Today, as my fellow-blogger Michael Bersin has already informed us, the Missouri House failed to override Governor Nixon’s veto of the infamous corporate tax cut bill which failed on a 94-67 vote, short of the two thirds majority needed to override. That means it’s over and done with, gone away, dead – for now.

It is true that HB253 was a poorly written bill, rife with unintended consequences. It was also, however,  a conceptually bad idea from the point of view of economic policy, even had the folks who put it together had sufficient brain power to do it in a cleaner fashion. And it’s important to remember that fact because indications are that it’ll be back soon, and next time the petty stupidities that plagued the bill and that persuaded some of the more thoughtful Republicans to uphold the veto, may be gone and we’ll have to try once more to fend off the bad policy it embodies – trickle down economics via monster tax cuts for corporations, big cuts for wealthy individuals and symbolic tax cuts for everyone else, the state’s solvency be dammed.

Earlier, when confronted with the obvious fact that the override effort might fail, Speaker Tim Jones had been emphatic that he wasn’t going to let this failure derail his goal, declaring that in such a case “income tax cuts will be a big priority next year.” Today, after losing the override vote, Jones confirmed that he has no intention of letting sleeping dogs lie when it comes to radical tax “reform”:

In a statement released after the vote, House Speaker Tim Jones, R-Eureka, said: “This is only a temporary setback for the majority of House members who believe substantive tax relief is the best way to grow our economy and to help the hard-working Missourians who deserve to keep more of their hard-earned dollars. … We will not be swayed from our efforts to provide Missourians with the tax relief they deserve and we will make a tax cut our top legislative priority when we return for the 2014 legislative session in January.”

As for the bill’s chief sponsor, Rex Sinquefield,  the $2.4 million dollars the billionaire spent promoting HB253 can easily be written off as a down payment; a first gambit in a game in which he plans to wear down the resistance with a combination of big spending and persistence. Nor, I suspect, will the Missouri Chamber of Commerce let Speaker Jones down when he revives his signature initiative, even though many commonsensical, local Chambers of  Congress broke with the big daddy organization and urged that the veto be sustained.

What can we learn from these facts? That these clowns just won’t give up. And they’ve got lots of money behind them. And if we really support progressive government, we can’t give up and sit on our – or the Governor’s – HB 253 laurels. We have to be ready for 2014 and this badly thought out tax “reform” needs to be one of the issues we trot out to make our case against the corporate-owned marauders currently holding the statehouse.

Talking Points Memo has some good coverage of the cagematch between our Governor Nixon and Texas Governor Rick Perry that centers on the relationship between tax rates and jobs. TPM raises a point that is significant in view of the upcoming veto session, where at least some state GOP lawmakers will vote to override the Governor’s veto of the disastrous HB253, which would take a tiny nibble out of the income taxes of most middle-income earners and a great big giant bite out of already very low corporate income taxes:

Tax rates, like what Perry and Scott have been flaunting, are oftentimes the favored incentive for governors hoping to lure new business from elsewhere. Actually, Muro said, there is little research to suggest that a business actually sees larger profits or more job creation from moving to a state with a lower tax rate.

“That one’s a particularly fatuous offering because many relocation studies notice that taxes often aren’t a huge part of the operating budget so that that is often the peripheral consideration,” Muro said.

Muro pointed to a study he did with Kenan Fikri, also of Brookings, which found that states are better off trying to foster homegrown businesses rather than through bringing in business from other states.

“The best way to create more jobs in a state is to grow them at home, rather than poach them from elsewhere,” the report said. “Some 95 percent of all job gains in a year in an average state come from the expansion of existing businesses or the birth of new establishments.”

The article notes that Texas has had its credit rating downgraded under Perry’s leadership. Kansas has also seen its creditworthiness downgraded since it started the process of eliminating income taxes – a somewhat cloudy effort it should be noted, since in order to avert total disaster, Governor Brownbeck is trying to come up with more indirect revenue raising schemes, including higher sales taxes.

What is clear about the Kansas experiment, though, is that whether or not there is eventual growth it will be hard times for many years:

What these changes will mean for the Kansas economy over the long-term is a matter of intense debate. A study by the state Department of Revenue predicted 23,000 new jobs for the state by 2020, above and beyond the job growth Kansas otherwise would have experienced. Others are skeptical. A forecast from the Kansas Legislative Research Department, which didn’t account for any economic benefits from the tax cuts, said that they will result in a series of shortfalls that add up to $2.5 billion through fiscal year 2018.

