Daily Topics - Thursday November 11th, 2010
By shawnt56
Quote of the Day: In war, there are no unwounded soldiers. ~José Narosky
Hour One: Why aren't our soldiers getting the help they need? Thom talks with Army Infantryman Jeff Hanks, soldier who went AWOL to get help for stress and anxiety, and is turning himself in today www.ivaw.org
Hour Two: Is the White House about to cave on the Bush tax cuts? Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL, 9th district) will be here http://schakowsky.house.gov; Plus, Geeky Science Rocks - Why does hard work improve the taste of food? There's a scientific explantion...really!
Hour Three: Don't start the revolution without me...?! Thom has a rumble with Dan Gainor of the Business and Media Institute www.businessandmedia.org
Comments
#2
NO! Use: http://schakowsky.house.gov/
#3
Not necessarily.
There's no reason tax plans can't be passed through regular order (i.e. without the special reconciliation process). Reconciliation is reserved for deficit cutting measures, typically unpopular ones. And it's optional, including for tax measures.
#4
Wanninski's orignal "Two Santa Claus article"
Original article is hard to find, and the Wanninski hagiography site (which purports to house "a complete and unedited selection of Jude's writings") doesn't have it. It was published in the National Observer, which folded in 1977. Bruce Bartlett retyped it and posted it on his blog:
Jude Wanniski: Taxes and a Two-Santa Theory
Bartlett's opening comments:
The following article reflects an early effort by Wanniski to create a narrative history of fiscal policy similar to Stein's, but which emphasized tax policy. (Stein had been more concerned with the spread of Keynesian economic theories.) I am reproducing it here because Jude's article was profoundly influential among Republicans in Congress in the late 1970s. The copy I have is a reprint Jack Kemp made to hand out to those interested in knowing what supply-side economics was all about. Unfortunately, Jude's essay has long been inaccessible because the newspaper in which it appeared folded in 1977 and has never been made available in any online newspaper databases to my knowledge. (The National Observe was sort of a weekly news magazine in newspaper format that was published by Dow Jones on presses that would otherwise be idle on the day neither the Wall Street Journal or Barron's was being printed.)Because of the historical importance of Wanniski's article--echoes of which can still be heard in Republican tax cut rhetoric--I am making it available to a wider audience. I retyped it myself from a rather grainy copy. I've done my best to reproduce it exactly as it was printed. Bruce Bartlett
Opening of article:
National Observer
March 6, 1976 Taxes and a Two-Santa Theory
By Jude Wanniski The only thing wrong with the U.S. economy is the failure of the Republican Party to play Santa Claus. The only thing wrong with President Ford is that he is still too much a Hoover Republican when what the country needs is a Coolidge Republican. These statements, seemingly absurd, follow naturally from the Two-Santa Claus Theory of the political economy. Simply stated, the Two Santa Claus Theory is this: For the U.S. economy to be healthy and growing, there must be a division of labor between Democrats and Republicans; each must be a different kind of Santa Claus. The Democrats, the party of income redistribution, are best suited for the role of Spending Santa Claus. The Republicans, traditionally the party of income growth, should be the Santa Claus of Tax Reduction. It has been the failure of the GOP to stick to this traditional role that has caused much of the nation’s economic misery. Only the shrewdness of the Democrats, who have kindly agreed to play both Santa Clauses during critical periods, has saved the nation from even greater misery. It isn’t that Republicans don’t enjoy cutting taxes. They love it. But there is something in the Republican chemistry that causes the GOP to become hypnotized by the prospect of an imbalanced budget. Static analysis tells them taxes can’t be cut or inflation will result. They either argue for a tax hike to dampen inflation when the economy is in a boom or demand spending cuts to balance the budget when the economy is in recession. ...
Continued at the link. Apologies for the lousy formatting; apparently when using the quote tag formatting goes all wonky. I've tried everyhing I could think of to fix it.
#5
Perterson Foundation founded with Blackstone money:
Wikipedia:
"The Blackstone Group was founded in 1985 by Peter G. Peterson and Stephen A. Schwarzman with $400,000 in seed capital.[20] [21] The founders named their firm Blackstone, which was a cryptogram derived from the names of the two founders (Schwarzman and Peterson): Schwarz is German for black; Peter, or Petra in Greek, means stone or rock.[22] The two founders had previously worked together at Lehman Brothers, Kuhn, Loeb Inc. At Lehman, Schwarzman served as head of Lehman Brothers' global mergers and acquisitions business...
...Blackstone ventured into other businesses as well, most notably investment management. In 1987, Blackstone entered into a 50–50 partnership with the founders of Blackrock, Larry Fink and Ralph Schlosstein. The two founders, who had previously run the mortgage backed securities divisions at First Boston and Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb respectively, initially joined Blackstone to manage an investment fund and provide advice to financial institutions. They also planned to use a Blackstone fund to invest in financial institutions and help build an asset management business specializing in fixed income investments (my italics)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone_Group
Wikipedia:
"Peter G. Peterson (born June 5, 1926) is an American businessman, investment banker, fiscal conservative, author, and politician whose most prominent political position was as United States Secretary of Commerce from February 29, 1972, to February 1, 1973 under Richard Nixon. He was the Chairman and CEO of Bell & Howell from 1963 to 1971, and Chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers from 1973 to 1984. He was Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations until retiring on June 30, 2007, after being named chairman emeritus. He co-founded the private equity firm, the Blackstone Group. In 2008, Peterson was ranked 149th on the "Forbes 400 Richest Americans" with a net worth of $2.8 billion. In 2008, he established The Peter G. Peterson Foundation with a $1 billion endowment...
