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Pictured: Mitch Daniels is proud of his work with the Bush administration, and thinks you should be, too.
To the Village, Mitch Daniels (R-IN) is a Very Serious “Grown-Up” Republican — but he sure sounded like a WATB on NPR this morning.
INSKEEP: Some Democrats, in fact, many people may ask if you bear some responsibility for the scale of the deficits. You’re laughing — you know what the question is. Let me just lay it out. You were part of the Bush administration — the budget director — when the Bush tax cuts were passed. And there were not corresponding spending cuts. The deficit got larger. In fact it was a surplus.
DANIELS: Yeah, I think it’s about the lamest of all. There’s a whole lot of reasons, you know, folks…
INSKEEP: It’s not the only reason, but it’s…
DANIELS: No, no, no. I say, I think this is a very lame criticism. So there was a surplus for a short time. Which budget director under President Clinton should get 100% of the credit for that? The fact is, nobody even knows who they were. Right?
INSKEEP: (laughing)
DANIELS: It was the President, and a Republican Congress and the Reagan peace dividend, and a bubble economy, we later learned, that produced that surplus…
INSKEEP: The Clinton administration, Clinton tax increases, budget cuts of the Republican congress…
DANIELS: Put in any answer you want.
I love how Daniels credits Ronald Reagan with the Clinton surplus.
But look, the Bush administration’s economic record is one of the worst in history, certainly the worst in modern history, and Daniels played a key role in it. I mean, this is a guy who predicted that the Iraq War would cost $60B. Why should he be taken seriously about anything, ever again?
INSKEEP: Uh, is the [deficit] problem grave enough that those [Bush] tax cuts should be allowed to expire? They’ve now been extended through 2012.
DANIELS: I think it’d be a catastrophic mistake. You know, we will never get out. Even if I were – if my hopes were realized about aggressive action on the entitlement programs and on the rest of the government spending, we will never get out of the corner we’re in without a long period of really strong economic growth. This is something again that people from left to right should agree on. I say sometimes to my Big Government friends that nobody has a bigger stake than you do in getting business roaring, because otherwise you’ll never have close to the money you want to do the things you want to do. Um, so no, I think raising taxes right now in a very fragile economy, still, would be a real mistake.
It’s been ten years now, so I think we can safely conclude the Bush tax cuts have been a gigantic freaking failure at producing “really strong economic growth.”
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That’s a no shitter. These assholes wanna stand there and tell me the sun is givin’ ‘em a tan at midnight and expect me to believe it.
smarmy piece of excrement
Yeah, kinda circular isn’t it?
We need to keep those tax cuts that are supposed make our economy strong because our economy is fragile.
???
They’ve got their talking points and they’re sticking to ‘em. Part of the reality-creation process, and you have to admit, it’s worked pretty well for them.
I hope Steve Inskeep had a nice little chuckle-fest with this clown rather then, you know, do his job and get a real answer.
Many Conservatives say that WW2 spending and not FDR’s job programs are what got America out of the Great Depression Mitch Daniels has proven that huge government spending on war does not have to stimulate the economy.
Exactly How Mitch and Bush managed to spend all that money and not create jobs in America deserves much more study.
Yeah, it was a pretty disappointing effort by Inskeep. I’m sure Daniels enjoyed the stress relief of the foot massage he got, though.
Sure it does. It stimulates the economy but only for the people the GOP cares about which isn’t you or I.
Come on, pups, give the guy a break. Look how the economy took off after clinton ruined it with those high taxes. The job creation record under bush’s tax cuts is unparalleled in modern history. steve inskeep is a superb interrogator and his questioning of daniels shows exactly why the repugs want to cut npr’s budget.
Are you sure it was a foot massage?
Ewwww.
My bold funny we had the Bush tax cuts for 8 years where was the long period of economic growth? FDR created a long period of economic growth with higher taxes. Please show me a similar period of low tax growth that did not end in a bubble?
Shorter Mitch Daniels: “Pay no attention to that part of my work career that I’ve used as a justification for my supposed skills as a manager and a politician”
These guys will continue to smile and chortle as the ship goes down. Because they’ve taken all the life preservers.
I’m with SD. Sounds like Inskeep was massaging a little higher up to me.
And he’s the governor of MY state. UGH.
A bubble economy that had to be bailed out by you and me it wasn’t like they created any real wealth they created a to big to fail economic blackmail system.
LOL! Ewww is right!
That’s Inskeep’s specialty (fawning interviews, not “massages”).
I knew what you were saying. :)
Daniels has a knee problem? (When you play squash with other MOTUs all day, those knees can get iffy)
He really is a punk, no? Such clueless bullshit with no remorse. Completely unaware of the harm his actions cause.
