Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy says in two adjacent sentences that:
1. Defunding of police has destroyed American cities;
2. That the first time he heard the idea and term of “defunding the police” was last year in the House Chamber.
Wow. That was fast. Ayayayay.
Incredible demogoguery. Even by current standards.
No city has defunded its police. Not one.
Please share widely!
Very few Democrats, and none that I know of in positions of leadership, advocate it either. How come Dems always get tagged for leftist positions we do not ourselves espouse?
How come Dems always get tagged for leftist positions we do not ourselves espouse?”
Count your blessings Christopher. Dems could (and should) be tagged for protecting high drug prices and fighting for tax breaks for rich people.
Bob, you are one of the only voices of reason on this site! Don’t bother with Christopher tho – he will just accuse you of being a purist. Then again I’d much rather be a “purist” than a corporatist sell-out. The fauxgressives are the worst b/c they claim to be progressive just b/c they’re in the Progressive Caucus but are happy to take $ from big insurance, big pharma, big oil, etc. etc., and do nothing to advocate for M4A, GND, reparations, etc. etc. I know I’m preaching to the choir to you, Bob. 😉
P.S. I wish we would defund the police! Let’s start with getting them out of our schools. The school-to-prison pipeline is a scourge.
In order for this to be more than yet another slogan, I need to know WHAT town, WHAT school, and WHAT “school-to-prison pipeline”.
Similarly, when a comment is written in acronyms — “… M4A, GND …” it communicates only to those who already agree with the commentator.
The DSA slate of Somerville candidates all led with “Defund the police”. They quickly learned that that was disastrous politics in Somerville — in no small part because the Somerville Police Department is already doing everything rational people want a police department to do. Rather than recognize a losing position and actually paying attention to the opinion of the local electorate, those candidates lied about their position. They lost — big time — in the most important local election in my ten years of living in Somerville.
My youngest son attended Somerville high school. They and we welcomed the diversity of his urban school experience — they came here from an all-white all-Christian public school in the suburbs.
I know there are issues with the police departments of certain towns. In a state like Massachusetts, it is sheer demagoguery to repeat slogans like “Defund the police”. If the local PD of a given city or town is a problem, then fix the problem.
Every PD and school system has problems. Empty slogans like “Defund the police” and “School-to-prison pipeline” hurt, rather than help, those who sincerely work at the local level to address those problems.
Bob is apparently whining yet again about the efforts to repeal the SALT limit in states like New York and New Jersey. I remember no such outcry against the GOP giveaways a few short years ago to the ultrawealthy — giveaways that dwarf the amounts being discussed for the SALT limits.
Those tax giveaways by the GOP exacerbate the root cause of most of the economic suffering in the US today — wealth concentration.
The irony of characterizing Democrats who oppose the SALT limit while saying nothing about the decades-long GOP program to increase wealth concentration is striking.
The SALT limits affect only income. WEALTH is different from income. The millions of households penalized by the draconian SALT limits — limits put in place by the GOP specifically in order to punish middle-class blue state Democrats — are NOT “rich”. Income is different from wealth.
This kind of anti-intellectual sloganeering hurts Democrats far more than it helps.
“The irony of characterizing Democrats who oppose the SALT limit while saying nothing about the decades-long GOP program to increase wealth concentration is striking”
Tom, I hate to say this since we’ve been getting along so well lately, but this is pure whataboutism. As a purist I should know.
Watch Officer: Captain, we’ve hit an iceberg, we have about an hour to get people off the ship.
Caption: Those ashtrays on the promenade have STILL not been polished!
I don’t know about “whataboutism”. I do know about priorities.
The ever-increasing rate of wealth concentration is an existential crisis. The GOP actions increase that rate.
Removing the SALT restrictions do no harm (because the beneficiaries are not wealthy) and greatly increase the political capitol of the Democrats.
The Democrats are the only group that is making any attempt to solve the issue.
At the moment, the ship is sinking.