As for job growth, if it ever happens in Kansas,  expect to see low-wage jobs and sweat-shop conditions, especially since wrecking unions seems to be a related goal of the tax-cutters. Bad schools, a poorly educated, poorly paid population with no public services to alleviate their situation, equals a corporate paradise for select types of industry – the type that have mostly preyed on third world countries in the past. As for forward-looking, entrepreneurial businesses offering good salaries, expect to see them thriving in more enlightened parts of the country.

The current employment situation in Texas tends to support this thesis:

As Gov. Rick Perry continues to tout Texas’ low-tax, low-regulation business climate as the secret to the state’s relative economic strength, critics have pointed to Texas’ [high] unemployment rate and low-wage jobs, noting that Texas ties Mississippi for the highest percentage of minimum wage workers.

While loose regulatory policies have permitted many environmentally dangerous practices in the energy sector have probably contributed to growth of Texas biggest engine of new jobs, energy extraction, even supporters of the Texas low-tax climate have to admit that as far as the energy industry goes:

… the governor cannot take credit for recent discoveries of shale formations, the price of oil or “many other factors that have provided Texas with a competitive advantage in recent years.”

I have to admit that I am beginning to think that all the talk about growth is a smokescreen and that the point of this tax-cutting is precisely the social service cuts that everybody pretends to deplore. Jobs – who cares? If job creation were to pick up in Kansas while the same folks hold the reins of the state government, you shouldnt expect to see any new revenue going to education, which has been cut way past the bone, or to provide other services – the tax cutting experimenters, after all, are usually the ideologues who oppose the very idea of public education, call for privately-owned toll roads, and privatization of almost all government functions. I suspect that these folks are getting just what they want – and that many of their compères in Missouri, the ones that are capable of figuring out how to open a paper bag unaided, that is, actually want the same thing.

If none of this sounds too appealing, perhaps you should let your state legislators know that you won’t be too happy if they vote to override HB253, Senators can be found here and representatives here.

Today Governor Nixon stepped up and met his responsibility to the state and we owe him bigtime:

Nixon vetoed the disastrous GOP tax cut bill HB253. Over a ten year period, the bill would have cut corporate income taxes from 6.25% to 3.5%, and personal income taxes from 6% to 5.5%. As Nixon explained, “with a price tag of $800 million, this legislation is an ill-conceived, fiscally irresponsible experiment that would hurt our economy and jeopardize funding for vital public services.”

The reaction was swift, with GOP legislators raging about how radical tax cuts are the only way that Missouri can compete with neighboring Kansas, which has gutted its tax system. The general theme seems to be that Kansas is thriving under its new tax regime; as the Missouri branch of the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity (AFP) put it when decrying Nixon’s move, “Many of our neighboring states have made bold reforms in the area of taxation, which have catapulted their states into being some of the most economically strong states in the union.”

Kansas is economically strong? Surprising news indeed – although it is not so surprising that it comes from the AFP since an AFP consultant on budgetary matters has been appointed Kansas’ budget director. The jury is still out (way, way out) on whether the tax cuts will spur growth – although we do know that the Bush tax cuts did not result in an economic boom – the Obama administration has already, in five years, bested the eight-year Bush administration record of job creation – in spite of having to beat back the massively deep Bush recession.

Right now, Kansas is not only promulgating a “red-state economic model”, it’s seeing reams of red, red ink that is. A predicted loss of $700 million dollars in revenue for the fiscal year beginning in July means serious budget cuts are ahead – and Kansas Governor Sam Brownback has already radically slashed spending. You name your program and it’s gonna be cut more and cut bad: education, transportation infrastructure, social services. And it’s likely to get worse if the tax-cutting experiment doesn’t work the way Kansas’ GOP is betting it will:

To make up for the revenue drop, the governor is pushing to preserve what was meant to be a temporary increase in the state sales tax, and to eliminate two popular deductions, including the state write-off for home-mortgage interest payments. Those moves would raise about $600 million next fiscal year. He also wants to transfer more than $100 million from a state highway fund to cover other expenses.

