Add Newsweek's Eleanor Clift to the list of journalists who ludicrously believe opposition to tax hikes has left the nation unable to repair infrastructure. On the McLaughlin Group over the weekend, she blamed crumbling infrastructure on how “now we have this tax-averse society, rallied by the Republicans, tax-averse where everything becomes sort of a right-wing, libertarian refusal to let government spend any money or raise any money.” Conservatives would wish.
In fact, as the Heritage Foundation's Brian Riedl outlined in a March report (PDF of it), “in 2006, inflation-adjusted federal spending topped $23,000 per household for the first time since World War II” as “federal spending has increased by 42% (23% after inflation) since 2001" and “defense and homeland security are responsible for just above one-third of all new spending since 2001.” So it's hardly as if the federal government, with an annual budget of $2.6 trillion, is starved for money. It's just being spent on adding a prescription entitlement to Medicare ($822 billion over ten years) instead of highways ($286 billion over six years).
In a discussion prompted by the early August bridge collapse in Minnesota, Clift whined on the McLaughlin Group aired over the August 24-27 weekend, but probably taped a week or two earlier to provide a vacation for John McLaughlin:
It takes leadership. After World War II, we maintained the infrastructure we had and we built an incredible network of highways and leaders in both parties agreed that these were priorities. Now we have this tax-averse society, rallied by the Republicans, tax-averse where everything becomes sort of a right-wing, libertarian refusal to let government spend any money or raise any money.
—Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center
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Comments Policy
She's right. In my state
August 28, 2007 - 00:51 ET byShe's right. In my state there was a 10 cent gas tax proposed to take effect over ten years at a penny a year for roads and bridges improvement. The republicans cried bloody murder and then when gas went up over $3.25 a gallon and oil companies made record billions in profit, they saw no problem with it at all.
Uhhhhh...What?
August 28, 2007 - 01:33 ET by Army BratShe's right? And the facts provided by the Heritage Foundation are just...what...facts? I know those on the left have trouble with facts so I'm not surprised.
I'm confused. Are you suggesting that oil companies, or any company at all, not make profits? How is it bad that a company...any company, makes profits. Why should oil companies not make record profits? I'm pretty sure that profits are what companies require to exist and you know...pay employees, dividends n stuff. Jeez...
Ole Hillary was talkin' to some folks and she referenced the record profits you write of. She said, "We're going to take those profits and..." It really doesn't matter what the hell she said after that. The point is she wants to "take those profits...". Is that the way we do things in the U.S.? Whom will she target next as making too much money?
Profits are what built America, and continue to do so.
The reason Republicans had no problem with the oil companies, "record billions in profit", is that most Republicans understand economics, and can do math.
Happy Trails...
Eleanor Clift slices American throats like Al Qaeda
August 28, 2007 - 05:14 ET by SportPoliticsThe point is the stupid idiot democrats like the first poster fight every oil drill the USA ever wants to use to make us energy independent, and in fact the shrieking harpy Clift just whined about destroying the national artic wildlife refuge if ANWR was to be drilled this month. So AFTER the dippo**** demonumb**** declare all new oil drilling against the LAW by actually FORCING IT TO STOP with their congressional power, they WHINE when gas prices go up. Just like they stop every new refinery ever wanting to be built, or any new nuke plants, or coal powered electric plants and every other thing under the sun that produces energy or electricity.
What the insane ranting shrieking harpy jacka**** of the demo machine do support are FANTASIES, like the pill you drop in a tank of water that "powers a vehicle further than gasoline can" - that of course according to them the evil oil companies have "bought the patent to and hidden away the technology forever"...
The democrats are all INSANE, and Eleanor Clift is a shrieking psycho.
If all the democrats stuck their head in an overflowing toilet and drowned themselves the USA would INSTANTLY return to it's former greatness. Instead we have to put up with whining, crybaby, lying sacks of democrat crap.