“Removing the SALT restrictions do no harm (because the beneficiaries are not wealthy) . . . . “
This is just a ridiculous thing to say, Tom. Are the beneficiaries from the bottom quintile of the population or from the top quintile?
Both and everything in between, except possibly those so close to the bottom that they don’t pay income tax at all.
Most of the beneficiaries are from neither quintile of the WEALTH distribution (https://www.thebalance.com/american-middle-class-net-worth-3973493).
The median net worth of the top quintile is $608,900. Half of the top quintile have a net worth above that.
Having a high income increases the pain of the SALT cap. It does NOT increase wealth for most of the affected taxpayers because the expenses of those high-tax states are very high. The limit on property tax deductions is painful for the house-poor — households, especially senior households, who bought property decades ago and who face skyrocketing property taxes based on the increased value of their home. Property taxes skyrocketed — and wealth did not.
The numbers don’t support the passion your argument.
A more direct answer is here ttps://www.forbes.com/sites/howardgleckman/2021/11/04/the-latest-salt-cap-fix-would-mostly-benefit-high-income-households-do-little-for-middle-income-people/?sh=54052d4449df
Google, “who benefits from raising the SALT cap” and you will find a page of similar articles, all of them indicating that the very wealthy get almost all the benefits from raising the cap.
The numbers from every source support my argument.
That isn’t what your link says and it isn’t what all those source say.
“High income” does not mean “very wealthy”.
For convenience, the link for your piece is https://www.forbes.com/sites/howardgleckman/2021/11/04/the-latest-salt-cap-fix-would-mostly-benefit-high-income-households-do-little-for-middle-income-people/?sh=6a7fbb6e49df
The “very wealthy” in fact often have no income at all — because they don’t need it and often prefer to avoid paying taxes altogether.
The piece you cited, like so many others, correctly observes that high INCOME households will benefit from removing the SALT limits. What the Forbes piece neglects to mention is the geographic distribution of who would benefit.
There is a world of difference between a household earning $250K per year in the middle of rural Iowa (or Maine, for that matter) and a household earning that same income in Westchester County, NY.
I also invite you to revisit the following paragraph from your piece (emphasis mine):
The “Build Back Better” bill does more to help working class families across America than any legislation has even attempted since LBJ’s “Great Society”. The bill explicitly addresses the concerns you raise.
Your argument appears to be grounded in the fallacy that high-income is the same as wealthy. That is egregiously incorrect, and leads you to offer an incorrect argument.
We disagree about the SALT cap repeal. That doesn’t make it a “bad provision”. It is a provision that you dislike. So be it.
I share your unhappiness about your second point. It is brought about by the razor-thin Democratic majority in the House and Senate. It isn’t “caving” to accept the reality of an evenly split Senate and a very slim majority of the House.
The best way to solve that problem is to increase the Democratic majority of the House and Senate. Do you think your hostile attacks on the Democratic Party help or hurt that task?
What you would you have the House and Senate do differently?
The issue here is the false requirement to force the legislation to “pay for itself”. No such requirement was applied to the GOP giveaway to the ultra wealthy in 2017. No such measure is ever applied to the defense budget.
The canard that a program must “pay for itself” is a ruse used by the right-wing to block programs they dislike. The effect of it is to transfer wealth from the general public (who are always the recipients of the goods and services that result from government spending) to the ultrawealthy (who hold the T-Bills that such constraints benefit).
Your argument applies to ANY provision of the Build Back Better bill that anybody dislikes. The formula is simple:
The arbitrary and false constraint is the problem, not any individual item.
Your focus on SALT reminds me of the ongoing complaints by another BMG participant about funding for higher education. Neither is grounded in fact, neither makes sense politically, and each hurts everyone except the ultra-wealthy if enacted.
Each is, therefore, a talking point of the right wing.
I didn’t say that it doesn’t matter if income taxes are progressive. I said, instead, that tinkering with income tax rates and deductions does nothing to address wealth concentration.
It very much appears that “too silly to even argue with” is your way of saying that even you admit that you have no case to argue.
If progressive tax rates matter then the SALT cap should not be repealed.
