Romney Myth Busters: Making the Wealthy Even Richer With More Tax Cuts Will Create More Jobs

Romney Myth Busters: Making the Wealthy Even Richer With More Tax Cut Will Create More Jobs

With cunning and contempt and catechismal fervor the super-rich have argued that all money should move to the top, where it will be used to stimulate the economy and create jobs. But they ignore the facts that prove them wrong. And it doesn't take much to prove them wrong.

1. First, a look at the success of the super-rich: Money has quickly moved to the top

Based on IRS figures, the richest 1% nearly tripled its share of America's after-tax income from 1980 to 2006. That's an extra trillion dollars a year. Then, in the first year after the 2008 recession, they took 93% of all the new income.

Wealth is even more skewed. The richest 10% own 83% of financial wealth, which they've skillfully arranged to be taxed at just 15%, ostensibly because they pump that money back into job-creating ventures. More on that misconception later.

Conservatives claim that wealth inequality has remained steady for the richest Americans. But data from Edward Wolff shows that the excess wealth was simply redistributed among the rest of the top 5%, who saw their share of America's net worth increase by 18 percent from 1983 to 2007. It was also noted by Sam Pizzigati that much of the top-level wealth was socked away tax-free overseas, a fact largely confirmed by a Tax Justice Network study.

2. Corporations are just as successful: profits have doubled, taxes cut in half

While corporate profits have doubled to $1.9 trillion in less than ten years, the corporate income tax rate, which for thirty years hovered around the 20-25% level, suddenly dropped to 10% after the recession. The biggest firms basically said "We're not paying."

That's a half-trillion dollars a year unpaid by the very companies who have successfully convinced much of America that their tax rates are too high.

The tax they actually pay is very low relative to other countries. U.S. corporations paid a smaller rate of income taxes than all but two of the OECD countries analyzed by the Office of Management and Budget and the Census Bureau. A Treasury report agreed, noting that the Tax/GDP rate for U.S. companies was 35% lower than the OECD average from 2000 to 2005.

Corporations even pay less than low-wage American workers. On their 2011 profits of $1.97 trillion, corporations paid $181 billion in federal income taxes (9%) and $40 billion in state income taxes (2%), for a total income tax burden of 11%. The poorest 20% of American citizens pay 17.4% in federal, state, and local taxes.

3. Some Non-Job-Creation Facts

The Wall Street Journal noted in 2009 that the Bush tax cuts led to the "worst track record for jobs in recorded history." 25 million people remain unemployed or underemployed, with 30 to 50 percent of recent college graduates in one of those categories. Among unemployed workers, nearly 43 percent have been without a job for six months or longer.

For the jobs that remain, most are low-paying, with the only real employment growth occurring in retail sales and food preparation. A recent report by the National Employment Law Project confirms that lower-wage occupations (up to about $14 per hour) accounted for 21 percent of recession losses and 58 percent of recovery growth, while mid-wage occupations (between $14 and $21 per hour) accounted for 60 percent of recession losses and only 22 percent of recovery growth.

The minimum wage is shamefully low, about 30% lower than the inflation-adjusted 1968 figure. And the tiny pay can't be blamed on small business. Two-thirds of America's low-wage workers, according to another National Employment Law Project report, work for companies that have at least 100 employees.

All these job woes persist while productivity has continued to grow, with an 80% increase since 1973 as median worker pay has stagnated.

4. So what are the "job creators" doing with all their money?

Over 90% of the assets owned by millionaires are held in a combination of low-risk investments (bonds and cash), the stock market, and real estate. Business startup costs made up less than 1% of the investments of high net worth individuals in North America in 2011.

Perhaps, instead, they're building businesses on their own? No. Only 3 percent of the CEOs, upper management, and financial professionals were entrepreneurs in 2005, even though they made up about 60 percent of the richest .1% of Americans. A recent study found that less than 1 percent of all entrepreneurs came from very rich or very poor backgrounds. They come from the middle class.

That deserves repeating. Entrepreneurs come from the middle class.

Not surprisingly, then, since the middle class has been depleted by the steady accumulation of wealth at the top, the number of entrepreneurs per capita has decreased 53% since 1977, and the number of self-employed Americans has decreased 20% since 1991.

