such question."

Barbour is being disingenuous on multiple levels here. The last paragraph, for example, disavows having any questions about Obama's citizenship and birth, but if so, then why not simply say, "Yes, of course he was born here."  Why say something as ambiguous as "As far as  I know"? Why leave any doubt for anyone else if you don't have any doubt yourself?

The point here is to seed an entire atmosphere of uncertainty and distrust, with as much deniability of responsibility as possible.

But this is most striking in the claims he makes about what's known about Obama vs. other presidents.  Somehow, according to Barbour, it's Obama's fault that he, Barbour, hasn't read either of Obama's auto-biogrpahical books.  And in setting things up in these terms, by implication Obama is responsible for everyone else who hasn't read his books as well.  The ignorant public is identified with Barbour--about whom probably 99% of the public knows less than they do about Obama.

In contrast:

Barbour said Americans know plenty about Ronald Reagan, or that George Washington "chopped down a cherry tree," and that it's his observation they know "a whole lot more" about other presidents than Obama. "I don't say it as an insult as anything other than just an observation," Barbour said.

Well, of course, Washington didn't chop down a cherry tree, so it's blindingly obvious that what Barbour is talking about here isn't genuine knowledge.  It isn't about logos--knowlege. It's about mythos--meaning.  How many people can even name all our past presidents, much less tell you anyting about them?  Other than that they were white, that is. And thus, the kind of people you make up flattering stories about.

Such as Reagan.  You air-brush out his arms-for-hostages dealings in Iran/Contra, his election-stealing with the "October Surprise", and his long-time involvement with the mob (Dark Victory: Ronald Reagan, the MCA, and the Mob by Dan Moldea), and he looks pretty decent.  But you can't really say that you know him if you delete all that stuff.

Here's just an excerpt from a brief summary of the Hollywood/mob aspect of the Reagan that most Americans don't know, from Dan Muldea:

Despite his status as a television producer, Reagan remained on SAG's board in another violation of the guild's bylaws, which prohibited producers from holding office in SAG. In 1959, when Reagan ran for an unprecedented sixth term as SAG's president, his opponents raised the bylaws issue. Publicly, Reagan denied that he had ever produced The General Electric Theater--a flat-out lie.

Wasserman had encouraged Reagan to run again. MCA was facing sensitive negotiations with SAG over residual motion picture rights for actors. The issue eventually forced SAG to strike in 1960, and Reagan became the actors' chief negotiator. Labor attorney Sidney Korshak aided Reagan and the studios in the final settlement. Years later, The New York Times characterized Korshak as the link between the legitimate business world and organized crime.

The contract that Reagan and company arranged with the studios is still known in Hollywood as "The Great Giveaway"; it provided residuals for actors only from films made after 1960. This greatly benefited MCA, which had purchased the film library of Paramount Pictures in 1959. Now, MCA could keep all the profits.

In 1962, the Justice Department filed a federal antitrust suit against MCA on the basis that it was both a talent agency and a production company; SAG was charged as a coconspirator.

Reagan was the subject of criminal and civil investigations by both the FBI and a federal grand jury in Los Angeles. A Justice Department memorandum quoted a Hollywood source as saying, "Ronald Reagan is a complete slave of MCA who would do their bidding on anything."

Reagan was subpoenaed before the grand jury, but he appeared to experience amnesia during his testimony on February 5, 1962, and failed to recall the major decisions that had been made when SAG had granted MCA the exclusive blanket waiver in 1952. Federal prosecutors were so convinced that Reagan had perjured himself repeatedly during his testimony that they subpoenaed his and his wife's income tax returns for the years 1952 to 1955. Nancy Reagan had been a member of SAG's board of directors since 1951.

Needless to say, if Obama had done half of what Reagan did, just in his dealings with MCA--forget Iran/Contra and the "October Surprise", he would never have been elected.  And if he had, he very probably would have been impeached, even with a Democratic majority.  This is very serious, very dark stuff.  But even the vast majority of Democratic activists have no idea about it.

In contrast, millions of conservative, GOP and Tea Party activists know all sorts of things about Obama that just don't happen to be true.

But, oh, do they fill out the mythos as nicely as anyone could wish for.