If the Democrats want to increase their razor thin majority they should replace the SALT cap repeal with programs which are more popular.
You seem to misunderstand my position on progressive tax rates. Let me repeat it here for your convenience:
Repealing the SALT cap does nothing to address wealth concentration, and wealth concentration is the problem.
I am confident that the popularity of these measures — and the demographics of the various constituencies — are very well understood by Democrats who’ve been working at this for most of the year.
It appears to me that you simultaneously over-estimate the number of people who oppose repealing the SALT cap and under-estimate the number of people who support its repeal.
I don’t doubt that a majority of Democratic voters in New York’s 14th CD (AOC’s district) oppose repealing the SALT cap, just as I don’t doubt that they overwhelming support the “Defund” movement.
New York’s CD-14 is not nearly representative of New York as a whole.
Various sources report the the SALT cap hurts about one third of the households in New Jersey. Are you really arguing that a third of New Jersey households are wealthy?
Really?
“. . . tinkering with income tax rates and deductions does nothing to address wealth concentration.”
If you really thought that, you would want to leave the SALT cap alone, instead of whining about the wealthest one-third of households in New Jersey. The vast majority of these would benefit only slightly from this increase. I’ve seen the figure of $20 in one report. Every study I’ve seen reports that the vast majority of the benefit would go to a tiny minority–the wealthiest of the well off.
These are the highest income earners and the wealthiest. There is a high correlation between high income and wealth. It’s ridiculous that anyone would claim otherwise.
You’re trolling now.
This comment is from SomervilleTom, not bob-gardner. It is a reply to SomervilleTom. The WordPress engine has scrambled this.
“tinkering with income tax rates and deductions”
$275 Billion worth of tinkering.
Even aggressive estimates about the annual cost of SALT cap repeal are in the vicinity of $85B/year.
The federal government receives about $4T/year. Just to make the comparison easier, that is:
4,000B compared to 85B.
About 2.5%.
Or, if you prefer a different comparison, various sources say the Build Back Better Plan will cost about 1.75T when the dust settles.
That’s 1,750B compaired to 85B
About 4.8%
You’re hyperventilating about trivial details — the ashtrays on the promenade while the ship is in mortal danger of foundering.
“Or, if you prefer a different comparison, various sources say the Build Back Better Plan will cost about 1.75T when the dust settles.
That’s 1,750B compaired to 85B”
You are comparing the annual cost of the SALT cap repeal with the multi-year total cost of the entire bill. The SALT cap repeal is for three years in this bill, so “when the dust settles” the actual cost is what I said it was.
That is, about one seventh of the cost of this entire bill goes to tax cuts for wealthy people in a few states.
Check your figures.
Indeed, I had intended to annualize the cost of the Build Back Better plan. I agree that the SALT cap repeal cost of $85 billion is a significant part of the $175B annual cost of the BBB plan.
The more important point, in my view, is that $175B per year is a very small part of the federal budget.
The focus on cost is itself a distraction from the far more important question of the benefits that the BBB plan offer every American.
The fact remains that annual federal tax revenues are $4.1T per year. The annual cost of the SALT Cap repeal is about 2.5% of that.
Your complaint was about my characterization of this as “tinkering with income tax rates and deductions”.
I stand by my characterization of 2.5% of annual tax revenue as “tinkering”.
Some don’t seem to get that in a plural society you need to build coalitions with different things different constituencies like even if not every constituency likes everything in the end. It can be frustrating to feel like two steps forward, one step back, but I will still take the net one step forward. These bills should only be opposed by those who genuinely feel that it would take us net backwards.
My take is to look at the programs that were dropped from BBB and to compare their cost to the cost of the SALT tax repeal. The people who lost out in the process have every reason to conclude that the interests of high-income people in a few states are more important to the Democrats than the interests of people who might have benefited from these proposals.
Nobody is going to buy the excuse that we “just can’t afford” these programs but we can afford this tax cut.