5. Big business is even worse at job creation

First of all, the cash holdings for non-financial U.S. firms increased to $1.24 trillion in 2011, with about 57 percent of it stashed overseas. Commerce Department figures show that U.S. companies cut their work forces by 2.9 million from 2000 to 2009 while increasing overseas employment by 2.4 million.

The top holders of cash, including Apple and Google and Intel and Coca Cola and Chevron, are also spending their money on stock buybacks (which increase stock option prices), dividends to investors, and subsidiary acquisitions. According to Bloomberg, share repurchasing is at one of its highest levels in 25 years.

6. The Big Fraud: Tax us less, and the jobs will come

Despite their unwillingness to invest in jobs, and even in the face of damning evidence against their tax myths, the super-rich fight like wildcats at any suggestion that they support the country that provided their wealth. Way back in 1984, right after the Reagan tax cuts, the U.S. Treasury Department came to the obvious but belated conclusion that tax cuts cause a loss of revenue. A 2006 Treasury Department study found that extending the Bush tax cuts would have no beneficial effect on the U.S. economy. Other sources have confirmed that economic growth was fastest in years with relatively high top marginal tax rates.

Ample evidence exists to show that no relationship exists between the capital gains tax rate and investment. As noted in the Washington Post, "The top tax rate on investment income has bounced up and down over the past 80 years - from as high as 39.9 percent in 1977 to just 15 percent today - yet investment just appears to grow with the cycle, seemingly unaffected." In fact, the low rate may even have a negative effect on growth. A Congressional Research Service report states: "Capital gains tax rate increases appear to increase public saving and may have little or no effect on private saving. Consequently, capital gains tax increases likely have a positive overall impact on national saving and investment."

7. So what becomes of the jobs?

Corporations are hoarding over a trillion dollars. The richest 1% take a trillion dollars a year more than productivity-based earnings since 1980. Over eight trillion untaxed dollars is being hidden overseas.

That's a present value of ten trillion misdirected dollars. Just 1/10 of that would create 25 million jobs, one for every unemployed or underemployed worker in America. Or a $45,000 a year job for every college student in the United States.

But the people who call themselves "job creators" do nothing to make that happen.

Yet the Romney-Ryan plan to create jobs - and Republican governors as well - is to further cut taxes. Never mind that we've had ten years of tax cuts not producing jobs. Demand creates jobs. People with jobs who buy cars, toothpaste, cereal and gadgets create jobs, not billionaires who make most of their money from capital gains. It is no coincidence that as we keep the Bush tax cuts and state level conservative politicians cut local taxes, our infrastructure needs needs an upgrade and education spending is down.

Cenk Uygur Unravels Anti-Obama Smiley faced Fascist Wacko Dinesh D’Souza and Conspiracy 2016: Obama’s America

Author Dinesh D’Souza, whose The Roots Of Obama’s Rage is the basis for the newly-released hackumentary 2016: Obama’s America, is making the rounds to promote the film. On Tuesday night’s The Young Turks, host Cenk Uygur confronted D’Souza with the facts behind the film’s deranged view of President Obama, and asked him why he never complained about the George W. Bush policies that exploded the debt, and that President Obama is still paying for.

Dinesh D’Souza could not even bother to look up the correct deficit left by Republicans and Bush in 2008.

An Honest Comparison of Obama Recovery to Reagan's Should Include Public Sector Jobs

An Honest Comparison of Obama Recovery to Reagan's Should Include Public Sector Jobs

Fox News distorted economic history to criticize President Obama's record on jobs creation, using what Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has called "a stupid comparison" to President Reagan. But Reagan was aided by an increase in government spending and public sector employment, as well as drastic cuts to interest rates.

The Labor Department* released its monthly jobs report on Friday showing that the U.S. economy added 163,000 jobs in July, compared with 64,000 the previous month. According to the report, unemployment increased by .1 percentage point to 8.3.

In response to those numbers, Fox Business analyst Stuart Varney compared the current recovery with that of Reagan, saying that "it is a very negative comparison for President Obama."However, Krugman has noted that the two recoveries are not comparable, explaining:

If government employment under Mr. Obama had grown at Reagan-era rates, 1.3 million more Americans would be working as schoolteachers, firefighters, police officers, etc., than are currently employed in such jobs.

