We learn from Catherine Rampell at the Washington Post that the Republican "counter-offer" to President Biden's infrastructure/jobs bill is even worse than we thought. Basically, two-thirds of their "offer" consists of spending to which our government can already reasonably be expected to commit, meaning their $568 billion "offer" is really a $189 billion "offer." Plus they'd extend Trump tax-cuts-for-the-rich to "pay for it," though those tax cuts have of course dramatically reduced revenue. Welcome to episode 983 of my podcast, "You Can't Work With Republicans."
Alexis Goldstein at Markets Weekly says big corporations are "crying wolf" on President Biden's proposed corporate tax hikes, and not just because his proposed 28% rate would still be a lot lower than it's been for most of the last 70 years, and not just because almost none of the promised boons of the 2017 corporate tax cut have ever materialized. Basically, no one's leaving America because of higher tax rates -- they say they're gonna do it, and then they either don't do it (likely because they were lying in the first place!) or they do it and they regret it. The action ain't in Luxembourg, after all.
When I hear that Joe Biden, in his first 100 days, has tried to avoid many of the mistakes of Barack Obama's first 100 days, I can only say and Mr. Biden's got more lessons to learn. I am reminded, though, of how the Obama Administration designed the Making Work Pay tax cut not to be noticed, and though I understand the principle -- people will more readily spend the money they don't notice they've got in the first place -- I hope it hasn't been lost on Mr. Biden that you'd get to do more good works if you just cut taxes and then walk around wearing a baseball cap that says I CUT YOUR TAXES.
Uh oh, maybe U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson really did say he'd rather have "bodies pile high in their thousands" than order a third lockdown back before he ordered a third lockdown, and Brits ain't proud of their cynicism like so many Americans are, so now would be a good time to remind everyone not just that political fortunes can change in a New York minute, but that the main (only?) reason Conservatives triumphed in 2019 was that they took a position on Brexit and Labour didn't. Labour appears to have learned the wrong lesson from that -- i.e., that JEREMYZ CORBYNZ IZ TEH LIBRULZ!!!!! -- but what else is new?
Don't be tempted to be impressed with Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI) just because he'll say flat-out that the 2020 election wasn't stolen, because he also insists that Republicans don't engage in vote-suppression either, and I sure hope there aren't that many voters left who are fooled by the mere presence of a symmetrical argument. Frankly, deregistering voters of color because they don't respond to a junk mail-looking postcard demanding they respond if they haven't moved is real -- and waaaaaaaaaah my candidate lost so it must be stolen isn't.
Finallyformer Republican Senator/Presidential candidate Rick Santorum makes the abjectly absurd claim that there was "nothing" in America before the Europeans arrived -- and then, in a weak effort to "prove" his claim, says Native Americans contributed nothing to American culture! M. Scott Momaday, Louise Erdrich, James Welch, and Leslie Marmon Silko would disagree -- to the degree we're willing to argue with Rick Santorum on his terms, of course. Rick Santorum used to be the gold standard of extreme right-wingers in America, but now he has to disappear an entire genocide from history just to keep up with the whippersnappers. If I were more (or less) spiritually advanced, I guess I'd find that amusing.
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