Estimates prepared by the state’s legislative research department predict that, even with the steps Mr. Brownback proposes, Kansas is on track to be short of money. The estimates suggest that the state will need to lean on its reserves in the coming years, and lawmakers by 2017 will be forced to make $780 million in spending cuts to prevent a deficit, which isn’t allowed under Kansas law. A Brownback aide said the forecasts don’t take into account the beneficial impact of the tax cuts.

Although, given the sales tax situation, one can argue that Kansas hasn’t really eliminated income taxes, it’s just asking poor folks to pay for all that magical economic growth that will surely reveal itself any day now. Huffington Post quotes one Kansas resident who states that if the home mortgage deduction is eliminated, she will move back to Missouri. Ironic, no?

But not surprising since Kansas is taking a big gamble on radical supply side economics with no real evidence that it will work – and lot’s of history that says it won’t. Why do Missouri’s legislators want us to jump off the same cliff? Shouldn’t they at least wait to see if Kansas survives the fall? Governor Nixon is right to insist that we proceed cautiously and make sure that we can take care of our citizens’ needs. HB253 was passed by a vote of 103 to 51, six votes less than the number required to override Nixon’s veto. We’ve got to keep it that way or we’ll go the way of Kansas.

 

There’s been lots written about why Missouri Senate Bill 26 is a bad idea (some examples:  here, here and here). Most obviously, it offers big tax savings to  corporations and other wealthy Missourians; these savings, however, would be partially paid for by raising sales taxes, eating up a disproportionately larger percentage of the income of poor and middle class folks and exacerbating income inequality. The remaining revenue losses would have to be made up by cutting services offered by the state. The problems with the proposal are obvious while the promised benefits are nebulous since plenty of evidence indicates that lowering or eliminating income taxes isn’t the boon to growth that the right claims it is (see, for instance here and here).

It’s pretty clear who benefits from this type of change and who doesn’t (hint: most of us don’t do so well), so Missouri GOP pols are attempting to justify this giveaway to cronies and corporate sponsors by inciting fears of a border war with Kansas, claiming that Missouri businesses will relocate to take advantage of the no-tax climate on the other side. While it is not at at all clear that there would be significant business flight, it is very clear that the resulting loss of revenue would wreak havoc on Missouri’s quality of life and, arguably, on overall prospects for increased economic growth.

SB26 obviously isn’t too smart from an economic perspective, but, not surprisingly, it may not be too smart politically either. The vaunted (by anti-tax GOPers, at least) Kansas experiment seems to be turning off voters there in large numbers:

Brownback has a negative -15 job approval rating, with 37% of Kansas voters approving and 52% disapproving of his performance as governor. 72% of moderates disapprove of his performance as well as 30% of Republicans and 66% of independents.

Brownback’s plan to phase out the state’s income tax is almost as unpopular as he is, with 48% of voters opposed and 37% supportive. 65% of moderates and 56% of independents oppose the plan. Even 34% of somewhat conservative voters and 28% of Republicans are opposed to the proposal to overhaul the income tax.

In Louisiana public disapproval has forced governor Bobby Jindal to jettison a similar, regressive tax proposal:

… Only 27 percent of Louisiana voters supported the plan in the latest SMOR poll versus a whopping 63 percent opposed. The idea didn’t even garner majority support among Republicans.

Also likely to be of interest to state GOPers who want to hang onto their legislative majority, Jindal’s overall popularity, like Brownback’s, is also tanking:

… . His approval rating plummeted to 38 percent in a poll last week by the non-partisan Southern Media Opinion & Research, down from 60 percent just a year ago. In an ominous sign for national Republicans, the immediate cause is a sweeping economic agenda with strong parallels to the House GOP’s latest budget.

It’s a funny fact that several of the governors who rode the Tea Party bandwagon to electoral success are alienating voters now that they are trying to enact the extreme right-wing economic policies espoused by the more cogent Tea-Partiers. Eight of the ten governors who are currently below sea level in terms of their approval ratings fall into this category. Perhaps there’s a lesson here for those among Missouri’s GOP lawmakers who have the requisite discernment to see it. Since they demonstrably don’t care about the public welfare – just consider their anti-Obamacare Medicaid expansion tantrum if you doubt this claim – perhaps self-interest might keep them from the type of folly embodied in bills like SB26.