    And once you take the effects of public spending on private employment into account, a rough estimate is that the unemployment rate would be 1.5 percentage points lower than it is, or below 7 percent -- significantly better than the Reagan economy at this stage.

    One implication of this comparison is that conservatives who love to compare Reagan's record with Mr. Obama's should think twice. Aside from the fact that recoveries from financial crises are almost always slower than ordinary recoveries, in reality Reagan was much more Keynesian than Mr. Obama, faced with an obstructionist G.O.P., has ever managed to be.

In the words of the Economic Policy Institute, "the current recovery is the only one [of the last four recessions] that has seen public-sector losses over its first 31 months." EPI continued:

    If public-sector employment had grown since June 2009 by the average amount it grew in the three previous recoveries (2.8 percent) instead of shrinking by 2.5 percent, there would be 1.2 million more public-sector jobs in the U.S. economy today. In addition, these extra public-sector jobs would have helped preserve about 500,000 private-sector jobs.

 

Chief economist at Moody's Analytics Mark Zandi found that job losses at the state and local government levels have "the most serious weight on the job market." And when the public sector cuts jobs, it significantly affects private sector employment, as economist Joel Naroff noted:

    Behind those government job losses are budget cuts, particularly from states and local governments, many of which have lost revenues as lower incomes and lower property values lead to lower tax income. Those budget cuts mean fewer government contracts, which also leads to pain in the private sector. The winding down of the stimulus package also contributed to these losses, as federal assistance to state governments for things like extra Medicaid funding has disappeared, leaving many states with substantial budget gaps.

    Altogether, the strain on the national economy is considerable. "There's no such thing as a free budget cut." says Naroff. "If the public sector trims [20,000 to 25,000] jobs a month, then the private sector has to create those jobs before the economy can add one job. That's the hole that the public sector puts the economy in at this particular point," he says.

The Obama administration's jobs bill would have given about $35 billion to state and local governments to prevent many of these public sector job losses, but because of a Republican filibuster, the bill has languished. Since then, the public sector has lost 124,000 jobs.

The Reagan recovery is also owed to a large increase in government spending and the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates.

The Congressional Budget Office explained that because the 1980s recession was caused "by monetary restriction aimed at bringing inflation under control," "[l]ower interest rates after mid-1982 permitted the recovery to begin." Today's Federal Reserve does not have this same ability, because the interest rates are already nearly 0.

What's more, President Reagan greatly increased government spending to aid the economic recovery. In contrast, government spending under President Obama is falling at a rate of 1.4 percent, the first decline in real spending since the 1970s, as The Wall Street Journal noted:

It is a little strange or just typical of radical anti-American Republicans to pretend the Bush era doesn't matter, never happened or they just can't see because of the tendency of conservative wackos to never take responsibility for anything.

Mitt Romney's tragic/comedy at the Republican Convention seems to prove that the conservative movement is one of the most morally corrupt in American history. Romney's ability to lie, lie deeply and often is a clue to the gutter to which conservatism has fallen and pans to stay: Mitt Romney's Speech at RNC - all lies all the time. Conservative think lying is a moral virtue, where normal Americans do not.

Mitt Romney Fails History and The Integrity Test. Mitt thinks wearing a suit makes him appear less than like the sleazeball liar he is.

Republicans lack the moral depth to tell the difference between lies and falsehoods.

Republican behavior is so perverse, so disconnected from reality, is it possible they are all clones grown from the spores of bacteria,  The Romney campaign’s surreal arguments about the economy

Only a Republican drunk of the mind altering kool-aid of conservatism could get up in front of America, look straight in  the camera and tell the deeply disturbing immoral lies that Paul Ryan (R-WI) The Most Dishonest Convention Speech

Republicans are morally lost, bereft of both rational thought and ethical constraints of any kind. No wonder they're mad at normal patriotic Americans, with egos instead of a conscience, Republicans are enraged that anyone should challenge their carefully constructed fantasy and fake patriotism.

There Were Many Lies In Romney's Convention Speech, This Is The Biggest

There Were Many Lies In Romney's Convention Speech, This Is The Biggest

Who knew that Mitt Romney was such a fan of Barack Obama's 2008 campaign?

