Fallacies of Logic on Fox News: The Propaganda Channel
Fox News = The Propaganda Channel
http://finance.yahoo.com/video/economy-18773128/blackburn-stimulus-did-not-work-20690195
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http://www.wstreet.com/about/about.asp
Charles Payne’s biography:
“Charles V. Payne is the Founder, CEO and Chief Analyst of Wall Street Strategies. His stock selections reap sizable profits for his subscribers and viewers. He is a regular guest [and now anchorman] on Fox Business Network, and several well-respected finance-oriented radio and television programs. Charles is widely recognized in the media as a leader in the analyst community and recently authored his first book ‘Be Smart, Act Fast, Get Rich.’ He is routinely sought after for his market opinions by prestigious organizations, and is featured and available for seminars and speeches. For more information, please contact us.”
Transcription of Charles Payne’s interview of Republican Congressman Marsha Blackburn on July 4, 2010:
Fox News’ Charles Payne: “The unemployment rate is still close to 10%. Republican Congressman Marsha Blackburn says today’s job report is proof that the Stimulus was just a waste of taxpayers’ dough. Well, I got to tell you, Congressman, you’ve said this before and it seems more and more people are agreeing with you every single day. Now, do you point to jobs, or lack of jobs, being the biggest piece of evidence that this whole plan didn’t work?”
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* This whole interview is designed to talk about cutting taxes (and not about creating jobs). That’s called a “bait and switch” or a “non-sequitur” argument – it does not logically follow from the discussion premise. The premise that Mr. Payne highlights is job creation, but that’s not where the discussion ends up. It ends up with Tax Cuts.
Tax Cuts for whom? The superwealthy, of course. Because President Obama already gave the Middle Class the biggest tax cut in U.S. history.
Remember the George W. Bush price tag to U.S. Taxpayers = $2.7 Trillion
-$1 Trillion for false war in Iraq (there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction).
-$1 Trillion for Bush Tax Cuts, which mainly benefited the superwealthy (the Bush Tax Cuts are set to expire at the end of 2010).
-$700 billion bailout of the Wall Street banks by George W. Bush and his Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, who was also the former CEO of Goldman Sachs from 1998 to 2006. That means in 2004, 2005 and 2006 Paulson was creating the problem of Subprime-Mortgage-backed securities that would take down the world economy and cause The Great Recession. Paulson was in charge of doling out the $700 billion bailout of taxpayers’ money to be given to his banker buddies. Can you say “Conflict of Interest”?
That’s the George W. Bush/ Republican legacy. Now let’s hear Republican Congressman Marsha Blackburn twist and contort, demagogue and deceive the American people by misconstruing the fundamentals of emergency spending during the greatest economic meltdown since the Great Depression. Yes, President Obama and the Democrats are cleaning up the multiple messes left behind by the Republicans: the stock market lost half its value from a high of 14,000 in 2007, 401ks also lost approximately half their value, home values lost 30% or more, credit markets were frozen, and real unemployment (when factoring people who have stopped looking for jobs or can only find part-time work) has always been over 10% since George W. Bush left office. I repeat, real unemployment has been over 10% since George W. Bush left office. That’s the Fande (fact & evidence).
SOURCE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/opinion/07sat1.html
EXCERPT:
“The underemployment rate, which includes part-time workers who need full-time jobs and jobless workers who have given up looking because their prospects are so dim, plunged deeper into double-digit territory in January, reaching 13.9 percent — or 21.7 million workers — up from 13.5 percent in December.”
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Now, here’s some Cande (conjecture & exaggeration)…also known as lying when employed by Republican Congressman Marsha Blackburn.
Republican Congressman Marsha Blackburn: “Well, I think what you’re saying is that this stagnation in the economy, and this stagnation in the job markets…and as you all were just talking about, Charles, people are not moving out of jobs and starting new businesses because those new businesses can not get access to capital [False argument trying to blame Obama: Lack of lending = Wall Street banks, which got $700 billion of taxpayers’ money. So, why are the Wall Street banks not lending?] that they need. There’s also uncertainty about what taxes are going to be. [Create a “straw man” argument to beat to death. Who are “they”? We don’ t know because Republican Congressman Blackburn doesn’t tell us. “They” could be completely made up, fictitious, not real.] They’re afraid to do any hiring because they don’t know the cost of health care, what cap & trade is going to do to them, and they’re looking at this increased regulation – reams and reams of new regulation that are coming at them. [Say, why would we need new regulation? Because the Wall Street crooks proved that they have to be regulated – unlike with the Bush S.E.C., which allowed “self-regulation,” meaning “no regulation,” by the Wall Street banks. That kind of ass-backwards thinking left us with The Great Recession.] They know that they’re compliance cost is going to increase not decrease. So, because of all of this, coming together of so many new policies, expansion of policies, people are just sitting back and saying ‘I’m not sure that now is the time to move forward.’ It does cause a lot of fears.”
