Maddow at Most Absurd: Describes Tax Cuts in New Jersey as New Spending
Somewhere the ghost of George Orwell cringes in recognition.
In her eagerness to please, Rachel Maddow occasionally collides headlong into immutable facts of economic reality. To wit, cutting taxes does not constitute new government spending, at least outside of doctrinaire Marxist analysis.
Here's MSNBC's Little Miss Sunshine giving her two-cents' worth on this Tuesday night (video below page break) --
Anybody who reports that Republican governors and legislatures are taking drastic measures to close their states' budget gaps is not reporting this truthfully. In New Jersey, where the governor's cuts to education from last year were just ruled unconstitutional today, in New Jersey the justification for those cuts was of course that New Jersey's broke, right? What does Gov. Christie want to do to fix that problem of New Jersey being broke? He wants the state to spend $200 million a year that it is not spending already to cut taxes on estates and corporations.
Maddow criticizes unspecified reporting in the media as not being done "truthfully" -- followed by her engaging in the same practice she condemns. Operative sentence here -- "He wants the state to spend $200 million a year that it is not spending already to cut taxes on estates and corporations."
I'm reminded of Orwell's observation in his essay "Politics and the English Language," written in 1946, that "in our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. ... Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness."
Maddow achieves an Orwellian trifecta here - euphemism (tax cuts as new spending), question-begging ("that it is not spending already ..."?) and sheer cloudy vagueness (as evident by Maddow stumbling over the gratuitous "that it is not spending already").
Maddow's claim, streamlined to its dishonest essence -- He wants the state to spend $200 million a year to cut taxes on estates and corporations. Absent its intentionally vague qualifier, the sentence collapses under its own contradiction. More accurately, Christie wants to prevent the state from spending $200 million a year by keeping the money from being collected as taxes to begin with.
The only way Maddow's claim makes sense would be if Christie wanted to cut $200 million in taxes annually while maintaining the same level of state spending. But this clearly isn't the case, as shown by Maddow pointing out that Christie cut education spending last year. By doing this, and other measures as well, Christie deprives liberals like Maddow of criticizing him for tax cuts that aren't "paid for." What do they do in response? Label tax cuts as new spending, since the notion of shrinking bloated government programs or eliminating them altogether is unthinkable to left wingers.
In fact, the source cited here by Maddow, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, states this in the same excerpt cited by Maddow --
At the same time, the governor has proposed substantial pay decreases for state employees, applied for a waiver from federal Medicaid rules that would likely reduce significantly the number of people with access to the program, and other spending cuts.
- Jack Coleman's blog
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Comments
Mad Cow doesn't realize that every time
Submitted by hbnolikeee on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 11:22am.
she opens her ignorant mouth her self proclaimed status as some intellectual gets lowered. If you think about it, listening to her stupidity shows the results of our education system at it's finest.
and the irrelevance of being
Submitted by motherbelt on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 11:42am.
and the irrelevance of being a Rhodes Scholar.
Liberals live in a world where we can spend money that we don't have, but we have to "take" the money from somewhere else to "give" to the people who will get a tax break.
Welcome to Bizarro World.
Welcome to Bizarro World.
Submitted by russedav on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 2:48pm.
Hey, I object! That's an insult to Bizarro World!
they call tax cuts "spending"
Submitted by TruthMonger on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 11:24am.
they call tax cuts "spending" its clever no matter how asinine it may be
Congratulations Jimmy Carter!
Sure, tax cuts are spending:
Submitted by Comrade Jim on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 1:02pm.
The noted economist and deep thinker Maddow said so. And Obama's trillions of dollars of spending is really trillions of dollars in tax cuts. That's why the country is doing so well - full employment and all.
Wow!
Submitted by almostacowboy on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 1:20pm.
That's the same thing Obamugabe said: "I've lowered or saved taxes for the middle class and created or saved more jobs than Bush created or save or created or saved more money than the Bush tax cuts created or saved.
Spending vs Investments
Submitted by Kingfish17 on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 11:40am.
When working people get to keep more of the money they earn, libs call it government spending.
When the federal government increases welfare payments to individuals who qualify for "earned income tax credits", libs call that "cutting taxes".
When the feds want to create huge slush funds of spending to increase their political power, they call it, "investments" and not spending. Well, I guess you could say they are using our tax dollars to invest in their own political power.
And even if Christie eliminated taxes by 100%, it wouldn't be an increase in state spending, unless the state of New Jersey actually spent more money! Maintaining the same level of state spending is not an increase in spending, no matter what happens to taxes.
"You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas...on the taxpayer’s dime." Barack Obama
Sad?
Submitted by Red Jeep on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 11:31am.
Stupidity is a sad thing to watch.....but I think with Maddow you are seeing evil at work. She knows better than that.
This is why we need business men in elected office (plus term limits) and make the career of being a politician a thing of the past.
Run this country as a business, period.
No, she doesn't.
Submitted by almostacowboy on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 1:22pm.
Really, she doesn't know any better. She believes that crap she says.
why we need business men in elected office
Submitted by russedav on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 3:10pm.