They are churning out entire generations of Americans that are idiotic mental clone cases of their rubber room retard rhetoric, and it's already had a tremendously deleterious effect. Nowadays the democrats EMBRACE and award TRAITORS, liars, theives, and those who have committed suicide, because they hate this nation so much deep down inside that offing oneself is something they understand and identify with. Total SKUMBAGS they are, each and every one of them.
Ole Hillary was talkin' to
August 28, 2007 - 09:13 ET by motherbeltOle Hillary was talkin' to some folks and she referenced the record
profits you write of. She said, "We're going to take those profits
and..." It really doesn't matter what the hell she said after that. -Army Brat
I believe she actually said "I want to take those profits"
which is even scarier. But you are right. That says it all; what comes
after that, for what purpose, is irrelevant. We had the first step with
Kelo....government can take your property, not for public USE, but for
public BENEFIT....so why not profits?????
More of the same....
August 28, 2007 - 09:11 ET by motherbeltMaybe the Republicans "cried bloody murder" because they knew that, like the gas tax money that was already in place wasn't being used for roads and bridges, neither would the increase.
About 30 years ago the city
August 28, 2007 - 09:21 ET by danboAbout 30 years ago the city of New Orleans passed a property tax, to fix it's schools. (Bad, roofs, broken plumbing etc.)
Just as I was getting ready to move out of NO there was another property tax increase on the ballot for the schools. They were still run down. A few people started checking. Seems the money from the prior tax increase wasn't spent on fixing the schools. Needless to say my last act as a New Orleans resident was to vote no to that tax. (I know! I know! I don't care about children?)
"There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition."
- Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology, MIT
Blaster: What is all
August 28, 2007 - 10:02 ET by BDBlaster:
What is all that money that was destined for use on roads from earlier gas taxes spent on? Hint - it weren't the roads bubba...
Due to Tax cuts we have EXTRAORDINARY receipts to the treasury - far more than we would have had with tax increases. And still you wish tax increases?
Need to study the laffer curve bubba.....
Gas tax
August 28, 2007 - 01:49 ET by longriderInstead of raising the tax on gasoline for highway, bridge repair, etc use 10% of the approximately 40cent to 50 cents per gallon tax already on it? Guess that would be too complicated though.
Good point, longrider. The
August 28, 2007 - 09:05 ET by motherbeltGood point, longrider. The gas tax was originally meant to be used for....wait for it....the upkeep of roads and bridges! They spent it on other things.
Why should we believe that this time, they would actually spend the increased money on roads and bridges???? (unless it's a "bridge to nowhere, then it's OK.)
Taxstock Syndrome
August 28, 2007 - 02:31 ET by Lame CherryIt is alway mind boggling to read Clift and the post above about Clift being right and Republicans are bad guys for not wanting taxes.
I would really like Noel Sheppard to just educate people here on taxes as his word would have more standing than anonymous me.
No one seems to comprehend the study I did explaining taxes in that it is not about 40 cents on a gallon of gas or citizens who do work have to work until June to just pay off the taxes levied on them each year.
THE FACT IS THE GOVERNMENT like all governments have a 100% tax plus on every dollar in circulation. Here is how it works.
You spend a dollar in Jersey. They have a 6 cent sales tax on it. That leaves 94 cents of that dollar in circulation. The merchant takes it to the bank and gets hit with 27% taxes. That leaves 67 cents. The bank now pays the teller that dollar in wages and she is taxed once again 27% which leaves 40 cents.
She buys a pizza on the way home and off goes 6 cents again to 34 cents left. The merchant gets taxed 27% again which leaves 7 cents and pays their waitress and once gain the 27% shows up and that dollar is now 20 cents in the red and the government now has taxed that dollar out of existence.
So in basic tax economics, in 6 exchanges the government has taken that entire dollar back without doing a thing and left the citizen with a debt which keeps growing. Everytime that dollar is spent the government like loan sharks skim their high interest share.