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Way to demagogue Republican Congressman Blackburn! Way to fear-monger. It’s like being back in the George W. Bush era, during the “War on Terror.” Beware the Conservatives and the Republicans, America. They just want Tax Cuts for themselves, and will try to scare your pants off to get those tax cuts for themselves, while leaving the Average American with his/her pants pulled down.
Fact: The Average American’s wages were stagnant from 1999-2009, during the George W. Bush years.
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Fox News’ Charles Payne: “You’ve named a lot of different things, but specifically with Stimulus spending, because it feels like we’re gearing up for another try at this. What specifically about that is holding back the private sector, entrepreneurs?”
Republican Congressman Marsha Blackburn: “Right, the stimulus did not work, whether it was pre-TARP, TARP, son of TARP [TARP = George W. Bush and Hank Pauslon], it did not work. And what we know is that the markets would like to see a message that government is going to cut some of this spending, that the federal government is going to get its fiscal house in order. [Bullshit! The markets understand that 70% of the U.S. economy relies on consumer spending. We need to get money in the hands of Americans so that we all keep buying and selling goods & services to keep our economy going.] And we’re not seeing that. We have the President [Obama] talking about doing another stimulus bill. [Yes! Right On! That’s what the majority of economists want in the short-term…and then long-term, meaning a year or two from now, we cut spending or raise taxes on the superwealthy, who have been getting a free ride – Bush Tax Cuts – on the backs of ordinary Americans, whose wages were stagnant during the last decade and who did not get major benefits from the Bush Tax Cuts. What ordinary Americans got at the end of George W. Bush’s presidency is 10% unemployment, loss of home value, loss of stock value, and no credit markets.] We have the Democratic leadership saying ‘We need another Stimulus bill.’ We even had the Speaker saying something yesterday about the quickest way to get money in the economy and to get people working was an unemployment check. You know, when you have investors or potential investors hearing that type of rhetoric, they know that those in charge of the federal checkbook do not understand what needs to happen to get this economy moving again, and they need to see jobs growth happen again. They’re stimulus bill will make matters worse. It will not improve the situation.”
Fox News’ Charles Payne: “Do you think they’re going to try a combination? Because recently the President has begun to talk about debt and deficits. Obviously he hears what’s happening on Main Street and he knows this is a big-time issue now. Do you think they can try a combination? They can’t stop spending, but perhaps we’ll spend and increase taxes somewhere.”
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Complete Demagoguery from Charles Payne taken from the pages of Dick Cheney’s and Karl Rove’s playbook: Let’s cause The Great Recession – we’ll give our rich friends a bunch of Tax Cuts (“Reagan proved deficits don’t matter,” Dick Cheney said. SOURCE: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml) . Of course, Bush, Cheney and Company also started a $1 Trillion false war in oil-rich Iraq, which used Taxpayer $$$Money$$$ to benefit mainly the politically connected military contractors, like Cheney’s old company, Halliburton. So the Conservative Republican plan is to burn up a bunch of America’s cash and leave the economy in shambles…but here’s the brilliant part of the strategy…when whichever administration that follows wants to raise taxes on the superwealthy who have been greedy as pigs during the Bush years, well then we can just claim “They want to raise taxes.” Mind you, Obama gave the biggest Middle-Class Tax Cut in history. He is raising taxes on people making over $250k per year – that’s most likely Charles Payne and Congressman Blackburn. Can you say “Self-Serving”?