"How many days have you woken up feeling that something really special was happening in America?" Romney told thousands of Republican delegates, alternates and hangers-on Thursday night. "Many of you felt that way on Election Day four years ago. Hope and Change had a powerful appeal."

Speaking of the "fresh excitement about the possibilities of a new president" Americans felt upon Obama's election, the man who will now seek to prevent the Democratic president's reelection told the 40th Republican National Convention about how much he had hoped Obama would succeed "because I wanted America to succeed."

But it wasn't just that citizens wanted America to succeed. As Romney noted: "Every family in America wanted this to be a time when they could get ahead a little more, put aside a little more for college, do more for their elderly mom who’s living alone now or give a little more to their church or charity… This was the hope and change America voted for.”

In this, Romney was right.

When Americans went to the polls in 2008, the clear majority voted for Barack Obama because they wanted a president who would address the economic missteps and misdeeds that had caused a stock market meltdown on the eve of the election -- handing the new president what even one of his harshest critics, Republican vice president nominee Paul Ryan, admitted in his Wednesday night acceptance speech was "a crisis."

The response to that crisis, Americans hoped, would do more than just bring a measure of stability to the markets. They hoped that it would bring a measure of prosperity to them and to their communities.

Unfortunately, Obama and his party did not have partners in addressing the crisis.

While Romney says he wanted Obama to succeed, Rush Limbaugh said before the new president was inaugurated in January, 2009, "I hope Obama fails." Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said on behalf of the president's legislative partners: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

Paul Ryan saw to it: rallying opposition to a stimulus that was designed to jumpstart the economy, opposing health-care reforms that mirrored those Romney implemented as the governor of Massachusetts, and refusing even the most minimal compromises as the nation's credit-rating was threatened during a absurd fight over whether to raise borrowing limits that Democratic and Republican presidents had raised in the past.

Even in the rare instances where Obama put the needs of the nation -- and the moment -- above politics, other members of "the loyal opposition" merely opposed. One of them even argued against providing the support that was needed to preserve the American auto industry, writing an article that declared: "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

Who was that guy?

Oh, right, Mitt Romney.

Much was made of the web of deception that Paul Ryan wove with his acceptance speech on Wednesday night,. But Romney actually tried to one-up his running-mate.

The man who stood before the convention of his party and declared that he wanted Barack Obama to succeed campaigned against Obama's election in 2008 -- attacking the Democratic nominee and his supporters for proposing "timid, liberal empty gestures."

Throughout Obama's first-term, Romney was a steady critic -- not just of auto bailouts but of virtually all of the policies of the new administration. He never demanded, as Wendell Willkie did after the 1940 elections, that Republicans recognize the necessity of working with a Democratic president. Like Ryan, Romney abandoned the traditional "one nation" Republicanism of Dwight Eisenhower and a former Michigan governor named George Romney, which argued that Republicans could and should work with Democrats, especially in tough times.

On a night that was all about telling Mitt Romney's story, with reflections on his humane service with his church, on his not so humane service with Bain Capital and of his moderate Republican service as governor of Massachusetts (well, except for the Romneycare part), Romney and his enthusiasts had plenty to say about Obama's failings. Even in speeches that were ostensibly about Romney's business acumen, there were sharp, at times unrelenting "they just don't get it" attacks on the president.

Then, Romney went for the jugular with lines like: "President Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family."

Applause.

"To the majority of Americans who now believe that the future will not be better than the past," he told a crowd filled , 'I can guarantee you this: if Barack Obama is re-elected, you will be right.'"

Thunderous applause.

That just does not sound like a guy who wanted Barack Obama to succeed.

It sounds more like a guy who formed part of a partisan opposition that did everything in its power to make Obama "a one-term president."

Three years into the first Obama term, veteran Washington watchers Thomas Mann (who works for a think tank packed with former Republican White House aides) and Norman Ornstein (who works for Dick Cheney's old think tank) wrote an article titled: "Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem."

"We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party," observed Mann and Ornstein.

"The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition," they continued. "When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges."

