While driving yesterday, I listened to a panel discussion on taxes led by correspondent Stephanie Ruhle on MSNBC.
With the usual left-right line-up of guests, they debated whether the Trump tax plan would benefit the rich or everyone.
The man from the right was part of the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity. He insisted that massive tax cuts would be very beneficial for middle-income and poor Americans. The man from the left (center, really) disagreed and insisted that the big winners were the rich.
Then the center-left man said that the governor of Kentucky tried massive tax cuts and it backfired. He quickly was corrected (or corrected himself) and said it was Kansas, not Kentucky.
That’s where Governor Sam Brownback cut taxes, predicting an economic boom–that never happened. Instead, the state is facing a budget hole of nearly $900 million, and even Republicans recognize they must raise taxes.
But Mr. Right winger jumps in and says “the Kansas tax cuts would have worked, but the courts forced the state to spend massive amounts on K-12 schools, which gobbled up all the savings from the tax cuts.”
I almost jumped out of my car. I knew that the Kansas high court ordered the state to fund the schools, but the state has not yet done it.
So Mr. Right winger was wrong on two counts, but no one corrected him:
1. The state did not spend the non-existent savings produced by tax cuts on the schools, because there were none;
2. The courts were trying to enforce the state constitution and demanding equitable funding, which Mr. RW clearly thought was unnecessary.
Having flat out lied, he got away with it because no one else knew the facts. There was no bonanza from the tax cuts, and the K-12 schools have not yet received a dollar of new money.
See here:
http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article161585073.html
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The Koch brothers continue to use their wealth and power to make policy. It’s time this stops!
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What else is new? The Koch brothers are pathetic COCKS.
Thanks for this, Diane.
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I hope you sent your comments to MSNBC.
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No, I posted them here and tweeted to Stephanie Ruhle
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I spend too much time on the computer as it is, so I hesitate to get familiar with tweeting, but in this case, I see the utility of it. Still, I am just back from an almost two week hiatus from most tech gadgets and it was wonderful.
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“He insisted that massive tax cuts would be very beneficial for middle-income and poor Americans.”
I’d like to be amazed anyone is still shameless enough to say this, but I’m beyond being amazed by the depths of shamelessness these days. But in any case, anyone who says this can be immediately put on mute – they have nothing of value to say. The exact opposite has been proven true time after time after time for the last 40 years.
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Also “savings from tax cuts” is another rich line. It’s like telling an employee that you would have saved money after we cut your salary, but you went and spent it all.
BTW, Diane, please don’t jump out of your car. We still need you.
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Amen, on “not jumping out of your car.” Although MSNBC may not give a hoot, It would be good for them to know that they were functioning in the capacity of fake news.
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I sent a tweet to the program host and said that the Koch man lied. No answer yet.
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Exactly: functioning in the capacity of spreading fake news . And yet the complicity of those who do not step up to correct lies, or even challenge them, greatly feeds their power.
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Why Tax Cuts for the Rich Solve Nothing by Joseph E. Stiglitz – Project Syndicate
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/tax-cuts-for-the-rich-solve-nothing-by-joseph-e–stiglitz-2017-07
As usual, right-wingers (Regressives is the more accurate term, not ‘conservatives’. If they were REALLY conservative, they would want to conserve not only the U.S. middle class, but also our sustainable planet) pay no attention to history or facts, blinded by their ideology of greed and more wealth for the oligarchs.
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Ed from what I Remember you live in NY3 . Israels old district or near.
Check out Suozzi’s “problem solver ” position on corporate taxes.
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Tax cuts also didn’t work in Ohio. Kasich made the same prediction Brownback did and it failed just as miserably.
I personally got a 200 dollar reduction on state income tax which was completely swamped by the increase in property taxes we passed to make up for the state school revenue.
So now I send just about the same amount of money into the state coffers and nothing comes back. It’s a rip-off. I actually pay higher total taxes. I just get less.
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I have never figured out why Brownback’s theory, which has been proven to be terribly incorrect, isn’t shouted out as a model proving how cutting taxes doesn’t provide an economic boom.
Why isn’t this nationally recognized as an glaring example of failure?
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I think it is but the Koch’s don’t have anything else to say other than “we don’t want to pay taxes”, which is the truth and would be easier.
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Kansas proves that deep tax cuts don’t produce economic growth or jobs. But Republicans don’t want to hear it, and they have the Koch brothers reassuring them that the K-12 public schools sucked up all the revenues, which is demonstrably false
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I would have more respect for these people if they would just say “I don’t want to pay taxes”
Why do they have to make up economic theories to justify it? No one really “wants” to pay taxes. Their selfishness is ordinary. Just boldly fly that flag instead of this mumbo jumbo that hasn’t worked for the last 30 years and will never work.
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The US Dept of Ed are planning some visits to public schools in the fall.
What do they say when they arrive?
“Good morning dead end losers trapped in government schools, we’re from your federal government and we want to offer another scolding lecture”
I’d keep my kid home that day and I’m a stickler for attendance. He needs to hear Betsy DeVos’ droning recitation of the failing failures who attend public schools like he needs a hole in the head. Thanks but no thanks. We’re fine! We’ll muddle thru, I swear we will.
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What the Koch brothers and their ass-licking/sucking greedy, psycho minions don’t want the United States to know is what happened in Seattle when the minimum wage was raised to $15.
The extreme right alleges that it was a disaster, but the facts say otherwise. The extreme right is churning out false, cherry-picked studies to make it look like this was a failure but that is more manipulating lies. Nothing new there.
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Whenever I hear a panel, or read an article on something I am REALLY well informed about, I feel the same way – yelling rebuttals and fact check info at the radio or TV. I do wish the bigger shows would allow fact checkers to be working while the show is going on – or at least make an effort to correct the record in a timely manner. I hope, since you are a well regarded authority, they will follow up with some corrections. I’m sure the same argument will be floated frequently again, so at least now we your readers can cite corrections on the spot. Thank you for all you do!
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This shows that knowing facts is integral to critical thinking. Unfortunately, the education establishment disagrees. Teachers’ colleges have, by and large, been trying to wean teachers off of teaching facts for decades. It’s all about process and skills, not about facts, these days. The dominant interpretation of Common Core, NGSS and the new history frameworks now is: learning facts does not matter. What matters is having kids struggle with texts and problems to build up mental “muscles”. This is wrong. It is knowledge that makes a brain smarter, not mental workouts.
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Reblogged this on Literary Nirvana and commented:
Why does the MSM let these folks get away with this? It’s beyond time to bring real subject experts on these programs.
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Ruhle and Velshi generally do a better job than most CNN and MSNBC hosts . They still need a mic kill switch and a team of fact checkers. Which means none of these shows should be on a 7 second delay. You probably need hours if you want to present honest reporting. Even then much of what you hear will reflect some bias . It is not necessarily what Chomsky would say is the bludgeon of propaganda. Probably more the binder that Mills describes in “Power Elite”. Or Thomas Frank in Listen Liberal . We tend to obtain the ethos of those we associate with. Take the pressure away that a host or reporter may face from the network and you are still faced with where do they live, where did they go to college where do their children go to school and who do they socialize with. ….
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