Before treasonous fascist judges got involved, our Founders wisely understood genuine, true citizenship required people to be property owners to vote, as should still be the case, which would rightly prevent me from voting, as I know I'm generally not as responsible and qualified as my friends who are property owners (though I still vote to oppose the delusions of those who treasonous fascist Dims (who approved the judges) buy for a pack of cigs or copy off of tombstones (vote early and often!)). Many stupid fascist commie tools pretend that it was somehow evil for our Founding Fathers to be "rich white men" but they carefully avoid the glaring facts exposing their vile perfidy that these "rich white men" usually gave every last cent they had for our nation (unlike their vile, disgusting selfish critics who don't even give a damn for their country, much less money), and their lives and their sacred honor, often suffering the loss of all they had. I can trust "rich white men" if they shows their unspeakably profound integrity by giving everything they had, like their Lord Jesus our Founders devoutly averred who so gave He literally had nothing left, the Almighty Lord Creator dying stark naked on the Cross, even being buried in Joseph of Arimathea's gladly given borrowed grave before His Resurrection to the right hand of His Almighty Father. Our Founders knew that only as a Christian nation could we survive (noted by the SCOTUS in Rector...Holy Trinity v US.143_U.S._457 (1892) "These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation"), something that has clearly been frighteningly called into question. God save us all!!!
Medicaid Rules
Submitted by Kingfish17 on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 11:38am.
Medicaid Rules, and who qualifies for what level of Medicaid spending, needs to be reigned in. Why is it that every time I go to the store, all the handicapped spots are full of cars from people who have been determined "disabled" because of a Type 2 Diabetes diagnosis? I know that legitimate diabetes is nothing to make light of, but most of these people look like they could use the little bit of extra exercise they would get by walking the extra 50 or 100 feet, should they have to park in a regular parking spot.
And save those handicapped spots for people that actually need them.
"You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas...on the taxpayer’s dime." Barack Obama
No doctor should give a
Submitted by motherbelt on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 11:45am.
No doctor should give a handicap tag to someone just because of diabetes.
Disabled doesn't mean "has a chronic condition."
...or hearing loss.
Submitted by Red Jeep on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 11:47am.
...or hearing loss.
Richard Maddow
Submitted by RightRealDeal on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 11:41am.
Richard is not stupid, I wish he were. The fact stupidity doesn't play here, just makes it all the worse.
this little boy
Submitted by tomolson3 on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 11:43am.
His parents must of hatted him at birth, why else would they have named there son Rachel!!!!!
POP!
Submitted by jon_torlin on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 11:58am.
Oh, I hope that wasn't an aneurysm that I felt in my head pop when I read that headline.
MB, need some duct tape!
Good lord, I'd love to know what these people are smoking or taking so I can avoid this, talk about void of all reality!
-Jon
This Is Not Main Stream Media Bias!!!!!
Submitted by Bourbeau on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 12:03pm.
It's Main Stream Media Stupidity and we waste way too much time digesting it and discussing it. Rachel Maddow is stupid; what else is new. She's of the same ilk as her other MSNBC peers, none of them are interested in facts; it's all smoke, mirrors and lies. She plays to the 750,000 morons that watch her every day; if that many. It's a sad commentary on our society that people as limited in their understanding of economics and politics as Maddow can be given a pulpit to spew their nonsense daily. That being said, we waste way too much time monitoring this nonsense; it's all dribble day in and day out. End of story.
The "language"
Submitted by Kingfish17 on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 12:12pm.
Our political language has been turned upside-down. It's not just Rachel Madow or the MSM. A great example of this is people who get the Earned Income Tax Credit. A good proportion of these people pay zero in income taxes and receive a check from the feds every year come tax time. I have never heard one person who gets the EITC say that they are getting money from the government. No matter how much money they get, they always talk about it as......"the taxes they are getting back from the government!"
"You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas...on the taxpayer’s dime." Barack Obama
Drivel, all of it.
Submitted by dreamsincolor on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 12:22pm.
With this type of firebrand/yellow journalism MSNBC will continue to step over dollars to pick up nickels. They just don't get it, they would, if they looked at the ratings...
I mean, they are a "for profit" company, right?
They sure don't act like it.
I'm sure their shareholders would appreciate some dividends.
Guess what
Submitted by another_old_veteran on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 1:24pm.
Those tabloids at the checkout counter touting photos of two headed space alien babies are bought by the same 'people' that regularly watch MSNBC. Sad isn't it.
“If you take a highly intelligent person and give them the best possible, elite education, then you will most likely wind up with an academic who is completely impervious to reality.” - Halton C. Arp
Logic in the Age of Obama
Submitted by Galvanic on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 12:53pm.
The Left is so desperate in the wake of Obama's popularity plunge and the disasterous Democratic election results last November, that their babbling has regressed to that of an 8 year-old making up excuses to a parent.
Compare Maddow's absurd explanation with the White House's description of tactical air support to a belligerent in a civil war as "humanitarian" operations.
It certainly is Orwellian.
If you look at it from their world view, it makes sense...
Submitted by Fenwick on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 2:02pm.
Leftist Progressives sincerely believe that your wages actually belong to the Government, which then decides what portion of it to "give" to you. So, if you look at it from that perspective, you'll understand how she considers a tax cut as "spending."
In Britain, some legislator actually proposed that the Government control all wages/income in the country, even from the private sector. They would extract all their revenue and then issue "paychecks" to their subjects afterwards.
Of course tax cuts are spending
Submitted by Tjexcite on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 2:15pm.
Of course tax cuts are spending because they are already spending the money they will get in taxes in from the year 2025 based on getting 20% more than the current rate and it is spent now in the year 2011. So they have to pay for the new lack of money that they have already spent or the one year debt would be worth a decade of debt.
Man...I'll bet that thang smells nasty down there
Submitted by redright88 on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 5:01pm.
I'm just sayin