Move On Dot Org: Flaming Hypocrisy or Selective Amnesia?

Got an email from Moooove On dot org this AM. And "Flaming Hypocrisy or Selective Amnesia" (or both) came to mind. Actually, there was an "L" word in there too, but in the Spirit of the Season, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt!

Dear MoveOn member,

Yesterday the tea party-led House voted mostly along party lines to increase taxes on 160 million people starting January 1.1 In other words, "Happy Holidays from the Tea Party." Bah, humbug!

Republican members of the House have caused the "Tea Party Tax Increase" of 2012 by ignoring the needs of the 99% in order to score political points. They rejected a bipartisan Senate compromise that extended the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance, and prevented cuts for doctors who care for Medicare recipients.

Now they've left Washington for their holiday vacations, giving middle class families a tax increase for the holidays. It's critical that Rep. LaTourette hear from you today before his office closes for the holidays. If he doesn't act, the Tea Party Tax Increase of 2012 goes into effect on January 1.

But, let's jump into the Way Back machine and go all the way back...twelve whole months ago and try very hard to remember if there was a similar amount of faux outrage directed towards...Barack Obama.

Barack Obama, if you recall, was leading the charge to let the Bush tax cuts expire, so that he could raise taxes on the rich, but incidentally, on everyone else as well. The fig leaf he tried to use for cover was, "Oh, he's not raising taxes, he's merely letting the 'tax gift to the wealthy' expire!" Yeah. Right!

So, let's examine the principle that Move On is using (stop laughing!):

Obama letting a tax cut expire is not raising taxes, but Republicans letting a tax cut* expire is raising taxes. Got it! No hypocrisy there! But if this is the Tea Party Tax Increase, then what did you write about the Barack Obama Tax Increase of 2011? *crickets chirp*

I put an asterisk next to the "tax cut" today, because there is some debate that goes all the way back to FDR on whether or not this is really a tax. For big government types like FDR and BHO, it's a tax when it's in their best interest to be a tax and not a tax when rhetorically it doesn't fit the populist BS they feed their constituents.

If the payroll "tax" is the means for funding one's Social Security account, then taking money away from an already underfunded system doesn't sound like a long term solution to insure your retirement funds will be there. But, let's give them the benefit of the doubt again, and say that SS is so screwed up, a few million here or there won't be missed and we really need to stimulate the economy. (Again, funny how Obama gave lip service to this, yet tried to raise taxes let tax relief expire last year anyways!)

Okay, the economy is in bad shape, and letting people keep a little more of their money earmarked for retirement is a good thing, (unless you're talking about letting them keep a little more of their money earmarked for retirement and directing that investment themselves. Then it's the End of Civilization as We Know It!), then why, if Obama is asking for a two month extension does it mean the Republicans are intransigent if they offer him a deal for six times as much? If two is good, wouldn't twelve be better? It certainly would be for those having to track these changes and rewrite software to make the proper deductions for a brief two month period**, not to mention all those middle class families Mooove On was lamenting over.

We have noted in the past the schizophrenic tendencies of Barack Obama. And we know he is also famous for berating Congress to pass an imaginary jobs bill that hadn't been written yet, because "there's no time to waste" in putting Americans back to work!

On the Canadian pipeline project, that would immediately create 20,000 jobs, with more to come over the years, Obama didn't want to sign, saying the jobs would be there in a few years. Really? What happened to "we can't wait"? And the very real possibility that the Canadians might build the pipeline in another direction and sell that oil to someone else means that the jobs deferred would be more jobs lost under this president.

So, if the House Republicans coupled the win/win of new jobs, less dependence on Middle Eastern oil, with tax relief six times greater than the president asked, why are they the bad guys in this scenario? And if Obama will only accept bills that are submitted to him with his own very narrow minded views of what is acceptable, no more no less, why is it the Republicans who refuse to compromise?

Last time I looked, compromise went both ways. Or is Mooove On's agreement with the president not hypocrisy at all, but rather a folie à deux - a delusion shared by two?

**People have been telling BO for three years that one of the biggest things crippling the economy is the uncertainty of what a business's cost might be for the next twelve months, much less a time frame that would accurately allow them to project profit and loss for say five years. Having to waste resources preparing for a change in payroll taxes that might hit them in sixty days or might be renewed again indefinitely only adds to that uncertainty.

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.