What they don’t realize is that the flotation material has passed its shelf life and will now act more like a rock when subjected to water.
Wait…I’m channeling Teddy Partridge…he says “Mitch Daniels should be in prison.”
Money, when banded and saturated, sinks :(
Especially if it’s all gold bullion! /GlennBeckistan.
I don’t know if that’s true. I mean can anybody be that stupid and unaware and still be considered sentient? I think like most
conservativessociopaths, he just doesn’t care and the media would never dare to contradict his statement. That wouldn’t be fair and balanced.I think we can afford to generalize that statement. Teddy wouldn’t mind.
Welcome to the GOP.
We can haz a peace dividend?
How can people even say this shit anymore? How do they keep a straight face? Or are they just that f-n stoooopit?
Well, yeah, we can pretty much take it as given that any Bush crony is probably guilty of something both criminal and evil.
Back to work.
Namaste
We need tax cuts to afford big government seems to be Mitch’s closing idea. We need higher taxes on the rich, tariffs and government regulation to get the economy going.
An FDR 90% tax on the rich wouldforce the rich to work hard to put their money in only the most productive investments. No more sitting there drinking cocktails dreaming on ponzai schemes because the economy is going to be Regulated no more Ponzai schemes and bankers will go to jail like they were crack dealers.
Bank/business corruption costs the American economy how much?
Tariffs if we had Tariffs GM and Ford under orders from the government of course could make small cars that get good milage. I’d rather pay more for an American car than pay less for a foreign car then worry about homeless workers stealing my car.
Perhaps you have a point. I beleive Daniels ilk willfully ignore the real harm they cause because their ideology is “trickle down works.” To admit that it does not would be to open the door to the horror and they are incapable of self examination. (the real mark of the sociopath)
Sorry I over react to much sometimes Troll Fever its nice to have a reasoned debate here.
I think they have completely given up on the ideology. This is just pure selfishness. The Right see the light at the end of the tunnel, and they are going for broke now because they understand that they won’t win in 2012, given their congenital shortsightedness 2016 is too far away.
Dry-humpin Ronnie’s corpes is the dead giveaway of a True Beleiver.
No kidding! “Peace dividend”?! What the fuck is this guy talking about?
I think they actually distribute Ronnie blow-up dolls. When used, they say things like “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” and “I can’t remember where I left my fucking shoes…”.
It’s boring on a great site like this that so many who recognize the folly of Republican talking points actually believe the Democrats offered solutions. Obama’s first two years, when he controlled the House and veto proof Senate did NOTHING to reverse 30 years of attacks on the middle class, absolutely nothing. Fact is, Obama did just as Clinton & Bush, he piled on! Shame on Obama, shame on Democrats who try to argue Washingtonian Dems are any better than Repubs.
The true proficiency of these people is their ability to lie, cheat and steal everything that isn’t nailed down. If there’s any plan, this is it. They have no frakin’ interest or idea as to how to govern let alone run (hello– it’s an applied science called “operations management” [see paragraph 3]) a country, state, county or city. The debacle in Wisconsin is showing this in a big way.
OT. Sorry to interrupt but I have had to log in 3 times this morning. Anyone else having this problem?
NPR’s Inskeep and Liasson are big ol’ Conservative Republican
ReportersBootlickers. They tear into Democrat guests and polish the knobs of Republicans every time.Surely they have a Republican escape hatch – a Golden parachute to a Think Tank or Foundation. They and Robert Segal and Scott Simon and all the rest have been a wrecking crew at NPR.
@Twain, no issues on PC, but issues on my smart phone.
Another OT – Anonymous OpGlennBeck. Makes me sooo happy.
Reagan peace dividend?
The USSR invaded Afghanistan at Christmas in 1979. Real oil prices per barrel collapsed. The USSR was an exporter of oil. Its oil rents collapsed. The USSR finally left Afghanistan in 1989. Then the USSR collapsed.
Table of real oil prices per barrel, 1946-2009:
http://www.inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/historical_oil_prices_table.asp
David Dayen has a fresh cross-post up: AFSCME Files Unfair Labor Practice Against Walker in Wisconsin
Tiny correction: They win either way.
For the record, a ‘veto-proof Senate’ has 67 members, though why ‘veto-proof’ should even matter when the Senate and the president are the same party, I don’t understand. I think you meant a ‘super-majority Senate’ of 60 members, which included for a long time such suspect ‘Democrats’ as Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, and Joe Lieberman.
Not that I’m excusing Obama’s lack of progress.
Here’s some more injury to insult.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/obama-adds-citigroups-dick-parsons-jeff-immelts-jobs-panel
I’m driving down the 101 listening to this clown show on my PUBLIC radio station, screaming at the two idiots–one supposedly an interviewer, the other crediting Reagan for Clinton’s surplus while at the same time negating the surplus, and blaming Obama for Bush’s deficit, slamming my hands on the wheel…I’m going to have to switch to chamomile tea in the morning if I’m going to keep listening to Morning Edition, I guess.