Then there's G.W. Bush with his his drunk driving, his shady business deals in oil exploration and baseball, his questionable accounts of how he was born again, and his going AWOL on his national guard obligation.  I won't try to summarize his entire dodgey record and how it's been repeatedly spun to make him seem like someone entirely different from who he really is.  But an excerpt from a 2004 story I did on his going AWOL from the Guard, republished at MyDD in 2005, should suffice:

For over 35 years, a pattern of favoritism, secrecy, and cover-ups have surrounded George W. Bush's evasion of military duty during the Vietnam War. The latest example is the distracting controversy over forged memos used by CBS News of real memos that said precisely the same thing--that Bush was gaming the system, with help from friends in high places.

These findings in no way depend upon the apparently fraudulent memos from Lt. Colonel. Jerry B. Killian, used by CBS News recently--memos whose contents are apparently true, according to Killian's secretary, Marian Carr Knox. "I know that I didn't type them," Knox said of the memos in a broadcast interview, "However, the information in those is correct."

Rather than depending on those memos, the analyses of Bush's official records illustrates a pattern of disobedience and official cover-up that is perfectly consistent with Knox's assertion.

Bush's problems began in late Spring on 1972, when he first tried to transfer to a non-flying unit--a back doorway of breaking his signed service agreement  approved by his Texas superiors, but rejected at the federal level. He then failed to take a mandatory flight physical and was suspended from flying, stopped attending drills for at least six months, and was not observed by his superior officers for a full year7. (He never took another physical again, and was, apparently, never disciplined for it.) A hurried spate of training unlawfully packed into a brief two-month period was then followed by his discharge from the Texas Air National Guard (TXANG), but he never fulfilled his obligation to finish his service at a unit in Massachusetts when he returned to New England to get an MBA at Harvard Business School.  

Bush has unsigned pay and points records documenting training drills during part of his missing year, presumably in Alabama. However, no other documents support this evidence, which gives credit for drills outside the legally allowable time-frame, and overstates the points earned. (November 13 and 14, 1972, and January 4, 5, 8, 9, 10 were weekdays, for which only seven points total should be credited. Bush received fourteen.) A variety of such documents would normally exist for each of the drills. No one observed him at any of these drills. Other documents--such as his Chronological Listing of Service and his Military Biography--show no record of him being stationed in Alabama. There is no document authorizing his presence in Alabama after December 1972, or for the sessions he was paid for there in October and November.  He missed the sessions he was assigned to those months.

Bush himself has never been seriously questioned about all these contradictions, much less given a straight answer. For years, his all-purpose response has been that he served honorably, because he got an honorable discharge. But his honorable discharge was fraudulently obtained, according to analysis by Colonel Gerald Lechliter (Retired), posted on the New York Times website, and corroborated by a similar analysis by independent researcher Paul A Lukasiak, prominently cited by Salon magazine for his role in analyzing and decoding the significance of Bush's military record.

While their arguments go into considerable detail, a handful of documents readily reveals major contradictions in Bush's defense. A memo released by the White House in February 2004, written by Lt. Colonel Albert Lloyd, is clearly in error in claiming that Bush fulfilled his obligations with 56 points in 1972-73 and 50 points in 1973-74--the bare minimum accepted.  For the later year, a document in Bush's file (released by the White House that same week)--"ARF Retirement Credit Summary," dated January 30, 1974--clearly states that he earned only 40 points for 1973-74, ten points short. That alone is enough to discredit his honorable discharge.

In his analysis, Lechliter concludes that, "The pay records released by the White House this past winter prove Bush received unauthorized, i.e., fraudulent, payments for inactive duty training, even if he did show up for duty."

Lukasiak adds that the documents "also reveal that Bush's personnel files were tampered with to disguise what had occurred."

This diary is already long enough as it is, and I think I've made my point.  The American public actually has very little idea what either of the two-term GOP presidents from the past 30 years were really like.  And when Barbour said that Americans know plenty about Ronald Reagan, or that George Washington "chopped down a cherry tree," and added that it's his observation they know "a whole lot more" about other presidents than Obama, he was simply blowing smoke.

What's actually the case is that there's a propaganda war going on here, with the conservative white guys being heavily promoted as "heroes" who represent "the best" of what "we are," while the moderate liberal black guy is being portrayed as a shadowy "other" that you somehow just can't trust.  There's very, very little relationship to the truth involved.