MSNBC's Chuck Todd Continues to Distort Tax Deal's 'Astronomical' Cost
MSNBC's Chuck Todd on the December 7 "Daily Rundown" was uncharacteristically heated in his opposition to the compromise between President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans on extending the Bush tax rates.
Interviewing a Treasury Department official, Todd used flawed statistics to malign the proposed two-year extension of tax breaks for all families as unacceptably expensive.
"The cost of this is astronomical though," proclaimed the NBC Political Director. "The payroll tax cut means essentially borrowing from the Social Security trust fund to do this temporary payroll tax. I mean, it's 120 billion, that's a lot of money!"
[Video embedded after the page break.]
"First of all, let's remember we're just extending the middle class tax cuts," Sperling corrected. "We're not adding something new."
But before Sperling could finish his thought, Todd interrupted to reiterate his flawed theory: "But wait a minute, didn't you budget – hang on – everybody has budgeted assuming though that they wouldn't expire on the wealthiest."
Given the context of the discussion, it can be assumed Todd meant to claim that federal budget planners had been operating under the assumption that Congress would let taxes increase for at least the wealthiest Americans.
Despite Todd's attempt to frame the debate as a fiscally irresponsible tax cut for the rich, the former Clinton economic adviser continued to set the record straight.
"That's just not true," asserted Sperling. "Feel free to look through our budget. We have always assumed it would be extended. Almost everyone in the economy assumed it was going to be extended."
This is the second time in as many days Todd has spun the tax debate. As MRC Vice President for Research and Publications Brent Baker reported, Todd was displeased last night over the "lost revenue" if Congress extended the current tax rates.
A transcript of the relevant portions of the program can be found below:
MSNBC
The Daily Rundown
December 7, 2010
9:18 A.M. EDT
CHUCK TODD: Hey, Gene, the cost of this is astronomical though. Half a trillion dollars next year is getting added to the deficit. One hundred twenty billion dollars, the payroll tax cut means essentially borrowing from the Social Security trust fund to do this temporary payroll tax. I mean, it's one hundred twenty billion, that's a lot of money!
GENE SPERLING, counselor to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner: Okay, first of all, neither of those is quite right. First of all, let's remember we're just extending the middle class tax cuts. We're not adding something new. I don't think it's right to say that's an additional three hundred billion dollars.
TODD: But wait a minute, didn't you budget – hang on – everybody has budgeted assuming though that they wouldn't expire on the wealthiest.
SPERLING: That's just not true. Feel free to look through our budget. We have always assumed it would be extended. Almost everyone in the economy assumed it was going to be extended. So what you should look at are the new and additional measures like the hundred and twenty billion dollar payroll tax cut. But that is the kind of thing you need in an economy with 9.8 percent unemployment if you're serious, not about politics, but about actually bringing the unemployment rate down. And when you do something like that, you protect every penny of Social Security. You make sure that there is not one penny of loss to the Social Security trust fund. This is going to be very good for workers. It's one time, it's temporary. It won't have an effect on the long-term deficit and if we don't get growth going better in 2011 or 2012, that's going to hurt our deficit numbers in 2014 and 2015 as bad as anything else.
--Alex Fitzsimmons is a News Analysis intern at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.
- Alex Fitzsimmons's blog
- Login to post comments
Comments
"120 billion dollars is a lot
Submitted by johnsonl on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 2:53pm.
"120 billion dollars is a lot of money!" Not as much as the deficeit is, monkey boy! Didn't seem like that much to bail out the unions, did it?
The Dem "tax cut" meme is almost dead...
Submitted by TC Lynch on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 3:04pm.
Most everyone paying attention knows there is no such thing as "tax cuts" in this mess; only possible hikes. I've been having arguments with a lot of schmucks saying they want their taxes cut, with "screw the rich, make them pay more" in the next breath. When I tell them that their taxe rates wouldn't be changed, only, if they are lucky, remain where they already are, they get this wonderful look of confusion in their eyes....
thats the look of stuipdity you cant reason with an idiot.
