Rand Paul -- inconsistent, illogical and likely to cause a horrifying result

[JDPriestly]

In this video, Rand Paul defends extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich with the argument that businesses will be harmed if the cuts are ended because businesses have made their plans for the future based on the continuation of the cuts.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x525359

In the same video, Rand Paul speaks favorably of ending the tax deduction for interest on home loans.

Let me say first that Paul's statement that businesses have planned based on the expectation that the Bush tax cuts will continue is preposterous since the tax cuts were, from the very beginning set to sunset at the end of this year.

Aside from that, do you see the inconsistency?

The interest deduction for homeowners has been available for probably more than a half a century. Homeowners have relied on them all that time. Ending those tax deductions would not only create havoc in the housing market as prospective homeowners would not qualify for loans on houses at reasonable market prices, but ending those tax deductions would cause many, many, many more foreclosures. People now paying off mortgages that they can afford thanks to that long-standing tax deduction would no longer be able to pay their existing mortgages and would ultimately be foreclosed.

This is the kind of absurd thinking that the Libertarian, far-right ideologues promote. We must point out the inconsistencies and lack of logic as well as the destructive effects that their ideology would have in our society.

The people who are suggesting that we do away with the interest deduction on home mortgages must be either insane or intentionally trying to throw our economy and our voters into a tailspin.

The Bush tax cuts have existed since maybe 2003. They always had a sunset provision. They should be ended for the wealthiest among us.

The homeowner's interest deduction must stay if we are to have a healthy economy.

[gratuitous]

1. Money is honey, my little sonny

And a rich man's joke is always funny.

In Kentucky, they elect them to the Senate.

Anything likely to cause distress to the wealthy, no matter how remote the possibility or how inconsistent the argument, is anathema to Paul-style libertarians. The wealthy, after all, are the supermen of the system, winners who should be coddled and praised, lest they deprive us of their presence and withdraw in the face of blatant unfairness, like having to pay their fair share to maintain the system that has so enriched them. Even an eight year notification of the possibility of a raise in the tax rate is too sudden for these Masters of the Game.

The rest of you losers? Tough beans if you signed up for a 30 year mortgage, depending on the interest deduction each year to make your plan pencil out. You should have known or foreseen that the deduction could be taken away without warning at any time should it be required by the wealthy to avoid the odious possibility of the wealthy paying more to support the system. There are plenty of cardboard boxes to live in! A far better outcome, in Paul's eyes, to the catastrophe that would surely overtake us all if the wealthy had to pay an addition three cents on the dollar in taxes for "earnings" over a quarter million. Why, that's practically communism!

[BeFree]

2. yeah

Leave the rich a loan.

They have made our society what it is. And if you are the dog that gets eaten, well, too bad.