White House: Most Americans Support Extending Tax Cuts For The Rich

[somone]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/08/white-house-privately-pus_n_793732.html

White House Privately Pushing Data Showing Bush Tax Cut Extension Politically Popular
Sam Stein

WASHINGTON -- Hoping to build support for the tax-cut deal that the president reached with Congressional Republicans, the White House has begun pressing Hill Democrats with polling data showing that extending the tax rates for the rich is politically popular.

A Senate aide sent over a copy of the email that an administration aide sent to offices on Wednesday morning. In it, the aide touts Gallup polling data showing that "Two-thirds of Americans (66%) favor extending the 2001/2003 tax cuts for all Americans for two years, and an identical number support extending unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed."

That an administration would promote polling data backing its policy preferences is normally not an astounding revelation. But the private push of the Gallup study struck the Senate aide as depressing if not counter-productive. Even as the president was insisting that he thought an extension of rates for the wealthy is poor economics -- "I'm as opposed to the high-end tax cuts today as I've been for years," Obama said on Tuesday -- his aides were privately embracing the idea that extending the Bush tax cuts across the board was politically prudent. "We are making the argument for them," said the Senate aide, who sent over the email on condition that it could not be reprinted. "The White House now wants us to defend extending the Bush tax cuts."

The White House wasn't the only party apparatus trying to disseminate the Gallup poll findings. On Wednesday morning, Don Stewart, the spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), also sent around the findings, pointing out that a "slight majority of Democrats, as well as most independents and Republicans, would vote for a two-year extension of the tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003."...

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"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

[SpiralHawk]

1. Bullshit

I invite the White House Villagers to visit my hood.

Total bullshit.

[Hannah Bell]

20. i'll second that. massaging the facts.

[xiamiam]

30. my immediate reaction as well..+10..nt

[Jim__]

2. Obama and McConnell on the same page.

Too bad it's McConnell's page.

[MineralMan]

3. Your title is sort of misleading, you know.

The poll that is quoted in the article says that 66% were in favor of extending tax cuts for all Americans. The title at the link is far more accurate.

[Riley133]

4. Obama campaigned and won on this issue

How could he have campaigned on this issue and had crowds go crazy if the majority of Americans didn't want it?

[lumberjack_jeff]

5. Stupid as well as wrong.

Tax cuts for those over $250,000 are only supported by 46% of REPUBLICANS.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20024494-503544.html

[NYCGirl]

6. Had you read the article instead of the misleading title by the

OP, you'd see the 66% refers to the entire tax cut package, which includes middle-class.

[gratuitous]

7. Which side are you on, boys? Which side are you on?

You can be a mensch, or a thug for the Koch brothers. This is one of those instances where it really is black and white. Lying in service of the darkness makes the cowardly choice that much worse.

[Supersedeas]

8. how long before we hear a full throttled trumpeting of the inherent benefits of

tax cuts for the wealthy -- not as a mean point of compromise -- but because tax cuts for the wealthy are something that is good for the nation in and by themselves.

[HereSince1628]

11. Do you mean hear it from Obama rather than the r's?

Cuz, the r's have been claiming tax cuts as the solution to every national issue for 30 years.

[enlightenment]

16. Plenty of that here already -

lots of folk on DU are embracing Reaganesque 'trickle down' economics wrapped up in blue paper with a shiny bow.

[DirkGently]

18. The WH is already trying to float the notion that the whole package is a Stealth Stimulus Package,

implying that even the $700 billion tax gift to rich will somehow boost the economy. It's sounding more like Trickle Down Revisited every day.

[Supersedeas]

19. his supporter on Schultz seemed to suggest that'd be a reason to support it

when it comes up for renewal in 2 years.

Good for the country during Bush, Good Now, Good in 2 years

[DirkGently]

22. Yeehaw?

[Supersedeas]

23. keep rustling those strays into the Trickledown Coral--see how easy they move

[Autumn]

9. Sure, Smells like

bullshit. If those are the numbers they get out of it, no wonder we are fucked. They don't know math.