The Republican Party of Teddy Roosevelt and Wendell Willkie, of Dwight Eisenhower and George Romney, of Gerald Ford, and, yes, of Ronald Reagan, never moved so far from the mainstream that it would not cooperate and compromise when it came time to do right by America.

But the party that Mitt Romney now leads moved so far that it was, indeed, "nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges."

They did not achieve Limbaugh's dream of forcing an Obama failure. But they made the president's tenure dramatically harder, and the prospect for renewal dramatically more difficult to achieve. And, now, Mitt Romney says: "Today the time has come for us to put the disappointments of the last four years behind us. To put aside the divisiveness and the recriminations. To forget about what might have been and to look ahead to what can be."

Or, it could be a time to consider the successes that might have been if the party that has nominated Mitt Romney for president and Paul Romney for vice president was not "an insurgent outlier in American politics. (that was) ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science."

"You might have asked yourself over these last years whether this is the America we want," Romney said in his acceptance speech.

Yes, Americans might have asked just that.

 Most voters know that President Obama inherited the worse recession since 1929. Ironically or maybe not, Romney inherited a small economic slump when he was governor of Massachusetts. In his RNC speech he holds Obama responsible not not fixing a catastrophe caused by Republicans, yet it was Mitt who complained as governor that he should not be blamed for not fixing the economy left by his predecessor - a Republican by the way. Republicans did everything in their power to make Obama and the USA fail. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) famously confused about the Republican tactics on the debt ceiling negotiations - McConnell Debt Ceiling Strategy: 'I Refuse To Help Obama Reelection' . This is the same anti-American fanatic that voted to raise the debt ceiling seven times under the Bush administration. Mr. Romney, supposedly a shining example of values, has the values of an old Soviet propagandist, Fact check: Mitt Romney's convention speech. Mitt is no more than George Bush with a better haircut. Romney represents all that is wrong with the conservative movement - their agenda is about catering to the compliants of billionaires who want even more money and ethnocetric women haters.

2012 Republican National Convention Is Proving What Patriotic Americans Already Know, Republicans Have The Values of Pond Scum

2012 Republican National Convention Is Proving What Patriotic American Already Know, Republicans Have The Values of Pond Scum

1. The "You didn't build that" deception. By now, Obama's rhetorical trip-up on the campaign trail is the stuff of legend, because in the construction of a series of sentences, Obama left an opening for Romney and his allies to suggest that the president meant something entirely different from what he said. At a campaign stop in Roanoke, Va., Obama said that a business owner's success requires government investment in infrastructure such as roads and bridges. "If you've got a business, you didn't build that," he said -- meaning, quite clearly, the roads and bridges. Republicans, however, pulled the quote from its context and ran with it. And Romney is determined to carry that ball to the finish line.

Never mind that even mainstream media have repeatedly refuted the meaning falsely imparted to the president by Romney and company. As of Tuesday night, the Obama quote was altered even further in the "Hands" videos to make it seem that he was shaking his brown finger in the face of lighter-skinned business owners: the audio track takes the words, "Let me tell you" from earlier in the speech, and sets them just ahead of the out-of-context quote to make it sound like this:

    "Let me tell you, if you've got a business, you didn't build that."

Here's the actual quote in its entirety, with the Romney edit in bold:

    "There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me, because they want to give something back.  They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.  You didn’t get there on your own.  I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.  There are a lot of smart people out there.  It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.  Let me tell you something – there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

    If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.  Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business. you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

2. The welfare lie. The Department of Health and Human Services recently announced that it would consider providing waivers to states from the implementation of welfare-to-work requirement in the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program if the states could demonstrate that they had a more effective means of helping welfare recipients find work. Romney has seized upon this announcement to claim that Obama is "gutting welfare reform" and eliminating the TANF work requirement -- a blatant lie that has been reported as such by many news outlets.

If facts actually mattered to the Republican Party, and truth-telling actually mattered to Romney, that would have put an end to the promulgation of the lie. But when a lie feeds a false but effective narrative about a black president and welfare, Romney and his allies apparently can't bear to give it up.

Several convention speakers took up the theme, most notably Rick Santorum, who said:

    "And this summer [Obama] showed us once again he believes in government handouts and dependency by waiving the work requirement for welfare."