...In 2008, Peterson founded the Peter G. Peterson Foundation (PGPF), an organization devoted to spreading public awareness on fiscal sustainability issues related to the national debt, federal deficits, entitlement programs, and tax policies. PGPF distributed the 2008 documentary film I.O.U.S.A., and did outreach to the 2008 presidential candidates."
#6
Wow,
Cramer on CNBC just commented how horrible the White House is at messaging its successes like the GM bailout. His coanchor agreed, saying that in the absence of knowing what good he has done people latch on to the negatives of what he's done.
Cramer also said we need to raise the gas taxes alot to (pay for its externalities). He said that all the other ountries have much higher gas taxes.
#7
Dan Gainor is a lying sack.
He's intellectually dishonest. He evades Thom's questions. He changes the subject. And he lies. And mostly Thom lets him get away with it (he was better today than he is on some days, but really not up to the task). Maybe Thom is worried that if he really exposes Gainor for the intellectually dishonest lying sack that he is, he wouldn't come on the show any more. That would be no great loss to me, but apparently it would be to Thom.
He refused to answer Thom's question about why he refused to condemn Republican and rightwing incitement to murderous violence. The closest he came was the bogus claim that "every time" someone from the Reichwing starts their murderous incitement there's a "hue and cry" from the "mainstream librul media." Really? That's crap and Gainor knows it. So does Thom.
Today's interview was a classic example. Once the podcast is up maybe I'll transcribe and analyze it, and post it somewhere, maybe here, maybe on Kos. Thom won't do it, so I guess we have to.
Thom didn't mention Glenn Beck or the murderous psychopaths he's inspired, like Byron Williams, the whackjob who took a truckful of explosives and assault weapons from the Sierras to the SF Bay Area to assassinate workers at the ACLU and the Tides Foundation in order to "start a revolution", and after a shootout with local police and highway patrol in my home town of Oakland, told officers he was inspired by Glenn Beck.
Media Matters has an entire catalog of Beck's murderous incitement, which goes on day after day after day after day after day after day after day, without a peep from Gainor or the librul mainstream media. And they have almost 4,200 individual posts documenting his lies, smears and incitement. And Beck's on Faux, which is NOT a premium cable channel (unlike M$NBC) and thus is available to every cable subscriber in the United States. You'd think Thom could have mentioned one or two out of the dozens that Media Matters and others have catalogued. But I guess truth is less important than keeping your guests happy.
#8
Thom loves debate and I have learned a lot of facts and data from his rebuttals. Think of Dan as a useful foil for Thom for learning from.
Mike Malloy is just the opposite. He hates RW callers and promptly insults/crushes them and then hangs up on them and begs them not to call his show. I wish he would engage them like Thom does for a learning experience. I think Thom is the only one who has enough data and facts to keep his cool when a RW caller calls. He slowly dissects them with facts and figures.
#9
@Erik300
If you're going to have debate, let it be honest. A good debater doesn't let his/her "foil" get away with outright lies. He says the Democrats and the media shouldn't let Republicans get away with lies, and then he does it on his own show. And what I've demonstrated in my previous post, if you bothered to read it and check the links, is that the "slow dissection with facts and figures" didn't happen in this case, and it's not the first time.
#10
@Show Personnel,
Its almost 10:00am (Pacific Time), Friday the 12th, and the daily blog for today is still not up (that's why I'm making this comment here). What's going on with the daily blog, its becoming the norm that its not up until the last hour of the show? Any plans to recify this in the near future?
N
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
By webmaster
Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
Images of Thom
Thom & Louise at a "private audience" with His Holiness Pope John Paul II at his summer palace, Castle Gandolfo, Italy
From The Thom Hartmann Reader:
"Right through the worst of the Bush years and into the present, Thom Hartmann has been one of the very few voices constantly willing to tell the truth. Rank him up there with Jon Stewart, Bill Moyers, and Paul Krugman for having the sheer persistent courage of his convictions."
From Screwed:
"Once again, Thom Hartmann hits the bull’s eye with a much needed exposé of the so-called ‘free market.’ Anyone concerned about the future of our nation needs to read Screwed now."
From Cracking the Code:
"No one communicates more thoughtfully or effectively on the radio airwaves than Thom Hartmann. He gets inside the arguments and helps people to think them through—to understand how to respond when they’re talking about public issues with coworkers, neighbors, and friends. This book explores some of the key perspectives behind his approach, teaching us not just how to find the facts, but to talk about what they mean in a way that people will hear."
Thom,
You have repeatedly said that you dare the Republicans to filibuster a tax cut plan that allows the tax cuts to expire for those making over $250,000 per year. However, you are overlooking one important point. Tax plans cannot be filibustered. That is how Bush got his current tax plan implemented - through reconciliation.
Ed