It is so asinine and ludicrous to hear people saying the governments is not legally stealing enough money from citizens. The average dollar turns over 6 times a day. That means at a 20 cent debt in a years time amounts to 73 dollars on each dollar.
Want to know why the Federal Reserve which is owned by Rockefellers, French and English Rothschilds, Warburgs and a host of foreigners get rich? They print American money. Loan it to the US Treasury which loans YOUR OWN MONEY TO YOU. In debt lending, they gain interest and to keep the control on the masses they over tax them so they can not afford basics and have to "have the government" provide services.
All that scam does is impoverish citizens more quickly and voila it is a monopoly pay out in money control to the cartels from finance, to medicine, to education, to military who just have billion dollar checks written to them as it is easier than fleecing individual citizens.
That should explain the "system" so even dolts who think they are not paying enough in taxes. I only wonder are they going to be offering up their kidneys and their virgin daughters too as they have nothing left now and this debt system demands to be paid.
This cartel bankrupted the British Empire before it sank it's fangs into America which it is currently bankrupting. The only reason they have not moved on is there is no other economy worth moving to.
I do not call people names, but it is a fact that anyone who says citizens are not being taxed enough are absolute morons in the literal definition of the word.
This all can be fixed as Milton Friedman implemented for the Baltic states which are prosperous, have ample government revenue WITH THE POOR NOT PAYING TAXES. If it would work, I would beg Fred Thompson to implement the old American economic system.......but the problem is there just is no one in or out of government who understands basic economics.
I have been lecturing about this for years and the above on how governments eat all money through taxes has never been explained before. You can thank Newsbusters for at least allowing a blog about it, but people have to debate this as there is no sense in being tax slaves and then whining for heavier chains.
It is like the Stockholm Syndrome in a Taxstock Syndrome ignorance.
*HIC IACET ARTORIVS REX QVONDAM REXQVE FVTVRVS
This is why we have the
August 28, 2007 - 03:16 ET by Ryeguy5049This is why we have the media. They tell the people what they want them to think.
_________________________________
Silly liberals, paychecks are for workers!!!
Big high 5, lame! your
August 28, 2007 - 04:34 ET by USA4freedomBig high 5, lame!
your right, its the fault of the school system.
hell most cant tell you the branches of gov.!!!
These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc.
Ronald Reagan- 40th Anniversary of D-Day
You pay into the vast
August 28, 2007 - 04:31 ET by Andrew H.You pay into the vast wastelend that is Washington, Elenor. Leave me alone. I don't want to pay more. I want to pay less.
Liberalism is a convenient lie.
Um, Eleanor, your bias is showing...
August 28, 2007 - 06:24 ET by sarcasmoLibertarians like me are NOT responsible for spending-levels on stupid crap like the "Bridge to Nowhere" while at the same time we don't repair bridges. That would instead be the fault of the massive, bipartisan, big-spending lobby. But nice try.
Your attempt to smear libertarians is intellectually-bankrupt, and will not work in a world where there's an internet full of people like me to refute you and show how you're biased. Taxes and spending are 2 related but different issues. Both are important, and journalists are now going to need to actually do your jobs and distinguish between them.
JMR
Rally online with fans of Dr. Ron Paul.
Libertarians like me are
August 28, 2007 - 08:54 ET by Dan The Man 2Libertarians like me are NOT responsible for spending-levels on stupid crap like the "Bridge to Nowhere" while at the same time we don't repair bridges
Because libertarians are not common in Congress. A few things you can count on any politician to do is to spend all of the money and then some. And to spend it on useless things.
Nuke em til they glow then shoot em in the dark.
Nope. A few exist, and BTW they tend to be scandal-free.
August 28, 2007 - 09:09 ET by sarcasmoSpending or public-men's-room scandals. I've been an enemy of Ted Stevens since I started in politics, and to me he's exactly the same as Robert Byrd -- part of the bipartisan spending-lobby that's what's wrong with this country. When the libertarian part of the Republican party gets ignored, Republicans tend to LOSE (see 2006). I intend to change it, and this phenomenon is also probably why I say "Nope." to Dan the Man so-damn-often. We need to quit-losing, and not all Republicans are the same.