Artur Davis, the former Alabama Democrat turned Virginia Republican, put it this way:

    Bill Clinton took on his base and made welfare a thing you had to work for; this current crowd guts the welfare work requirement in the dead of night.

Davis' part in promoting the lie is especially sweet for the G.O.P. Because he's African American, he provides a certain amount of insulation from charges of racism, despite the obvious racial dog-whistle to those voters who see welfare as a black thing.

3. The "dependency" lie. The Republicans have found a useful corollary to the welfare lie in their invention of a Democratic dependency doctrine, which sells the false idea that Democrats deliberately seek to make people dependent on government benefits as a means of winning votes. It flows from the Republicans' emerging producerist narrative, which was a staple of the racist rants of President Andrew Jackson -- the idea that the world is inhabited by "makers" and "takers," with the "takers" characterized as anybody outside of one's own constituency.

The most juvenile articulation of this steaming pile of prevarication was delivered by radio host and former actress Janine Turner, who followed up a Ben Franklin quote with this:

    Patrick Henry said, "Give me liberty or give me death." Today Obama enables an entitlement society that says, "Give me liberty and gimme, gimme!"

    Why? Because Democrats depend on dependence.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, whose entire political career is a creation of the Koch brothers' Americans For Prosperity enterprise, chimed in with this description of the outcome of progressives' attempts to recall [7] him from the governor's mansion after he gutted labor protections for public employees and slashed the education budget:

    On June 5th, voters in my swing state were asked to decide if they wanted elected officials who measure success by how many people are dependent on the government, if they wanted leaders who believe success is measured by how many people are not dependent on the government, because they control their own destiny in the private sector. ( there are three more examples at the link)

Republicans are real worked up over someone down on their luck getting $4 a day in food assistance until they get back on their feet. In contrast they think its great that America's largest corporations and billionaires get billions in subsides from the capital created by American workers. It is not just the 2012 RNC convention, the entire conservative movement is based on a foundation of lies, just like every radical authoritarian movement in the last 120 years..

Why do Republicans hate science based facts- Todd Akin (R-MO) Claims Breast milk Cures Homosexuality

Paul Ryan stands on a foundation of lies. If there was a way, a humane way, to make Ryan tell the truth or be rendered mute, he would not be able to talk.

Timeline- Republicans Trash Economy, Lie U.S. Into War, Pretend Recession Is Obama's Fault, Pretend They Don't Know Todd Akins, Hope Voters Are Idiots With Poor Memories

Timeline- Republicans Trash Economy, Lie U.S. Into War, Pretend Recession Is Obama's Fault, Pretend They Don't Know Todd Akins, Hope Voters Are Idiots With Poor Memories

If there was one thing Republicans sought to make clear at the start of their national convention in Tampa on Monday, it was that the party would not allow Missouri Rep. Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" comments to lead them into a dialogue on women’s health issues, but rather would remain focused on the "issues that matter," namely the economy.

In the prior week, national attention had focused on how Akin’s controversial statement -- that women who suffer "legitimate rape" have a way of shutting down their bodies to prevent pregnancy -- might impact both presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and Republican congressional candidates with women voters. Scrutiny of the Republican Party’s handling of women's issues further intensified when draft platform language, released in the wake of the Akin furor, included support for a constitutional ban on abortion with no exceptions for rape or incest.

Nonetheless, Republicans were noticeably unwilling to discuss Akin, their abortion platform or any kind of polling gender gap, despite being prodded on the subject throughout the first day’s events in Tampa.

"I know that the DCCC likes to talk about a lot of things other than Obama's economy, but this is what we're voting on ... We’re voting on Obama’s economy," said Guy Harrison, executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee, in a briefing with reporters. Harrison was reacting to a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee effort, launched Monday morning, to tie Republican members of Congress to the "extreme agenda" they share with Akin.

"Anything else they're talking about, any other issues, they're just wasting their time and space," he continued, adding later that most Republicans had called on Akin to step down, even though the congressman himself "made a different choice."

"If [Democrats] want to talk about that for the next two months, feel free," Harrison said. "We'll be talking about the economy."