Submitted by igor1136 on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 9:33pm.
i cant belive all you suckers who are buying into this socialist lie. but today i listened to the class president of a college and hes the biggest idiot ive ever herd out of any college. you can see it for yourself at www.theblaze.com.
I know this has been raised as an issue before,
Submitted by 26CX on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 9:41pm.
but Newsbusters has GOT to get a spell checker for posts.
Oh, my word!
Submitted by almostacowboy on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 3:09pm.
Chuckie actually thinks there's a "Social Security trust fund". If any of you tell him there's no Easter bunny, I'm going to be very angry with you.
Now, "lean forward"........
"Lost revenue"?
Submitted by Cactus Kurt on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 3:09pm.
What Todd and the libnuts fail to consider are the billions of "lost revenue" that will remain in the pockets of Americans instead of being handed over to wasteful government spending. Liberals just don't grasp the concept that citizens make better spending decisions than the government.
I seen this to….
Submitted by dirtydan64 on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 3:09pm.
Chuck Todd is a idiot and is just as dumb as he look's, when I heard him talk about the cost I'm like where were you back in 2008, 2009 when BO rolled out all the Stimulus, Omnibus spending, and Stimulus 2, 3 …. ? WTF does Todd think he's trying to do…. By the way his Buddy Joe in Studio A is trying to pull the same ole BS right before him where they all are I can't believe my lying eye's type of trash talking in that I have been saying this for a long time……. I think the Democrats should have done this or that or said this and since the other day there all scrambling and don't know there ass form a hole in the ground and actually it's quite funny to watch, hysterically Funny BTW !!!! OH I wonder what tomarrow will bring, Hmmmmm ????
All that stimulus money
Submitted by celator on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 3:13pm.
All that stimulus money secretly given to GE insures continued promotion of Obama's political agenda by MSNBC.
Unfortunately, the combined
Submitted by Captain Repus on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 3:24pm.
Unfortunately, the combined IQ of the entire MSDNC lineup falls somewhere between plant life and the typical democrat voter.
Todd, Scabborough and the others probably didn't get a lot of mileage aboard the long school bus. I would bet the 4th grade was the longest 3 years of Todd's life.
Aww, gee, could Bananas Guthrie look any sadder?
Submitted by SickofLibs on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 3:27pm.
did I see a little tear roll down her cheek?
It's not costing a cent
Submitted by CobraMan on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 4:06pm.
These "tax cuts" aren't costing us anything. If you want to be honest about it, they're actually saving us money; for every dollar in tax that the government collects and distributes, there is an additional, unavoidable, administrative cost associated with the accounting of tax collections and distributions, as is required by the Constitution itself, let alone federal law.
Be honest, for once, liberals. A tax "cut" doesn't cost "us" a single cent. A tax INCREASE does, although the actual increased cost to the IRS and Treasury Dept. accounting budget is relatively small (Maybe a quarter of one percent which, although that seems insignificant, is not an insignificant amount as we're talking about trillions of dollars in collected tax revenue every year. We're looking at millions of dollars of additional costs just to process that additional revenue. Now, add that to the additional administrative costs required to transfer that addition revenue to another federal departments and you'll understand that the actual costs add up to the tens of millions of dollars).
But here's the truth: it's nether the tax decreases or increases that's the cause, or the solution, of our budgetary problems, it's Congress's excessive spending that's the real cause and there's only one solution: cut spending significantly.
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.
TODD IS THE WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF FOR NBC
Submitted by Okieflyover on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 4:03pm.
This cannot be overstated. This is the head of the "news" portion of the NBC network responsible for reporting ALL things Washington that can't get the simple concept of extending the tax rates vs. a tax cut for the rich.
This is why the media is broken in a very simple nut shell. This is it. Any issue of media bias or example of the media's incompetence needs to reference this issue and this example.
Yet
Submitted by donabernathy on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 4:03pm.
a Trillion for Stimulus (political -payoff) was chump change
roflmao
We have a budget....?