Did those people really lose anything, or just not gain as much as they had hoped? Maybe we could afford all of it, but if not everyone who gets to vote is convinced, then you take what you can get, walk off the field, and declare victory anyway.
@My take is to look at …
I make the perhaps rash assumption that these demographic and political considerations are the bread and butter of every staffer and elected official at the national level.
The people who don’t get what they want in this bill have a much better likelihood of obtaining that in subsequent legislation if this bill cements and strengthens the Democratic majority. They get absolutely nothing if the bill includes their favored positions and dies in the Senate.
The demographics of who gains is important, whether you like it or not. These “few states” that you talk about are the very heart of the Democratic Party constituency — that’s why they were punished by the GOP when the SALT cap was put in place. The affected people are “high income” in comparison to other states — they are not “wealthy” or “rich” as far as their lifestyles or discretionary spending.
We’re talking about a full third of the households in New Jersey. Are you seriously arguing that a third of New Jersey households are “rich”? Really?
My very strong suspicion is that those who advocate most loudly against the SALT cap repeal are those who live in the bluest of blue congressional districts. Those districts will be represented by Democrats whether or not the SALT cap is repealed.
Two of the most prominent Democrats carrying the “progressive” banner are AOC and Ayanna Pressley. They replaced John Conyers and Mike Capuano. Even if the AOC and Ms. Pressley disappoint their most rabid followers, their seats are not going to fall into GOP hands.
That is most definitely NOT the case for many districts in the high-tax states hit hardest by the SALT cap. There are some mostly urban dark blue districts — the other districts in the state are much more competitive.
I strongly suspect that the elected officials and their staffs are looking very closely at these demographics and dynamics.
As I’ve said many times in this thread, I agree with you about this. The assertion that “we just can’t afford [whatever]” is nonsense.
This comes down to raw and naked politics.
Why did you have to hijack this diary with which every Dem could agree about Kevin McCarthy’s demogoguery with a snide comment about an issue for which there is not consensus in the party? Can we really not present a united front against such egregious behavior without scoring own goals in the process?
When all your arguments are debunked, just whine.
I only see one participant whining on this thread.
It isn’t Christopher.
Thanks for the confession!
This is why Dems lose and are subject to so many “disarray” stories. We can never celebrate and communicate the progress we do make because a significant faction continues to whine that it’s not good enough.
“Reform the police” is both much better messaging and closer to what I think a lot of people really want. I’d rather get stuff done to move the ball forward than sacrifice any progress at all on the altar of purity. Bob seems to think SALT is just for the wealthy. I’m hardly wealthy and also appreciate not paying taxes twice on the same income.
Do you appreciate it or do you benefit from it?
You seem to be splitting hairs, but I certainly do keep a bit more of my money by being allowed to deduct one when calculating the other.
Presumably then, Christopher, you itemize deductions on your federal taxes, and you pay more than $10K in state and local taxes although, if I remember correctly, you have suggested that you live on a teacher’s salary and don’t own real estate.
I don’t mean to pry into your personal finances, but I have my doubts that you personally will benefit financially from this change, which will cost the taxpayers billions.
Are you seriously now advancing the old GOP canard that federal spending is bad?
This change is more than offset by other changes that increase taxes, and do so by targeting extremely high-income households — and more importantly, by beginning to tax wealth rather than income.
Deficit spending by the federal government is not a bad thing. Increased taxes — especially on the very wealthy — is not a bad thing.
This dog won’t hunt.
I don’t think it matters if I itemize, but I’ve done the arithmetic in previous years both with and without the deduction. Being able to deduct has had the effect of reducing my taxable income and thus the amount I owe compared to not doing so. You are basically correct about my situation and I do not owe more than 10K, but based on my experience you are absolutely mistaken that this only impacts the wealthy.
Except that you offered yourself as a counter example when I said that the SALT cap repeal overwhelmingly benefits the wealthy.
All the analyses say that the SALT cap repeal does benefit the wealthy–overwhelmingly. That’s what the numbers say.
I fear you are mistaken about this. The SALT cap repeal benefits high-income households in high-tax states. That is VERY different from what you suggest.