 

You know how the GOP geniuses that run the state legislature are proposing to gut the state income tax in order to benefit wealthy folks and corporations, while increasing the sales tax which will hit the poor and middle class where it hurts? The stated reason? Kansas is gung-ho to beggar itself with corporate tax cuts, and Missouri pols fear bordering business will move over the line into Kansas taking a few jobs with them.

If, however, a miracle should come to pass and the Missouri legislature should come to its senses in time to reject this abysmally stupid tax legislation, pols needn’t fear great losses to Kansas (actually, they probably don’t need to entertain that anxiety under any circumstances, but you know how Republicans are). In the light of anti-abortion “personhood” legislation moving rapidly through the Kansas legislature, hordes of families living there may want to relocate to Missouri and other surrounding states, bringing their skill-sets and businesses with them. Seems the Kansas legislature may actually go so far as to make the use birth-control potentially punishable under the law.

How could there not be a backlash if this actually happens? It’s hard to figure out how socially restrictive laws that make regular life difficult for the majority are ever conducive to economic growth. As Ed Kilgore puts it:

If regular Republican-voting Americans had any idea of the radical vision underlying such legislation – something straight out of the Handmaid’s Tale, folks – the solons supporting it wouldn’t even last until the next election. So you’d think they’d be extra careful about supporting efforts to ensure that most of the female population of the state of child-bearing age wouldn’t have to worry about being hauled off to the hoosegow and told they needed to get their procreative groove on or put an aspirin between their legs.

It will also be fun to watch how Kansas, already deficit-ridden thanks to its retrograde tax policies, will cope with the millions of dollars legal fees, etc. that are sure to follow passage of such very litigation-worthy legislation. Not so fun for Kansans though – those who have no choice but to remain in Tea-Party paradise, that is.  

On the topic of taxes, especially progressive taxation, George Lakoff, the Berkeley linguist and expert on political language, has this to say:

Taxes are what you pay to be an American, to live in a civilized society that is democratic and offers opportunity, and where there’s an infrastructure that has been paid for by previous taxpayers. This is a huge infrastructure. The highway system, the Internet, the TV system, the public education system, the power grid, the system for training scientists – vast amounts of infrastructure that we all use, which has to be maintained and paid for. Taxes are your dues – you pay your dues to be an American. In addition, the wealthiest Americans use that infrastructure more than anyone else, and they use parts of it that other people don’t. The federal justice system, for example, is nine-tenths devoted to corporate law. The Securities and Exchange Commission and all the apparatus of the Commerce Department are mainly used by the wealthy. And we’re all paying for it.

There are many more ways that our tax system subsidizes corporations and the wealthy, but the idea Lakoff is presenting is still pretty clear and not at all hard to understand. Nevertheless, Republicans just don’t get it. Consider State Rep. Jason Smith, currently Missouri House speaker pro tem who, incidentally, just won the GOP nomination for Rep. Jo Ann Emerson’s recently vacated federal seat in the 8th district. Seems Smith shines when it comes to GOP anti-tax bile. Notable quote:

When they tax the rich to give to the poor, it makes us less American … less free.

This man serves in a state with failing infrastructure, 300,000 uninsured, a mediocre educational system, and which, for obvious reasons, attracts far too few of the more entrepreneurial businesses that could actually grow the state’s economy – as opposed to those industries that offer only low-paying scutt work.

But never mind about all that growth and prosperity stuff – none of which, rhetoric to the contrary, really seems to get Republican juices flowing. If Smith and his current cronies in the Missouri statehouse get their way, Missourians won’t have much, but they’ll be “freer,” which in this case means minimal taxes for the wealthy and for businesses, while the middle classes and poor pay proportionally more for government services – including those designed to insure that the haves get more.

This “freedom” song and dance is, of course, old hat. Conservatives frequently try to justify their druthers by appealing to freedom and other abstractions, rather than demonstrating the real-world ways that their proposed policies will make Americans’ lives better. They rarely specify that the right-wing concept of freedom pertains only to market economics. Michael Lind, one of the founders of the New America Foundation, points out that the right wing “idea of ‘freedom’ is a very peculiar one, which excludes virtually every kind of liberty that ordinary Americans take for granted”:

What would America look like, if conservatives had won their battles against American liberty in the last half-century? Formal racial segregation might still exist at the state and local level in the South. In some states, it would be illegal to obtain abortions or even for married couples to use contraception. In much of the United States, gays and lesbians would still be treated as criminals. Government would dictate to Americans with whom and how they can have sex. Unions would have been completely annihilated in the public as well as the private sector. Wages and hours laws would be abolished, so that employers could pay third-world wages to Americans working seven days a week, 12 hours a day, as many did before the New Deal. There would be far more executions and far fewer procedural safeguards to ensure that the lives of innocent Americans are not ended mistakenly by the state.