Submitted by NeoKong on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 4:21pm.
TODD: But wait a minute, didn't you budget – hang on – everybody has budgeted assuming though that they wouldn't expire on the wealthiest.Democrats have not yet passed a budget and I would like to think that butthead Todd knows that. The govt. is being funded through a Continuing Resolution.
Not totally true
Submitted by TheHistorian on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 5:55pm.
The ADMINISTRATION has prepared a budget. It is the Pelosi Swamp that never did anything about it in Congress. Sperling is speaking as though he is dealing with THEIR budgeting, not with the Congressional do-nothing budget.
The million-dollar exchange, though, is this one:
TODD: But wait a minute, didn't you budget – hang on – everybody has budgeted assuming though that they wouldn't expire on the wealthiest.SPERLING: That's just not true. Feel free to look through our budget. We have always assumed it would be extended. Almost everyone in the economy assumed it was going to be extended.
I also find it interesting that it seems that Sperling says that they had PLANNED to continue the high-end (rich) tax reductions. Why has it taken this long for President Big Ears to buy it, if that was true from the beginning?
Dennis Prager
Why?
Submitted by ckc1227 on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 8:44pm.
"Why has it taken this long for President Big Ears to buy it, if that was true from the beginning?"
Because he was hoping he could get Republicans to compromise on something stupid that he wanted, and guess what? They did.
After watching Obammy's
Submitted by Captain Repus on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 5:35pm.
After watching Obammy's presser and listening to the pundits/commentators on MSDNC I have learned something I never knew. I learned that the evil Republicans didn't want the middle class tax cuts to be extended. And here I had thought they simply wanted the tax rates for EVERYONE to be extended. How foolish of me.
In a later show on MSDNC I learned that the evil Republicans are anti-immigrant because they oppose the 'Dream Wetback Act'. And here I thought they were just anti ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT and anti-AMNESTY. How foolish of me.
Next thing you know the evil Republicans will be HOMOPHOBIC because they oppose GI's getting erections and heavy breathing over their fellow warrior's naked bodies in the barracks shower. No mission distraction there you know. Heck, my dogs do that all the time and all I have to do is spray a little water on them. What better place to conduct Social Engiineering than a captive audience that isn't allowed to protest.
Wrong end of the Kaleidoscope again
Submitted by needle on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 6:47pm.
"I learned that the evil Republicans didn't want the middle class tax cuts to be extended."
Well, what do you expect from MSNBC; I mean all the people on that network are “pro-abortionists,” and the rest of us are “anti-choice,” right?
- Looking forward to the self-annihilation of the Manipulated Stories Machine.
Actually I classify some
Submitted by Captain Repus on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 8:13pm.
Actually I classify some abortionists to be crime fighters.
I never looked at abortionists this way before
Submitted by Fire Fighter CO on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 11:19pm.
Just think of the upside. As the progressives continue to kill their offspring and if they limit themselves to 1 child as Ted Turner suggest eventually their numbers would decrease in society and we would be free of a lot of dead weight.
turn that around*
Submitted by cajun2 on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 11:35pm.
Think of this FireFighter. 76% of all abortions are by black women. Since Roe Vs Wade, the black population has been reduced 25%. 78% of all black children born to an unwed teen live in poverty. If conservatives were pro abortion, pro birth control, govt subsidized programs in black and poor neighborhoods, the charge of KKK, racists, eugenics, would be LOUD from all of the msm. Instead, they have made pro abortionists the "compassionate" ones.
lets do a bit of math we got 350 million people in america
Submitted by igor1136 on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 9:23pm.
if every man woman and child was given 1 million bucks each it would of only cost us 350 million and it would of got us all out of debt and got our econemy running again and it would of cost us less than the 878 billion they pissed away. so dont tell us anymore lies about how they care about the poor.
Uh, Igor
Submitted by 26CX on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 9:33pm.
350 million people getting $1 million each is something like $350 trillion dollars, isn't it?
It would cost $350 million if everyone got a dollar each.
You're not a member of congress, are you? ;)