MSNBC contributor Joy Reid continued her daily assault on Republicans Tuesday on Martin Bashir, comparing Republicans to chain smokers and blasting the GOP for its resistance to President Obama’s economic agenda. Reid argued that offering Republicans tax cuts is “like offering a chain smoker a cigarette,” pushing the same anti-GOP rhetoric she’s known for on the Lean Forward network. [Video after the jump.]
Host Martin Bashir offered his own analogy to complement Reid’s, likening President Obama’s revenue-neutral corporate tax reform to giving “a drunk a glass of bourbon.” Reid seemed content with Bashir’s insulting and sophomoric joke, sneering:
Well, that analogy might be more apt in this case. But we won’t talk about that.
Reid then launched a diatribe against Republicans for not accepting their adversary’s economic plan:
Bashir agreed, before asking the rest of his liberal panel – including Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank and former Biden economic adviser Jared Bernstein – for their thoughts.
I don’t need to tell you that their reflections just reinforced the liberal echo chamber that is MSNBC. They’re addicted to it. It’s what they do, and they’re unapologetic.
See the full transcript below:
MSNBC
Martin Bashir
July 30, 2013
4:04 p.m. Eastern
SEN. MITCH McCONNELL: [President Obama’s economic plan] is just a further left version of a widely-panned plan he already proposed two years ago – this time with extra goodies for tax-and-spend liberals.
MARTIN BASHIR: Yes, those famous goodies they love to talk about. As for House Speaker John Boehner, his office released a statement:
“This proposal allows President Obama to support President Obama's position on taxes and President Obama's position on spending, while leaving small businesses and American families behind.”
A spokesman for Speaker Boehner said earlier today that their office was not informed of the offer until they heard about it through news outlets. That’s interesting because the White House said they called the speaker’s office yesterday, left a message and didn’t hear back. Obviously, the speaker has a month-long summer recess to plan for, so apparently there’s no time whatsoever for the courtesy of returning a call.
Let’s get right to our panel. Here with me in New York is MSNBC contributor Joy Reid, the managing editor of TheGrio.com, and in Washington Dana Milbank from The Washington Post, and MSNBC contributor Jared Bernstein, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Joy, the president has proposed multiple variations.
JOY REID: Yes.
BASHIR: A grand bargain that included cuts to earned entitlements, a Jobs Act that emphasized infrastructure, nothing worked. Now he’s offering serious cuts in corporate tax rates. Surely the Republicans can accept this as an idea.
REID: Yeah, I mean, you know, offering Republicans tax cuts is supposed to be like offering a chain smoker a cigarette. Right? They always take it.
BASHIR: Right. Or a drunk a glass of bourbon.
REID: Well, that analogy might be more apt in this case. But we won’t talk about that. Republicans – they always are having to balance this desire to rebut and refuse anything that comes from the hand of Barack Obama and what is supposed to be their ideology. For years and years and years, including Paul Ryan, they’ve said lower the corporate tax rates and you’ll start jobs, right?
BASHIR: Absolutely.
REID: The president is offering just three percent more than what Paul Ryan wanted. Paul Ryan wanted a 25 percent corporate tax rate. Obama is saying 28 [percent]. Also, simplifying it so you can single-page file – make it very simple for businesses to fill it out, which are all things Paul Ryan used to want.
The problem for Republicans is that this is not going to be a tax cut in and of itself. It’s married to a stimulus package. And backdoor stimulus has been the only way that the Obama administration has been able to be do things that stimulate job growth, including infrastructure spending – rebuilding schools, the idea of investing in college programs. These are supposed to be things that are bipartisan. But because it comes from Obama and because there’s some spending attached to it – even though it’s deficit neutral – there’s saying no to that cigarette.
