How’s that fiscal cliff coming along? Not so well, if you’re listening to the Republicans on the Senate floor.
Rand Paul (R-KY) brought the shrillness to new heights today on the Senate floor, screeching about how y’all want to punish the rich “producers” and how you’d pay for it when you ruin the economy just because you wanted to get some rich people. Paul likened raising taxes on rich people to “drowning” them (a more specific version of “death by taxes”). Yes, you are killing rich people out of pure spite.
Really, you should be thanking a rich person, he lectured. He bordered on hysteria, seeing the ever more likely scenario that yes, rich people might have to pay a smidge of a bit more in taxes next year. He is very disappointed in your lack of sympathy for the rich. Mean American citizens.
Rand Paul wants y’all to get serious, and by serious he means Obama phones, which he referenced as he lectured Democrats on their lack of seriousness (free stuff! moochers). The Senator finds great gravity in right wing conspiracies, but no gravitas in discussions about the fiscal cliff if they involve raising taxes on the much maligned, put-upon rich people. (Cutting children off of food stamps? Now that’s our serious House Republicans at work for American taxpayers.)
Anyone who isn’t rich is not “productive”: You just want to take money from the “productive” people and give it to yourselves, Rand condemned. You will pay for this because the economy will plummet. Do you feel better now, you spiteful 98%?!
John Thune (R-South Dakota) revved the hysteria before Rand, opining with increasing volume about how this is all the Senate’s fault and they haven’t passed a budget in three years (translation: he’s blaming Democrats for the House’s failure). Thune is pretending he isn’t aware of Article 1 in the Constitution. The budget is technically the House’s job, though the Senate and President submit a budget proposal indicating what they will support. No one ever asks a Republican why they keep shoving the doomed Ryan budget down our throats.
Both Paul and Thune demonstrated their “seriousness” about the economy when they voted No on creating jobs for our veterans. How can we spend money on our veterans when there are rich people suffering?
Listening to Republicans on C-Span is like going to a tent revival where they’re selling snake oil for your salvation. With each strained screech, they remind us of the dangers of blind ideology. Drowning rich people? Really, Senator?
Oh, the fever! Be serious, nation. Obama phones!
NOTE: Live blogged: Quotes, transcript and video will be added as/if they become available.
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Hrafnkell Haraldsson
Dec. 31st, 2012 at 12:48 pm
In a bathtub, or….?
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Wendy Moore
Dec. 31st, 2012 at 2:15 pm
Or over a cliff. Who cares how we get rid of them. They want to drown in money, drown when it’s taken away. Whining bastards. I wish they’d take the bus to Kozar with the LDS group and not come back. I’m just sick of them. Think of the number of dreanged people with guns who may be gettin enough of their shit now. I think, I smile.
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Sugapea
Dec. 31st, 2012 at 5:13 pm
How very sad that mega-wealth-financed FOX&FRIENDS has brainwashed our fellow Republicans to fight like hell for ‘The Maker’s'…the very Richest among us, who haven’t created serious jobs since GW Bush gave them that Generous Tax-Cut. The Rich now pay the *The Lowest Tax Rate* in over 60-Years. (Look when we could afford new highways/bridges/schools…If only we still had that Reagan Tax Rate)
http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t106/OnlyObvious/Tax_Rates/TopTaxBracket_TaxRate.jpg
Did Republican’s forget these words we Dems hold dear?
“Whatever you did for the least among you…you did for me”.
‘The Sharp, Sudden Decline of America’s Middle Class’:
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/the-sharp-sudden-decline-of-americas-middle-class-20120622?print=true
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savageDOG
Dec. 31st, 2012 at 12:49 pm
holy crap!
you mean i missed my obamaphone? have republican Email me on wherei can get one. they keep harping on it, but i am never told where they keep them.
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Brigita Petrutis
Dec. 31st, 2012 at 12:55 pm
The irony, that most of those who elected him are very far from rich, yet he “screeches” for continued fattening of the golden cow.
Happy New Year, Sarah, and all at Politicus, thanks for the good work!
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K from Bellingham
Dec. 31st, 2012 at 1:19 pm
The march to total irrelevence continues unabated…
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cindi
Dec. 31st, 2012 at 2:05 pm
Did Obama start the free phones program?
The cell phone distribution program did begin in 2008, the year Obama was elected president, but that is a coincidence. Let’s look more closely at the facts.
Notice that earlier we said Link-Up helps fund “installation.” What installation does a cell phone have? None. So why is installation part of Link-Up, which is under the Lifeline program umbrella? Because, the whole thing began back in 1996 when the Federal Communications Commission authorized the programs for landline phones. At that time it provided discounts on landline phones only, for obvious reasons.
To this day the government provides discounts on landline phones for financially disadvantaged people in the United States and U.S. territories. The Link-Up portion helps with the installation and the Lifeline Assistance part helps with the monthly bills, to the tune of roughly ten dollars a month.
So, the subsidization of phones began under President Clinton, and has continued under Presidents Bush and Obama.
Over that time, the usage of cell phones rose and the costs came down. Assuming one believes in the Lifeline program in the first place, and remembering that the FCC has mandated the program, it only makes sense to expand the phone assistance program to include cell phones. So, in 2008 the first application of this program for mobile phones began when a company called Tracfone started their Safelink Wireless service in Tennessee.
Aha, some say, that’s the same year Obama was elected! Well, that’s true. But the service in Tennessee was launched three months prior to Obama being elected. And that means the discussion and approval of the extension of the program occurred under President Bush’s watch.
The Bush Phone, anyone?
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Shiva (Moderator)
Dec. 31st, 2012 at 4:10 pm
Have them read this. It was actually governor Reagan who started the program in 1984
http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/cellphone.asp
These people are uneducated
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Bruce Weik
Dec. 31st, 2012 at 2:30 pm
Drowning the rich doesn’t sound all that bad.
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Reynardine
Dec. 31st, 2012 at 3:09 pm
Yeah, especially the ones eho got there through speculation and leveraged buyouts.
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M.R.M
Dec. 31st, 2012 at 3:08 pm
ya, tell mr paul’s KKKlan, should get hosed! it’s very well deserved! they hosed us/ “we the people” for a very, verrry, lonnnng time! real, REAL BAD! in other words “WE DONT FEEL SORRY FOR YA”LL!” no boo-hoo’s frum us, ya’ll did us “real good!” the 47% lost everything in life! and i meen EVERYTHING! ….. you know what they say, “whats good for the goose”
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Enjay in E MT
Dec. 31st, 2012 at 3:33 pm
It would be a simpler solution than trying to get a tax hike.
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Grasshopper
Dec. 31st, 2012 at 4:42 pm
Better watch your back Mitch, Randy the Krazy Kentuckian is gonna’ be gunning for your seat in ’14, especially after your work with Joe Biden on “the cliff”. Mr. Paul is on the fast track to run looneyland.
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mjh
Dec. 31st, 2012 at 5:04 pm
Senate Republican Compares Raising Taxes to Drowning the Rich
Really, Rand?
The top tax rate is now 35% — so, back during the Eisenhower administration, when it was 91%, must have been a deluge by comparison . . .
.
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