Whats even more bizarre is they dont want to pay taxes but they want to use the “commons”. Of course since many of them have theirs already they simply dont care about anybody else. SO what they really are saying is THEy dont want to pay taxes.
Personally my issue though with taxes is that i dont want mine going to eh absurd level of corruption that goes on in this country. A couple of years ago someone brought up the idea of being able to select where youre taxes go. Which would be great frankly.
Same old convervative playbook: Keep repeating it in enough places and eventually people will believe it.
That NPR – and everybody else – gives these nutjobs the platform to do so is the real crime here.
Yeah, that “knowing-in-advance” laugh that Innskeep has perfected and constantly drops in absolutely grates on me – the same way the inclusion of the “Dean Scream” in the canned intro to the “political junkie” segment on TOTN does.
Like Teddy Partridge says:
Nice
Polite
Republicans
FDL gets my $$ now. Not those morons.
Thanks for refuting this other rightwing talking point – that it wasn’t FDR’s New Deal programs that got this nation out of the Great Depression, rather it was solely and only WWII. Well, ok, IF that’s so effen “true,” then riddle me why this nation is in such a giant sucking *hole* with two frickin’ wars ongoing with the PTB champing at the bit to get into ever more skirmishes.
That particular rightwingnut talking point really burns me, and I hear conservatives mindlessly mouthing it far too often.
That would be: YES. And yes, they also want to use the commons to their heart’s content, but not share the wealth with anyone else. This is a little factoid that escapes a lot of the “small people” conservatives, however. For whatever reason, many “small people” conservatives send endlessly & enthusiastically willing to give it all away to the elites.
Didn’t Dems only have 60 during the tenure of Paul Kirk, from 9/24/09 until 2/4/10? Franken wasn’t seated until July of 2009. By that time, I believe Kennedy was no longer attending. Scott Brown replaced Kirk. 60% of 99 is 60. Dems only could override a filibuster without Repubs from 9/24 until 2/4. Correct?
why is it so hard for someone questioning a republican to point out most of the deficit thru spending is when republicans were/are in control?
question. governor daniels: how is that under republican presidents we acquired 2/3rds of our deficit?
mcdaniels: thats because of a democratic tax and spend congress.
reply: pleeeze sir, clinton had 6 years of a republican congress and bush had 6 years of a republican congress. apples to apples. whats “catastrophic” is the difference between the two presidents, something you were a part of. and you say your leadership had nothing to do with any of it?
mcdaniels: (no matter what he says)
reply: under bush with tax cuts we gained 1 million jobs, under clinton without tax cuts we gained 22 million jobs. how again is it we need tax cuts to stimulate the economy?
Stop making sense! You are employing logic and facts, which is not permitted in rightwing elitist fantasyland… /s
Thank you for your continued support of FDL.
It matters. A lot.
And, for the record, “Nice Polite Republicans” is, I think, something I picked up from Phoenix Woman.
Yes, that’s correct and also presumes the caucus would vote together to override the filibuster of everything and anything. It was a brief time, that 60-vote Senate, but much was neglected during that time: Employee Free Choice Act, the confirmation of Executive Branch and Article Three appointments, particularly Dawn Johnsen.
This just in, for those interested:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/02/28/world-libya.html
It follows for me, if the top 10% have 90% of the wealth, they should pay 90% of the taxes.
Anyone have number on both side, wealth & taxes?
By wealth I mean % of annual GDP, not assets (That comes next with estate taxes).
This guy is the typical rich loser who doesn’t know what a loser he is because he’s never had to do anything right. No matter how bad he messes up he is covered and doesn’t even know what real consequences are. He, like W, is rendered virtually socially “retarded” due to their super bubble coddled lives.
Their wealth and nice clothes are all the proof they need that they are smarter than everybody else, by far, as well. We MUST change our government so merit and control is not in the hands of the richest as opposed to the smartest people.
What the right wing doesn’t acknowledge is that WW11 was a massive government job program. Instead of handing out 15 million shovels, 15 million rifles were handed out and nearly every factory in America went to 3 shifts of producing war material and all of this paid for by taxpayers, not corporations that the Repubs would have us believe.WWII was not a private enterprise event, though corporations did profit.
Back in 2004 the NPR executives, fearing that the Bush juggernaut was placing them next on the list for “regime change”, fired the excellent host of Morning Edition, Bob Edwards and replaced him with Mr. Inskeep, who routinely these fawning interviews with the power brokers. With Bush gone why do we still have to listen to Mr. Inskeep?