Income is not wealth. The standard for “wealthy” that you’ve implied in this entire discussion is the top quintile nationwide. You’ve presented no analyses that show that beneficiaries of the SALT tax repeal fall into that top quintile.
A household with an income of $250,000 in upstate Maine might be very well off in comparison to its neighbors and in terms of the discretionary spending available to the members of that household. A household with the same income in Westchester County NY — especially with several children — is in a completely different situation.
The numbers do not support your over-broad claim.
Since taxes are usually calculated as percentages then yes, any reduction probably does put more actual dollars back in the pockets of those who have more, but you’ve made it sound like exclusively a give-away to the rich, which is what I was pushing back on.
Correct, and CRT is not being taught to kids in grade school. Joe Biden did not take steps to raise the price of gasoline. Our government is not paying people to not work. The 2020 election was not stolen, not rigged. The vaccines are not filled with liquid computer chips. Pedophiles are not operating a child sex ring within the Democratic Party with their HQ in a Washington Pizza restaurant….AOC is not a socialist and for that matter neither is Bernie Sanders…..none of this is true.
But somehow the Republicans have found a way to not only make their base believe it, they are energized by it, and worse yet, view nonbelievers as enemies of their tribe.
We’re in a very dangerous place and a very dangerous time.
Maybe we should be asking Kevin the same question once famously asked of another McCarthy – “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
During the McCarthy era, most Americans demanded decency from each other and from elected officials.
That is most emphatically not so today.
Yeah, but Joe McCarthy was a bully with a substantial following until someone finally stood up to him. Bullies fold pretty easily when challenged so here’s hoping Kevin McCarthy’s (and Donald Trump’s) time will come sooner rather than later.
I share your hope.
My point is that America of the early 1950s hated bullies. America of the dearly 2020s loves them.
Thinking back to the 1960’s. I was five years old. The Cold War. I remember the Fallout Shelter signs. We were afraid of the Russians.
Today I am 66 years old, and afraid of the MAGA signs.
At the very least, defunding the police could have started with ending civil forfeiture. LawmakersLawmakers Call For Reforms To Civil Forfeiture After WBUR And ProPublica Investigation | WBUR News Civil forfeiture allows the police to fund themselves outside the control of town councils or state legislatures. Getting rid of it would have been very popular to all kinds of voters.
There is a whole spectrum of ways to defund and demilitarize the police. The way that “moderate” Democrats, rather than taking the opportunity to redefine and use “Defund the Police”, ran away screaming from the slogan is telling.
It shows the real distance between the people who came up with this slogan after the death of George Floyd and the leadership of the party.
You say the last sentence like it’s a bad thing! I do think there is room for reform on civil forfeiture.
This is an excellent illustration of the political stupidity of the “Defund” movement.
Eliminating civil forfeiture is a MARVELOUS idea, and one that will gain enormous traction among Democratic voters. There are many others. Dispatching trained social workers to handle emotional well-being issues instead of armed police makes enormous sense. So promote that. Hiring Spanish-language interpreters who can accompany police and firefighters in a city or town with large and growing Spanish-speaking populations makes all kinds of sense. The effect of the DSA-driven cuts to the Somerville PD is to end those newly-funded programs.
The politically advantageous strategy is to promote marvelous ideas that are popular and that work. Promoting “defund” is both politically stupid and also suicidal. It is unpopular and doesn’t work.
It loses, rather than wins, elections.
The “real distance” I see is between people who understand how to use the political system to actually improve peoples lives and the people who came up with the “Defund the Police” slogan.
Well, actually, there is ONE city that cut police funding: Austin, Texas.
Every local government has the right to decide its budget, and it probably did not help the case of the Austin police department that they had improperly cleared rape cases. Basically, a lot of women in Austin were victims of terrible crimes, and the Austin PD declared cases “cleared” even when the rapist was not jailed nor even arrested.
(and of course, Kevin McCarthy is a shameless demagogue who is trying to Trump escape punishment for treason on January 6.)