One thing Lind forgets to mention is that the wealthy and corporations would skate when it comes to taxes in such a right-wing, “free” republic, while the rest of us would probably foot most if not all of the bill for the minimal services government would deliver. Yet Missourians will most likely send Jason Smith to Washington to fight for more of that anti-tax freedom with its corresponding spending cuts, so that we too can enjoy the same type of austerity policies that have plunged Great Britain into double-dip recession.

*Lakoff quote amended to include material inadvertently omitted.

An excellent editorial in the St. Louis Post Dispatch discusses the disastrous effects of the GOP no-tax religion that some GOP state legislators, many lavishly funded by mega-rich, income-tax averse, retired investor Rex Sinquefield, are proposing to push even harder here in Missouri. As the Post-Dispatch implies, the already low state tax rates, far from promoting growth, have managed to reduce the state to a backwater that is near last in significant measures of quality of life – a factor likely to discourage all but sweat-shop industry.

A recent report from the institute on Taxation and Economic Policy underlines the fact that low, regressive tax rates are not exactly the panacea that Rex Sinquefield and his pet “think tank,” the Show-Me Institute (which the Post-Dispatch calls a “believe tank”), say it is. The report offers figures to support the fact that the tax burden in Missouri, along with the rest of the states, has been systematically shifted to those in the middle and at the bottom of the economic ladder. As the report’s authors note, “States praised as “low tax” are often high tax states for low and middle income families.”

The chart below details the situation in Missouri – and bear in mind that it describes the status quo, before the GOP tax masterminds in Jefferson City impose their particular brand of reform:

This situation will only get worse if those tax proposals described in the Post-Dispatch editorial are enacted. How do you think that income tax reductions, elimination of corporate taxes, and imposition of still more sales taxes to pay for necessary services (most recently proposed as the way to pay for long-overdue transportation needs), will effect the growing inequality between the wealthy and the rest of us?

And for all the folks who want to eliminate income taxes outright, take a look at this chart:

See Texas up there? Remember that Texas had a 27 billion dollar deficit last year. You know what that means: cuts to education and other services that help contribute to middle and working class prosperity. Just think about that when you hear some of the GOP tax gurus pontificating. And, of course, as the Post-Dispatch suggests, keep a watch on Kansas as it slashes taxes and hits the skids in deficit city.

As CNNMoney commented when reporting on the 7% decline in middle class income over the last 10 years, “The first decade of the 21st century will go down in the history books as a step back for the American middle class.” The same article also notes that the wealthiest Americans got wealthier during the same period, a trend that will only accelerate if we permit the state level GOP to continue to carry water for their rich friends and campaign contributors and destroy what remains of progressive state-level taxation.

James Moody, one-time budget director for former – highly conservative – Republican Governor John Ashcroft, observed that the Sinquefield cabal’s efforts last year to abolish the state income tax in favor of a sales tax indicated that “they don’t know what they’re doing.” And it’s not just ignorance that animates our GOP brethren in this instance, but willful ignorance. These are the folks who, to borrow Hillary Clinton’s phrase, have refused the invitation to inhabit the “evidence-based world” where their victims have no choice but to reside.  

*Charts from ITEP, Who pays: A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States, ITEP, February 2013.

Via The Turner Report, we hear Todd Akin comparing Claire McCaskill to a dog who fetches “taxes, red tape, bureaucracy, and executive orders and agencies” back home to “dump” on Missourians:

Ah Todd… ever eloquent. Is this another way of saying that McCaskill’s not ladylike? A b****?

Actually, I’m trying to figure out where McCaskill hid all those bureaucracies, and executive orders she brought back to Missouri. I am grateful, though for the middle-class tax cut she helped the President give me – and I’m sure most small businessmen would be too if they weren’t constantly bombarded by this type of twaddle.  

