Mark Levine on O’ReillyRips Laura Ingrahamand Stuart Varney on Taxes
April 8, 2010
Mark takes on Laura Ingraham and Stuart Varney on The O’Reilly Factor. Ingraham and Varney both try to scare her viewers into believing Obama will break his campaign promises to raise taxes on the middle class. Obama won’t do it. Why does she think she know more about the Democrats than Mark does? Mark used to work for them!
Here’s the clip featuring Mark:
And here’s the clip in its full context after Laura Ingraham’s talking points (full size):
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Mark Levine June 2, 2010 11:49 am
Crooks and Liars commented favorably on this video:
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/laura-ingraham-plays-concern-troll-rich-an
Roberto R. Resendez April 12, 2010 9:00 pm
Dear Mr. Levine:
With all due respect, in your appearance with Laura Ingraham last week your accusation that Republicans use mind games with regard to comparing federal income tax burdens between rich and poor is just plain wrong and disingenuous. Your point that everyone should pay the same percentage of income for Social Security taxes conveniently ignores the facts that social security taxes are collected as part of a retirement program from a specific individual for a specific pension and have a benefit limit. They are like user fees. They are not part of the general revenue (even though our irresponsible and spineless politicians have arbitrarily ransacked the Trust Fund). Therefore, they are not regressive and should not be clumped together for any sort of tax burden comparison, as you did last week with Laura, and, just as irrelevant to any other retirement plans the individual taxpayer might have. Individuals paying the same percentage on vastly different salaries receiving the same benefits is inherently unfair and wrong.
Mark Levine April 12, 2010 3:33 pm
Thank you everyone for your comments, from those that just chose to insult me (I hope you feel better but if you want a response from me, you’ll have to make an argument) to those in support. I particularly like Canute’s wrap-up.
I mostly want to respond to Roderick, who obviously has no idea who I am or what I or most liberals or Democrats believe.
No Democrat or liberal I’ve ever met believes in 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, or 9.
In 2, Roderick, you don’t define “heavy” but the vast majority of Americans support a graduated income tax.
In 7, I’ve never met a Democrat or liberal that wants all manufacturing or agriculture to be owned by the state, but I see no problem with advising farmers how to “cultivate wastelands” or “improve soil.”
And yes, I cop to 10 — supporting the public schools, wanting to abolish children factory labor and teaching vocational studies.
You said you thought that I and most Democrats would agree with at least 8 or 9 of the Marxist principles you name, and yet I’ve never met a single Democrat in my entire political and media career that supports more than three. Can you name a single Liberal Democrat who supports even five of them? If you can, I’ll bet he or she is not in Government.
I can name 10 Fascist principles too and probably find many a Republican that would support 2 or 3 of them. But that does not make Republicans Fascist. (Even I support on-time trains!)
As for Dan, for years, politicians have used the Social Security Trust Fund Surpluses (which still exist) to finance basic government services. You can’t argue they’re only for Social Security. That “lockbox” (remember Al Gore?) has been broken wide open by Republicans for generations and they have stolen the money. Since Republicans believe social security money can be used to finance everything, you can’t argue with my point that it’s a regressive tax used to fund Government (and far more than social security).