Cutting Edge: New ideas / Sharp opinions
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Steve Benen in Washington Monthly on Republicans' hesitation to extend reduced payroll taxes into next year: "Republicans love tax cuts, but their affection is limited to cuts for the very wealthy. An extension of the payroll break largely benefits the middle class and that immediately gives the GOP pause.
"Indeed, the very debate has tied Republicans in knots. They want to cut taxes, except for these taxes. They don't believe tax cuts should be paid for, except these tax cuts must be paid for. They believe tax breaks always work to benefit the economy, except these tax breaks don't do much of anything, no matter what economists say. They believe letting tax cuts expire counts as a tax increase, except these tax cuts, which don't."
Chris Briem at Null Space : "Via the AP and the New Jersey Star Ledger is the story of the day. It says that more and more residents of New Jersey are fleeing ... to Pennsylvania?" [The Star-Ledger story cites "tax savings, quality-of-life choices and new commuting patterns ... as the driving forces behind the influx."]
"I thought we were a tax hell or something like that? Everyone should be fleeing Pennsylvania I thought. I know I read that somewhere???"
Diana Furchtgott-Roth at RealClearMarkets : "As Congress looks for ways to cut its $1.3 trillion deficit, the federal government is paying its employees $137 million a year not to work for Uncle Sam. Not working. That's right. The Office of Personnel Management reports that taxpayers paid federal workers over $137 million in 2010 to work as representatives for government unions. ... The time that union representatives spend not working for taxpayers is labeled 'official time' by OPM. ... Rather than 'official time,' it should be labeled 'taxpayer time,' because taxpayers are footing the bill."
Jill Filipovic at Feministe cites a recent study and writes: "It turns out that teenagers are not even sexting that much. Ugh, teenagers. Don't you know that adults' lives are so horrifyingly boring that we have to occupy ourselves by harping on you young, adventurous things doing stupid crap like sending each other nudie pics with your fancy portable telephones? I just retired my flip-phone a week ago, and I need to believe that someone uses their iPhone for a more exciting purpose than playing 16 games of Scrabble at once."
Sarah Seltzer at AlterNet : "Things must be looking grim for candidate Rick Perry if he's assuring voters with a new ad swearing he'll 'end Obama's war on religion.' What war, you ask? Why, the war that's exemplified, in Perry's words, by the fact that 'gays can serve openly in the military, while our kids can't celebrate Christmas openly.'
"Really, Rick? Really? This Jewish blogger who has already been listening to Christmas carols for three weeks straight on every radio station and seeing Christmas wreaths go up on every corner in 'godless' New York City says tell that to the millions of kids who are waiting, openly and proudly, to open their presents under the tree on the 25th. I'm sure they'll be surprised to hear of the Obama-led jihad on their joy."
Steven Malanga in the Wall Street Journal : "During the debate this fall over President Obama's American Jobs Act, the White House released a study suggesting some 280,000 teacher jobs were at risk as part of a vast downsizing of local governments across America. When Republicans refused to support the bill ... the president declared that those who voted against the bill would have to tell voters 'why teachers in your community don't deserve a paycheck again.' Vice President Joe Biden went further, suggesting that the failure to send more aid to localities would prompt sharp cutbacks in another area -- policing -- and lead to a rapid rise in violent crime. ... This hyperbolic rhetoric ignores a decades-long growth of public employment that has left many municipal governments with nearly historic high levels of government workers relative to the population."
First Published December 11, 2011 12:00 am