[RandomThoughts]

10. You can only say that if the people are making the decision on good information.

That is why democracy requiers accurate information, and how democracy is destroyed by information systems of deception.

The people are not for tax cuts for the top 2%.

They have been convinced government is bad, by those that want to remove government, that put their people in government to make it look bad.


LOL

Do you see people are being pointed at government as the problem, to remove government so the problem controlling government can try to gain control by destroying government.


Bad thing, puts on face of government.

Does bad things.

Gets people to attack the cardboard cut out it used, government

To help it do even more bad.


That is why you don't back down to them.

On a side note, there are some that say my arguments can be used by both sides, if that is true, then you have to go another level into the thought process. Since if both sides use the same argument you are not looking at the real argument but a surface layer.

Just like in the post on concepts of people saying taxation is taking someones money, then saying that any taxation can be said bad, without looking at the purpose of government and the flaws of distribution systems.



I do understand there is an argument that democracy can not work, because people are easily deceived. My point is that you give power to the deceivers if you agree with that. If you want a world of deception, you wont end up where you are said you will be anyways.

And for the coup de grâce

For those that take my comments made for best intents, and use them for bad, that will let them destroy themselves by their use for wrong reasons. That is my protection and being kept from sin, if it is needed for some to be destroyed by the choice of their own hand. I can post best thoughts, someone can steal it and use it for bad, it still does only good for me, and harm for them, and protects me from what they would use it for without heart, their own destruction. Although I hope that is not what is happening when seeing the distortions used by some.

Of coarse they think I am the bad, and them the good, or they don't care. I figure everyone has some good and some bad.

There are some really good people out there though.

Enter Sandman.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2jfV1DzcuQ


And I am still due beer and travel money and many experiences :D

[TwilightGardener]

12. I think he wants this compromise to go through--because Pres. Obama knows

that in a few weeks, there will be no more good options...for the rest of his Presidency.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. Yep. With the aid of his Republican friends Obama scores another glorious victory..or something.

[still_one]

14. A Bloomberg poll reported just the opposite. hmmmm, someone has a disconnect

[MadHound]

15. So that is what he has been reduced to, spin worthy of the Bushboy.

Sad, really sad.

[Rowdyboy]

17. Its almost like George Bush won his third term after all....its damn well not the "change" ....

I voted for.

[peekaloo]

25. more like "cha-ching"

:-(

[City Lights]

21. Whatever...I'm used to being in the minority.

I don't care if everyone but me favors them. I'll gladly stand alone in my opposition to giving the uber wealthy a tax cut.

[Starry Messenger]

24. Who did they poll--the White House Xmas cocktail party guests?

This is pathetic.

[myrna minx]

26. We have to catapult the propaganda, I guess.This is unbelievable.

Oh, and polls all stated that the American people wanted the public option and to reverse DADT. If only he fought for those things as fiercely as he is for the tax give away for the wealthy, we'd have something.

[reflection]

27. All this does is make me feel better

for opposing the extension. I don't trust the average person to understand large-scale economics. And I don't think the WH should use polls as cover for bad policy. That is not leadership.

[EndElectoral]

28. Show some damn leadership Obama. Jesus when Limbaugh praises your actions somethings wrong.

[EnviroBat]

29. A recent poll shows that most Americans like bananas.

Polling data indicates that as many as 2/3 of Americans (66%) like bananas. See there? I just made that up! And now, I can push that "polling data" as a cold hard fact, send it to the talking heads in the media, and before the end of the day we'll be stuffing bananas up our collective asses like monkeys on a whiskey bender.

We are fucked on all sides by the tyranny of a government out of control with the desire to protect the wealthy and piss on the rest of us.

It's time to act.

[MadHound]

31. Obama is displaying a Bush-like ability to massage the data

He chooses a binary poll, in favor of all the tax cuts or none of them. How intellectually dishonest is that. I expect this from the 'Pugs, but not from a Democrat. Looks like that dime's worth of difference is down to a couple of cents, or less.

[EndElectoral]

32. Most Americans support lowering debt, but giving massive tax breaks to the rich is not the way