JMR
Rally online with fans of Dr. Ron Paul.
wouldn't it be nice
August 28, 2007 - 06:58 ET by KC Beach"...tax-averse where everything becomes sort of a right-wing, libertarian refusal to let government spend any money or raise any money.”
The treasury has taken in record $$ due to the "tax cuts for the rich" while Congress continues to spend like drunken Republicrats (which is the real reason the Dems are back in control of Congress). I guess the truth should not get in the way of a good sound bite.
The next time a worthless reporter asks about the unfunded crisis djour, I would like to see the President pull out a list of earmarks out of his pocket and run down the list by name and state. It would be great to hear him bypass the press and say to the American people something like;Sen. Taxandspend (D MN) has secured $500 million for a Wellstone memorial, Sen. Spendmore (D CA) has allocated $600 million to study the loss of habitat of the banana slug. Sen. Turncoat (R VM) appropriated another $600 million to study the effects of global warming on the maple syrup production. Add these up and pretty soon you will have more than enough for our highways and bridges without ever having to raise taxes.
A guy can dream can't he?
That's exactly right.
August 28, 2007 - 07:20 ET by sublight68That's exactly right. There are two sides to the equation, but the answer always seems to be to raise taxes.
Everything is spending cut-averse where everything becomes sort of a left-wing, democrat refusal to let government spend any less money or cut any spending.”
"Everything is spending
August 28, 2007 - 23:18 ET by RESTLESS 1"Everything is spending cut-averse where everything becomes
sort of a left-wing, democrat refusal to let government spend any less
money or cut any spending.”
Hell, spending cuts? The libs scream bloody murder at the thought of just slowing spending. I'm sure we've all heard Rush say this before, but if spending on a project has been increasing annually at 6%, then in the next budget, it is proposed to be 4%, the liberals call that a cut. It is not, it is simply a reduction in the rate of growth. I wish Congress would actually cut for a change.
Great point. The problem
August 28, 2007 - 09:09 ET by danboGreat point. The problem isn't the money. It's how they use it.
In 1965 Hurricane Betsy broke the levees in New Orleans. Over the years there was probably enough money to build levees twice as high and armored in gold. However the levee board spent the money on things like fountains and fiber optics.
I wonder how much money was diverted from infrastructure to feel good projects.
I like your dream. (But, that's my disappointment in Bush.)
"There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition."
- Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology, MIT
Clift
August 28, 2007 - 07:27 ET by pocomocoDear Eleonor,
There was plenty of money to repair the “crumbling infrastructure” in the Highway Trust Fund until the state and federal legislatures systematically raided it for their pet projects, like Minnesota using it to build a transit system instead of maintaining the recently collapsed I35 bridge.
If you recall, they did the same to the Social Security Trust Fund years ago.
I suggest you blame the ‘Raiders Of the Lost Funds’ and not the American taxpayer.
Since even the
August 28, 2007 - 08:02 ET by MidAmericaSince even the dems know the federal government is taking in record amounts of tax money, I have to believe that they are really trying to get the public riled up by a tax increase during a Republican administration. It would do two things, please the lefties and anger the Republican base so they will sit out '08 just like many did in '06.
Anybody, and I mean
August 28, 2007 - 09:13 ET by bassndudeAnybody, and I mean anybody, Clift, that trusts the goverment to do what is sayes it will with tax money, new or old, is an absolutle moron. SS taxes, for the people in their old age as a saftey net, gas taxes for roads and bridges and the list goes on. That money is spent for anything but what it was passed off to the public to be used for.
Save a SeAL, club a liberal!!
"McLaughlin Group"?
August 28, 2007 - 09:32 ET by Del DolemonteThe onle "McLaughlin Group" I care about is the Mahavishnu Orchestra. And they broke up 30 years ago.