A total of four questions on how the party planned to grapple with women's or social issues were virtually dismissed.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) offered a similar deflection toward the economy when asked about the aftermath of Akin’s remarks at a lunch hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

"This is another distraction," Boehner said. "The American people aren't asking questions about Akin. They're asking the question, 'Where are the jobs?'"

If national polling among women voters is anything to go by, however, the issue is hardly a distraction. According to a survey conducted just last month, President Barack Obama's support among single women nationally is nearly double that of Romney's, a gap that could be exacerbated if Akin continues to stand his ground in the Missouri Senate race and Republicans keep trying to portray abortion as a non-issue.

Romney's own discomfort with the whole matter was made apparent the previous Thursday, when a reporter for Denver's CBS affiliate KCNC said she was instructed not to ask him any questions about abortion or Akin as a condition for a one-on-one interview. Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, who once co-sponsored anti-abortion legislation with Akin in Congress, has spent the week sitting through interviews heavy on women, abortion and his definition of rape, as opposed to his budget plan, Medicare and how a Romney-Ryan ticket planned to create jobs.

Forget that Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney see women and their rights much like Iran's fundamentalist mullahs. Fir get that the last time Republicans were in charge of the economy they drove it off the cliff. Yep let's just talk about Obama and all the jobs bills conservatives blocked.


Conservative VP Candidate Paul Ryan claims rape is a "method of conception" Media pretends he never said it.

Pennsylvania GOP Senate Candidate Tom Smith: Getting Pregnant From Rape Is ‘Similar’ To Having A Baby Out Of Wedlock

Freaky Republicans Line Up to See D'Souza Propaganda Film About Obama. Because As We ALL Know Everything You See In Movies Must be True

Freaky Republicans Line Up to See  D'Souza Propaganda Film About Obama. Because As We ALL Know Everything You See In Movies Must be True

The marketing materials for the upcoming film 2016: Obama's America claim that it "takes audiences on a gripping visual journey into the heart of the world's most powerful office to reveal the struggle of whether one man's past will redefine America over the next four years." If the movie is anything like its source material, we can expect it will be a mostly fraudulent journey.

The movie is based on Dinesh D'Souza's book The Roots Of Obama's Rage, which received high praise from people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, neither of whom have shown any qualms about promoting outright lies, distortions, and outlandish claims in the past.

The New York Times reports that the film is partially financed by billionaire investor Joe Ricketts, who previously considered financing a multimillion dollar political ad campaign linking the racially charged rhetoric of Rev. Jeremiah Wright to President Obama.

The central thesis of the book is that Obama has some sort of anti-colonial world view, handed down to him by his ancestors, that acts as the motivation behind his actions and policies as president. It is just another form of birtherism, albeit a more highbrow variety of the ongoing conservative conspiracy theory. Appearing on Beck's Fox show, D'Souza explained:

    Obama is not anti-American in that he wishes ill on America. He wants what's best for America. He thinks it's really bad for us to be a colonial power. And therefore, in his view, he is doing right for America by pulling us out, by knocking us off our pedestal, by in a sense taking us from being the world's arrogant superpower. He wants us to share the wealth. He thinks he's gonna get a better America. The problem is, he's stuck in this theory, he's frozen in this time machine. In a sense, he's a captive of the ideology of a Luo tribesman from the 1950s. It's an incredible idea.

D'Souza boosts this ludicrous premise (Obama ran for the presidency because he hates colonialism ... just like America's founders!) using several claims that are simply not rooted in reality. A few examples:

    D'Souza claims that TARP and the federal bailout were programs that "Obama launched." Both programs began under the Bush administration.
    D'Souza claims Obama went by the name Barack to adopt his father's "African identity," but Obama has explicitly said his name change "was not some assertion of my African roots."
    D'Souza insists that references in Obama speeches to a "nuclear-free world" are evidence of "anti-colonialism," but Ronald Reagan made multiple references to the same concept.
    D'Souza claimed that Obama supported the release of the Lockerbie bomber because he sometimes "supports the release of terrorists who claim to be fighting wars of liberation against American aggression." But the Obama administration formally opposed the release in an official letter from the State Department.
    D'Souza claimed that Obama referred to BP as "British Petroleum" in a May 2010 speech. He never did.

And D'Souza just goes on and on, inventing incidents that never happened, making historical claims that don't match up to the facts, shoehorning these made-up stories into a false narrative of racial resentment.

