NY Times Editorial - "Republicans and the Middle Class"

[TomCADem]

It is rare to see the corporate media actually call out the Republicans for their efforts to filibuster tax cuts to those making less than $250,000 in order to protect their millionaire friends.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/opinion/14tue1.html?hpw

It was hard to know how serious a gesture of compromise Representative John Boehner, the House minority leader, was making on Sunday when he suggested that he would vote for a tax cut for the middle class even if it was not extended to the rich — and the subsequent reaction of some of his fellow Republicans made us even more uncertain.

But it was refreshing to hear a Republican leader say that he could conceivably vote for any bill supported by President Obama. Perhaps the man the Republicans hope will be speaker of the House felt some pressure from Mr. Obama’s recent efforts to remind Americans that the Republicans were proposing to sacrifice the middle-class Americans, yet again, in the name of failed trickle-down economics.

For months, Republican leaders have been uniform in their insistence that they would allow everyone’s taxes to rise if the rich did not get to keep their Bush-era tax breaks. Mr. Obama has proposed continuing the tax cut for the 98 percent of taxpaying families earning less than $250,000 while allowing the tax rates for the top 2 percent to return to their levels prior to the Bush administration. Republicans have demanded tax cuts for all, and, so far, not a single Republican leader has lined up behind Mr. Boehner’s concession.

Even his deputy, Eric Cantor, the House Republican whip, issued a no-compromise statement on Monday demanding a “clean bill,” which means one that would make no distinction between tax cuts for the rich and for everyone else. Anything short of that, he said, is a “nonstarter.” Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, introduced a bill on Monday that would extend the tax cuts indefinitely for everyone, including the wealthiest Americans. He may well be joined by Senator Joseph Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, and a few conservative Democrats.

[mediaman007]

1. This is primary school reading. One would think that the

readers of the Times are much more savvy than this editorial believes them to be. This stuff is what one can read in Dickinson, North Dakota, Chico, California and Columbus, Georgia. In fact, it may be worse.

[old mark]

2. I don't undersand what happened to our more sophisticated media...

did the Bush years fuck us as a nation so much that we have no brains left at all? Certainly little on display in any of the MSM...


mark

[gratuitous]

3. Harry Reid got it in one

He said (paraphrase) the Republicans are saying that until the rich get what they want, the rest of the people won't get what they need. Easy to say, easy to remember, and even some of the brighter dimbulbs in the popular media might actually grasp the concept. Which means that Reid and the Democrats will have to stop saying it, and the popular media can then safely ignore it.