Facts, Polls Be Damned, Republicans Fight to Keep Ruinous Bush Tax Policy – Their Goal Is Not ‘Jobs, Jobs, Jobs,’ It’s to Make Obama ‘Fail, Fail, Fail’

Quintile: A fifth portion or band of a set of data. A quintile is a proportion of a set of data that has been ranked and divided into five equal groups (or bands), where each group contains an equal number of data items.
Quintile: A fifth portion or band of a set of data. A quintile is a proportion of a set of data that has been ranked and divided into five equal groups (or bands), where each group contains an equal number of data items.

The Republicans have now boiled down their debate points for extending tax breaks to the uber wealthy to this:

INTERVIEWER: But, Your Excellency, the Bush tax cuts have been in place for 10 years and they have not produced jobs. They are also directly responsible for the deficit. So why should we extend them?

REPUBLICAN: We cannot raise taxes in a recession!

Of course, if the economy were in great shape, the GOP answer would be:

REPUBLICAN: We cannot raise taxes when the economy is booming!!

And I’m just kidding about the interviewer’s question. The news-show hosts rarely if ever confront Republicans about the simple, empirically knowable, no-two-sides-to-it fact that these wealthy Americans, whom Republicans euphemistically refer to as “small business owners” — the Paris Hiltons, Koch brothers, Meg Whitmans, Donald Trumps and, strangely enough, George Soroses of the world — having enjoyed the luxury of the Bush tax cuts for 10 years, did not create jobs with their “extra” money.

It is an equally knowable, non-debatable fact available to straight-down-the-line, fair-to-both-sides journalists that during the Bush era the rich got much richer:

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Bush Cites Criticism by Kanye West As Worst Moment of Presidency – Not 9/11, Not Iraq, Katrina, Economic Collapse

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George Bush’s announcement last summer that he would come out of seclusion in October to promote a book about his presidency written in his name titled “Decision Points” sent Republicans into a panic. Within days of the announcement, word came that Bush had delayed his press junket until after the elections.

Lauer: “I wonder if some people are going to read that, now that you’ve written it, and they might give you some heat for that. And the reason is this — “

Bush [interrupting]: “Don’t care.”

Republicans panicked because they suspected, rightly, that having Bush out doing press would remind voters about the bad old days when he and his cronies in Congress, including Speaker-in-Waiting John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, were in charge. His presence would have disrupted their campaign to shift blame for the crises Bush created and/or ignored to Pres. Obama — a campaign that ultimately worked out remarkably well for them in the midterm elections.

The election is over, and Bush is back and, well, badder than ever. The first soundbite from his book tour proves that Republicans were right to keep him under wraps.

In an interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer set to air next week, Bush offers a glimpse of just how disruptive he could have been to his party’s midterm campaign:

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