There was a very brief, but interesting letter to the editor (Titled “Before and After“) in today’s (Aug. 8) St. Louis Post-Dispatch – the writer claimed that politicians are making big promises right now, but when, after the election, the dust settles, the GOP will look out for the rich, the Democrats will work for the poor, and the middle class be dammed. The writer’s rhetoric is, however, sadly behind the times. Take for instance the old GOP standby, the claim that Democrats want to raise taxes,  and then consider this video about the Romney tax plan:

You can calculate your own savings at the new Website, RomneyPlan.org.

We’re going to hear the Democrats tax-and-spend mantra from the crop of GOPers who won their primaries in Missouri last night along with lots of similar lies from anonymously funded attack ads. GOP Senatorial candidate Todd Akin, for instance, has already attacked the new taxes that pay for the extension of insurance in the Obamacare law – even though they’re mostly levied on insurance providers and those with big incomes. Just keep in mind that the only parties who’ll see their taxes go down if Romney wins the election and we hand him a GOP House and Senate will be the millionaires and big corporations – entities that have, arguably, not been paying their fair share for some time.

Of course, we’re Democrats and the GOPers are right – taxes aren’t our be-all and end-all. We understand that taxes buy us the things we need to succeed and have a good quality of life. Unlike the Republicans who support the slash-and-burn economies of the Ryan budget, we understand that evaluating benefits is an integral part of benefit/cost analysis. Nevertheless, we don’t want to pay more taxes so that Mitt Romney, the Koch brothers, and monster corporations can pay less.

And as for the writer of the letter I cited and his claims pitting the poor against the middle class, please don’t get me wrong. I hope Democrats continue to worry about the poor along with the middle class – although maybe that desire is not entirely unselfish. Right now, Democrats are all that stand between the middle class and the poverty attendant on our growing inequality.  

It was just a couple of days ago when we were all cheered to learn that President Obama was emphatically rejecting the possibility of extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. After Bush’s wars of choice, and the recession that resulted from his deregulatory economic policies, these ill-considered tax cuts have been one of the biggest drivers of the deficit. They were a mistake that needs to be fixed.

Sadly, although President Obama is promising to stand firm, his resolve may come to naught. An article in The Hill reports that Democrats like our own Claire McCaskill are, predictably, wavering and in the process endangering the entire Democratic strategy:

Democratic leaders maintain they are content to play defense, but are worried that some vulnerable Democrats might defect and support a temporary extension of all the Bush-era rates, which would undercut their negotiating position.

Sens. Claire McCaskill (Mo.) and Bill Nelson (Fla.), two Democrats facing tough races this year, on Thursday declined to rule out support for an across-the-board extension of the rates.

“If you want to do something in the spirit of compromise, you don’t start out by saying, ‘I refuse to do this’ or ‘I refuse to do that,’ ” said McCaskill. “It’s not my preference to extend tax cuts to multimillionaires – that’s not my preference – but I want to keep every option open in the spirit of compromise.”

No, Claire, we do not go into a negotiation and send signals that we’re so intimidated that we’re ready to hand all the goodies over if the other party says boo to us.* Nor does it hurt the process to draw clear lines in the sand – let everybody know upfront what’s negotiable and what’s not. Which is precisely why, as The Hill writer implies in the quote above, the Democratic leadership is so worried that pols like McCaskill will give the game away before they players even get onto the field.

And as far as many of McCaskill’s Democratic constituents are concerned, given the misery that her deficit hawk colleagues in the GOP have inflicted on poor and working Americans – not to mention the harm they have done to the economic recovery – tax cuts for the wealthy aren’t negotiable. President Obama has it right and God bless ‘im for it.

I know that McCaskill’s in a hard place, but I promise acting like her GOP opposite numbers won’t help her out. Of course, we’ve got to take some responsibility too. I quote Peter Dreier on FDR’s blending of ethics and realpolitik:

FDR once met with a group of activists who sought his support for bold legislation. He listened to their arguments for some time and then said, “You’ve convinced me. Now go out and make me do it.”

We’ve got to make McCaskill do it. We’ve got to write and call her and let her know that we are counting on her. We also have to write letters to editors, talk to our neighbors and friends, do everything we can think of to do to help remind people that the GOP is willing to balance the nation’s budget on the people’s backs in order to privilege the wealthy. We’ve got a lot to do in order to make the world safe for progressives.

ADDENDUM: Jonathan Bernstein explains why caving on the tax cuts is stupid politically. Maybe I should send Claire a link?

*Sentence edited slightly.