Dad always gets his hot rod

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

Probably the best non-voter file or ISIL related takes on last Saturday’s Democratic debate:

I mean, right? I’ll just add that “Mom” (Democrat) is proposing things that help people not considered important to the Very Serious People – the poor, women, children, students, minorities, etc. – while “Dad” (Republican) wants to spend oodles of money (what deficit?) on the cool tax cuts, privatization schemes, and military adventures that the owners of TV networks love. Thus, President Obama had to account for every dime spent on the 2009 stimulus (and make it about a third tax cuts) and demonstrate that the Affordable Health Care Act would “bend the cost curve” (AKA save the government money) rather than emphasize how millions of Americans should have access to health care coverage and maybe not die prematurely or go bankrupt surviving, regardless of cost. Despite these concessions, the President’s accomplishments have been regarded with skepticism, if not outright derision, by pundits and Beltway insiders famously indifferent to the problems of working class people.

President Bush before him was under no such pressures, for he was buying himself a sweet Hummer made of tax cut fairy magic. David Brooks circa 2001 was so excited!

In other words, if you wade through the economic literature, it’s hard not to agree with the Cleveland Fed’s Jerry Jordan: We are living at a once-in-a-generation moment of economic opportunity. As productivity grows, the economy will grow. As the economy grows, revenues will grow, maybe beyond what the CBO projects. The real question about the Bush tax cuts, then, is not, Can we afford them? The real question is, Why are they so small?

They are not small in a dollar sense. They are intellectually small. Now, maybe for the last time in our lives, we have the financial opportunity to enact fundamental changes. We will have enough revenue to allow us to reform our entire tax system. We can simplify it, cut it, and turn it into a system Americans will at least regard as fair. We have the chance to reform our entitlement system, and much else. Bill Clinton squandered the first three years of this opportunity. The Bush administration promises fundamental Social Security reform.

Sure, some of the money for Dad’s tricked-out gas guzzler was going to have to come from the grocery money and Grandma’s widow’s mite because fuck her. You want to see Dad rolling in some embarrassing, beat-up minivan? What are you, some kind of emasculating commie? And are you sure you and the kids really need those food stamps?

Seriously, pay attention to how Republicans running for President now are asked about their hyooge tax cut plans.

As unorthodox or wildly unrealistic as some of these tax plans may be, economist Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics said he still finds them overall to be “therapeutic” in that they’re opening up the discussions to where nothing is off limits.

Of course, he said, it would be a totally different matter if one of them actually became president and had to execute on the idea. One of the most distinctive features uniting the candidates’ plans is that there’s very little in them about how they would balance the budget.

“They’re massive cuts,” Zandi says. “It’s hard to make it all add up.”

It’s not Dad’s job to figure out how his toys new toys will be paid for! It’s the rest of the family’s duty to suck it up and go without.