Tag: Republican Lies

Republican Tax Policies Added the Portion of the 47% Who are Poor

Trish

Kim Dixon at Reuters:

Mitt Romney has distanced himself from his remarks lamenting the nearly 47 percent of Americans who do not owe federal income taxes, but his fellow Republicans helped engineer the very tax breaks that have put many in that category. And little change is expected soon.

Economist: ‘There is some degree of disconnect between complaining about the 47% and yet supporting the policies that brought it about’

A key reason: The breaks in question – the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit – are based on core Republican philosophies of encouraging work to lift people out of poverty, Republican aides and many conservatives say.

The number of Americans not owing federal income taxes has been growing since the mid-1980s, and the increase largely stems from expansion of these two tax credits – championed by Republicans from conservative economist Milton Friedman to former President Ronald Reagan.

“It is absolutely true – there is some degree of disconnect between complaining about the 47 percent and yet supporting the policies that brought it about,” said economist Alan Viard of the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute.

The income credit began under Republican President Gerald Ford and was significantly expanded by Reagan. The child credit doubled to $1,000 under Republican President George W. Bush.

Read the full story.

Were We This Crazy When Bush Was in Office?

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I don’t think BLS cooked numbers. I think a bunch of Dems lied about getting jobs. That would have same effect.

— One of many nutty tweets expressing rightwing suspicion over new unemployment numbers that show the biggest month to month drop in nine years at the end of September, 2012. Some, like Jack Welch, CEO of GE and Obama critic, claim the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the lower figures to throw the election.

Rommey Admits He Isn’t Qualified to Be President

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I don’t pay more than are legally due and frankly if I had paid more than are legally due, I don’t think I’d be qualified to become president.

Mitt Romney, talking about his taxes to ABC News in July. The candidate for president recently released his 2011 tax return, which showed that Romney intentionally claimed less in charitable deductions than he was entitled to in order to make sure he paid at least 13% in taxes, as he previously swore that he did. Romney’s income is almost totally from investments which are taxed, thanks to Republicans, at a much lower rate than work. His campaign admitted rigging the return in this statement: “Gov. Romney has been clear that no American need pay more than he or she owes under the law. At the same time, he was in the unique position of having made a commitment to the public that his tax rate would be above 13%. He directed his preparers to ensure that he is consistent with that statement.

Latest Republican Dirty Trick Could Keep Democrats Home Voluntarily

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DisguisedElephant

Florida Republicans are redefining the word “dirty” in the phrase “dirty politics.” Their latest trick is intended to keep Democrats away from the polls — voluntarily.

Mailers were sent to Democrats calling out candidates, like state Sen. Audrey Gibson, for not being progressive enough — especially for working or compromising with Republicans — and the pieces appear to come from fellow Democrats.

“Progressives” is run by a group of Republican operatives who are using mailers designed to look like they are from a Democratic-leaning group to attack Democrats across the state…

Guess who wins if Democrats stay home?

The group is chaired by Alachua County Republican Party Chairman Stafford Jones, who runs several other fund-raising groups that pay for political advertisements. It shares an address with the law firm of Richard Coates, general counsel for the Republican Party of Florida…

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Who Said What When Regarding Libyan Attacks

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obamaclinton
Obama on Wednesday, Sept. 12: 'Make no mistake. Justice will be done.'

Here is the the series of events concerning the attacks on Americans in the Middle East, in chronological order.

For the tea partiers out there, “chronological” is a big word that means in the order in which things happened, starting with the first thing and moving through time to the most recent thing.

For Republicans, it means that your version is a lie.

  • Moronic publicity whore Pastor Terry Jones, not content to have caused the death of 12 people by threatening to hold a public Koran burning, promotes a new YouTube video further baiting Muslims. The film, made by Sam Bacile, a 52-year-old Israeli-American real-estate developer who lives in California, depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a pedophile and womanizer, and shows him having sex. It was posted online in July but was dubbed in Arabic on Sept. 4. Since then, a trailer for the film was heavily reported in Egypt.

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Even FOX Is Beginning to Demand Specifics From Romney

Trish

Romney seems to have internalized the Mormon culture of secrecy

Apparently we have a better chance of seeing Mitt Romney’s tax returns than we do of knowing his plans for balancing the budget through changes in the tax code, which is how he says he would do it. You know that when even FOX News (although I don’t think Gregg Jarrett is one of the most egregious Republican tools who anchor shows on the network) is trying to pin down Romney and his policy wonks, there is some serious evasion going on.

Romney’s platform up to now has been for us to trust him, but he keeps too many secrets to allow it. For example, along with those tax returns, there are the records he sealed as he left the office of governor of Massachusetts. Good luck glimpsing those.

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AP Mixes Up Facts and Opinions, Even As AP Reporters Get President’s Name Wrong

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Meanwhile, it looks like the AP could stand to do more fact checking of its own.

“It would be more appropriate to make its complaint against CBO than against President Obama’s speech.”

— Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in a post titled, “AP Factcheck Should be Billed to Romney Campaign.” Baker takes issue with Associated Press “fact checkers” who claim there would be no peace dividend from winding down the war in Afghanistan.

President Obama is working off a baseline set by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that assumes war spending continues over the next decade. If he doesn’t intend to continue this spending then he is freeing up money relative to this baseline. AP may not like this method of scoring, but it is absolutely standard in Washington policy debates. Changes are measured against a baseline.

Baker joins others who suggest that the AP’s analysis might have been more correctly classified as an editorial than as fact checking.

H/T to The Nation

Fact Checkers Looking for Lies Come Up With Slim Pickins at Democratic Convention

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MichelleO
What a woman looks like when she's not lying

The media wasted no time trying to make equivalency arguments about how just as much fiction was bandied by Democrats on the first night of their convention as by Republicans during theirs. Fact-checkers, however, could find little to rival Lyin’ Ryan or Refit Mitt. Here’s the most FactCheck.org could come up with.

— “The keynote speaker and others claimed the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, would raise taxes on the ‘middle class.’ He has promised he won’t. Democrats base their claim on a study that doesn’t necessarily lead to that conclusion.”

Romney has yet to reveal what he will do if elected, other than retaining the Bush tax cuts for those at the top of the income ladder. The Wall St. Journal described the findings in the study, conducted by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

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