Nice to see Eleanor Rodham is as clueless as ever...
We used to watch the show.
August 28, 2007 - 09:40 ET by danboWe used to watch the show. My wife, however, would scream at the TV. Demanding to know why they picked an idiot to portray the woman's point of view.
"There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition."
- Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology, MIT
Plus or minus Jean Luc
August 28, 2007 - 22:46 ET by stratmanPlus or minus Jean Luc Ponty?
I'm more a Stephane Grappelli fan than Ponty, probably because of Django Reinhardt.
How is it one John McLaughlin brings pleasure with awesome guitar playing while the other John McLaughlin is a TOOL? Once again, actions speak louder than words.
Killing them with kindness isn't working. Time to get scrappy with the Donkeys.
If Ayn Rand Were Still Around...
August 28, 2007 - 10:15 ET by Dr_Libertyshe would probably title her next book Clift Frets.
Those two words just sound together. NB should have a separate category called "Clift Frets."
<insert witty signature here>
Met her
August 28, 2007 - 10:59 ET by cvgbuckeyeI met Ms. Clift once. It was in the BWI airport a few weeks after 9/11/2001.
When you meet some of these people who are so despicable on TV, they usually seem quite nice. I helped her with her luggage as she was going on a speaking engagement. We talked for about 1/2 hour. She knew that I was a Christian Conservative and she was genuinely curious about my opinions on a variety of subjects. I had just finished an assignment in the airline security business and she was intrigued with my answers to her questions.
There was a couple of things that I said that were mostly just speculation and I told her so. None-the-less, at the end of our conversation, she sat beside me and did a phone interview for a local DC radio talk show. During her interview, she used some of my speculation as "absolute, direct, expert, source quote". I was not amused but as long as she didn't use my name I guess it was harmless in some sense but it speaks volumes as to how these people operate.
Later, as we were on the same flight, she signaled me to sit in the empty seat next to her. I had had enough and declined.
Now had it been someone like Michelle Malkin (whom I consider to be "The Foxiest Lady In The World"), I'd have thrown the plane off course trying to get in that seat as fast as humanly possible;;;or faster.
No offense Eleanor.
"She's right. In my state
August 28, 2007 - 14:35 ET by ckc1227"She's right. In my state there was a
10 cent gas tax proposed to take effect over ten years at a penny a
year for roads and bridges improvement."
She's not right. They already spend the money raised for infrastructure on other things, so why would anyone assume they would do differently with any new funds? Rewarding bad behavior encourages more bad behavior. Using her logic, we should give crack users more crack to encourage them to get off crack.
"The republicans cried bloody
murder and then when gas went up over $3.25 a gallon and oil companies
made record billions in profit, they saw no problem with it at all."
That's because there is nothing wrong with it. But what you conveniently left out was the record taxes paid by the oil companies on those profits, taxes that surpassed what they earned in profit. Now THAT is something to have a problem with. No one, company or individual, should pay more in taxes than they get in profit, or take home pay. No matter how much money oil companies earn, it's not your money. If you want a piece of it, start your own oil company.
Every other business has to learn to spend within its means, or else it eventually goes out of business. I think it's past time our government does the same.
Show me where a tax hike
August 28, 2007 - 20:25 ET by msh1973Show me where a tax hike has helped any situation? If tax hikes were productive, then why is public eduation in such a mess....all liberals want to do is throw money around. When are taxes high enough according to these liberals?
I would like to tell Eleanor "Rodham" Clift (as Rush calls her) to kiss my right wing you know what! Is that wrong to say? :)
Answer for Eleanor and others
August 28, 2007 - 20:34 ET by LionKingHey, if you think education needs more money, then you and your rich liberal pals (Soros, Kennedy, Kerry, Edwards, Gates, Buffett, Hollyweird, etc.) can just pony-up. You give all you want because you think it is right and necessary...you liberals do with YOUR money what you want and leave MY money alone.