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Republican Congressman Marsha Blackburn: “Well, of course they’re going to increase taxes. My goodness, this is a group that deemed a $1.1 Trillion budget. They deemed it. They didn’t even have the courage to bring it to the floor and admit what their deficit [If Blackburn were honest, she would clarify that this is mostly Bush’s deficit] was going to be. So of course, they’re going to try to spend more, run the spending up and then say ‘Oh, we need to freeze the spending’ or ‘We need to get this deficit and debt under control – we need to raise taxes. But where are those taxes going to come from? The American Taxpayer can not take another raise in taxes. [Blackburn is a Liar: raising taxes will only apply to those making $250K or more per year, which is not “The American Taxpayer.”] People are already asking me – I have constituents walk into my office every single day and say, ‘What is going to happen the first of the year?’ We are going to lose part of our Child Tax credit [set to expire at end of 2010, but the Democratic-majority Congress can vote to extend], Marriage Penalty relief [has to do with the ongoing problem of the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was not fixed during the George W. Bush years], the “Death Tax” [also known as the Estate Tax for the superwealthy] comes back, the marginal rates go up [Blackburn lies again: the tax rates go up only for those making $250K or more per year]. The list goes on and on and on. Stimulus does not work, it has not worked. We can not tax our way out of this. We can not spend our way out of this. What we need to do is roll back taxes, roll back some of this regulation and free-up the free enterprise sector to go and create jobs.”
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Can you see that Blackburn really wants her taxable rate protected? She wants to protect the superwealthy. Obama wants to raise taxes on the rich, who were getting a free ride on the backs of ordinary Americans during the Bush years. Their Tax Cuts added $1 Trillion to our deficit. We could have used that $1 Trillion for our schools, hospitals, roads and bridges. We could have used that money to build up a renewable energy infrastructure – like Solar Electricity for every school in America. But no, thanks to the Republicans’ mismanagement of our economy, the rest of us along with President Obama and the Democratic-majority Congress have to roll up our sleeves to help rebuild our country.
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Fox News’ Charles Payne: “Well Congressman Blackburn, you’re the second guest on the show that said ‘Cut Taxes.’ Maybe before the show is over somebody in Washington [D.C.] will hear about it.”
Republican Congressman Marsha Blackburn: “Let’s hope so.”
Fox News’ Charles Payne: “Happy 4th (of July).”
Republican Congressman Marsha Blackburn: “You too, Charles.”
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Here’s the Fande on President Obama’s Middle-Class Tax Cut…
EXCERPT from the New York Post on September 19, 2008:
“Obama…proposes tax cuts that he says will benefit 95 percent of Americans….[He] wants to raise taxes on those earning higher than $250,000.”
* Raise here means “to readjust” tax levels for the superwealthy back to where they were before Bush gave them tax cuts that added approximately $1 Trillion to our country’s deficit.
EXCERPT from the New York Times on March 25, 2009:
“While both the House and Senate plans protect the president’s top priorities, neither would extend a middle-class tax cut championed by Mr. Obama beyond 2010 unless a source of revenue to pay for it is identified.”
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/32537691/the_gops_dirty_war/4
EXCERPT from Rolling Stone on March 03, 2010:
“President [Barack Obama] enacted the largest middle-class tax cut in history.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/10/obama-touts-cuts-ahead-tax-day/
EXCERPTS from the Washington Times from April 10, 2010:
“‘No one I’ve met is looking for a handout. And that’s not what these tax cuts are,’ Obama said. ‘Instead, they’re targeted relief to help middle-class families weather the storm, to jump-start our economy and to bring the fundamentals of the American dream — making an honest living, earning an education, owning a home and raising a family — back within reach for millions of Americans.’
Credits taxpayers may be eligible for include:
–Up to $8,000 for first-time homebuyers. The credit will be available through the end of April.
–Up to $2,500 for college expenses.
–Up to $1,500 for making energy-efficiency improvements to homes.
–For new vehicles purchased between Feb. 17-Dec. 31, 2009, the state and local taxes can be deducted.
–An expanded child tax credit providing $1,000 for each child under 17.
–The earned income tax credit now provides up to $5,657 to low-income families with at least three children.
Many workers have already received, through adjusted withholding in their paychecks, the “Making Work Pay” credit of as much as $800 for couples and $400 for individuals. For those who haven’t yet received the full amount due, they will get the additional money when they file.”
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* The Average American’s wages were stagnant for the first decade of the new millennium.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/a-decade-with-no-income-gain/?hp
EXCERPT:
“Median household fell to $50,303 last year, from $52,163 in 2007. In 1998, median income was $51,295. All these numbers are adjusted for inflation.”
fandecande 