It doesn't appear that D'Souza has corrected or amended his flawed premise. 2016: Obama's America is just repeating the same falsehoods with moving pictures.

The makers of the movie must have had editing tips from Mitt Romney. Yes it is true America, you can take bits and pieces of video and edit them to make the person you hate to begin with, look like a bad person.

In An Internet Littered With Misinformation About The GM and Chrysler Bailouts Some Useful Links

In An Internet Littered With Misinformation About The GM and Chrysler Bailouts Some Useful Links

The restructuring of the bankrupt General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC in 2009 through the creation of new companies formed with assets purchased from the bankrupt firms was highly successful. Today, they are profitable, investing in America and creating jobs.

The decision to save GM and Chrysler prevented an economic catastrophe that would have thrown the nation into a full-blown depression, resulting in dozens of additional bankruptcies in the auto industry and across industrial America. Instead, today the auto industry is helping lead our nation's economic recovery.

When people insist that GM and Chrysler should have been restructured with private funds, we must remember that no entity besides the U.S. Treasury would provide financing. Without the Treasury, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" would have become "Force Detroit to Liquidate."

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Arthur J. Gonzales found exactly that when authorizing the sale of Chrysler LLC's assets to the new Chrysler: "The Sale Transaction is the only alternative to liquidation available to the Debtors."

Likewise, the claim that Chrysler's secured creditors got less than they were entitled to is laid to rest by the judge in the Sale Order: "The Sale Transaction will provide a greater recovery for the Debtors' creditors than would be provided by any other practical available alternative, including, without limitation, liquidation whether under Chapter 11 or Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code."

The Chrysler creditors group agreed, with over 90 percent supporting the sale as ordered, while the U.S. Appeals Court and the Supreme Court rejected challenges to the Sale Order.

That hasn't stopped critics like the Heritage Foundation from repeating the rejected claim that the UAW retiree health care trusts received more than they were entitled to under the principles of bankruptcy when compared to unsecured creditors.

But the comparison is hardly apt. The creditors' recovery is still occurring as a part of the bankruptcy process, while the health care funding was approved by the court under the specific part of the bankruptcy code that deals with retirees.

GM and Chrysler prudently bargained new contracts with the employees (and suppliers) they needed to be successful as newly formed entities. That amounts to good business judgment that is difficult to second guess when both companies are performing better than they have in decades.

Critics also like to forget the significant sacrifices made by UAW members. Plants were closed, and tens of thousands lost their jobs. Experienced workers gave up raises, cost-of-living increases, bonuses, vacation pay, overtime pay, holidays and break time, while those hired since 2007 work for lower pay and benefits. Retiree health care liabilities were shifted to the retiree trusts; retirees lost vision and dental coverage, and face increased out-of-pocket costs.

In 2011 UAW members approved new collective bargaining agreements with the domestic automakers that contain no raises but the possibility of increased at-risk compensation through profit sharing.

In return, the companies are investing in U.S facilities to create at least 20,000 new direct jobs, resulting in tens of thousands of jobs at businesses supported by the auto industry nationwide.

Who knows here or how they start, but a favorite myth of the anti-American conservatives web sites is that the gov'mint gave Chrysler to Italian automaker Fiat. Sounds crazy, because it is - Truth Squad: Did government give automakers to UAW, Fiat?

Obama Auto Bailout Has Created 10 Times More Jobs Than Romney Ever Did


Assessment of Tax Revenue Generated by the Automotive Sector (pdf) - "In 2010, the production, sales and service, and use of the automobile contributed $91.5 billion to state government tax revenues and at least $43 billion to federal government tax revenues.". Sometimes links go dead. If that should happen try using Google to search for the title of the hyperlink.

Another myth: Bush and Obama should not have helped out Detroit auto makers because auto workers make too much money. These critics think that Mitt Romney's vulture capitalism and offshore bank accounts are fine. So we're talking about critics who have their facts wrong and some wacky unpatriotic values. Auto Worker Salaries. If unions by nature of just being unions make bad cars and make car companies less competitive than conservative critics need to explain why Germany and japan has stronger unions than the U.S. Governments in both both countries have also helped out their auto industries.