Greg Sargent has noticed that our careful-to-toe-the-center-line Senator Claire McCaskill is betting that the Buffett Rule is a winner (something we commented on last week):

Dems point out that even Claire McCaskill, who’s facing a tough fight in Missouri, has been flogging the issue – proof, they say, that it can gain traction even in difficult states or districts.

Of course, McCaskill’s a smart cookie (as they say in the old movies), and understands that the Buffett Rule not only appeals to our desire for a fair tax code, but makes palpable the contrast between Democratic policies that favor the middle class and the GOP’s rich man fetish. It doesn’t hurt either that, in Sargent’s words,  the GOP presidential contender, Mitt Romeny, is a “walking emblem of all the ways the economy and tax system are rigged against the middle class and in favor of the rich.” Hence the DSCC Web ad reproduced on the right side of this post.

Another indicator that, in addition to being the right thing to do on a moral level, this direction will be politically effective lies in the weak GOP response. Sargent notes that the GOP leadership is attempting to dismiss the upcoming vote on the Buffett rule as a “show” vote, taken for political purposes. All this claim does, of course, is underline the fact that if it is a show vote, it is only so because of GOP obstructionism. When the vote fails, we’ll know who’s to blame. Nor does it help the GOP cause that the Republican dominated U.S. House has staged any number of such show votes this session, most recently the vote for the Ryan Budget.

UPDATE: Not only is the GOP response weak, but the response from the Mitt Romney camp is downright dispicable. Romney’s spokesmen tried, in the wake of the President’s speech yesterday, to slime the eponymous Warren Buffet:

The rule, I think, is also an example of Washington at its worst,” Hassett said. “It exempts municipal bond interests from the harsh capital treatment and you might wonder why, given that we’re calling it the Buffett Rule – I think it’s no coincidence Berkshire [Hathaway, Buffett’s firm] has been a big player in municipal bond markets.”

The exemption of municipal bonds from the proposed top rate, is, of course, intended “to prevent city and state taxpayers of all income levels from picking up a bigger tab for loans taken by local governments.”

But, hey, par for the course for the GOP to go after anything that benefits the middle class directly.

There are some signs that Democrats may finally be getting it together and, when it comes to playing an effective role in government, approaching the task as if it is a team exercise, and one that needs to be carried out aggressively at that, rather than an exercise in individual camouflage. Case in point: The Buffett rule, which aims to insure that “no household making more than $1 million each year should pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than a middle class family pays.”  According to Greg Sargent, Democrats will bring up legislation to implement the Buffett rule repeatedly, “until Republican opposition cracks.” Sargent notes that:

Dems view the Buffett Rule as a good way to make one of their most important arguments: The battle over the deficit is actually one over who should sacrifice to reduce it. Dems like this fight because they’re hoping continued GOP opposition to the Buffett Rule will starkly reveal the true nature of GOP priorities on this score to the electorate.

It doesn’t hurt that under the Buffett rule the likely GOP presidential nominee, the obscenely rich Mitt Romney, would see his tax rate nearly double. Let him see just where it gets him to whine about the Buffet rule while touting the Ryan budget, notable for the pecuniary gifts it delivers to the 1%, folks like Romney, and the hard knocks it delivers to the middle class and those dependent on the safety net.

Best evidence that this strategy will be effective? Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, who has learned to be somewhat risk averse, appears to be solidly on board and, undeterred by the GOP’s stale evocation of the rich as “job creators,” has been calling for implementation of the Buffet rule during her April recess visits in the state:

“When the millionaires paid more in the 1990’s, we were creating jobs over jobs over jobs,” McCaskill said. “Compare job creation when taxes were slightly higher for millionaires, verses job creation after we gave them this tax cut in the Bush administration.”

“I’ve never seen the Republicans say there was a good time to raise taxes on multimillionaires,” McCaskill said, saying the issue boils down to the question of fairness in the tax code.

When McCaskill’s in good form, she’s very good indeed.

UPDATE: According to the the New York Times‘ Jonathan Weisman, McCaskill will have good company in this crusade. The President will jump into the fray with a speech on the Buffett Rule in Florida next Tuesday. Part of the goal is to ratchet up the pressure on Republicans in order to:

… increase the chances that some sort of minimum tax level for the rich would be part of an end-of-year deal, when the Bush-era tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 are set to expire.

A recent news article about Bill Randles, one of the not-so-fab GOPers vying for the gubernatorial nomination, reminds me of a story I heard somewhere about the Nicaraguan Dictator, Anastasio Somoza. According to the story, which works metaphorically though I can’t swear to its accuracy, Somoza opposed letting a charity distribute shoes to barefoot Nicaraguan peasants – he claimed they maintained an essential spiritual contact with the soul of Nicaragua through the contact of their bare feet with Nicaraguan soil. Of course Somoza himself and all his family wore shoes. Given the amount of loot he managed to expropriate from the Nicaraguan people, I assume that they were probably very expensive shoes.

I’m not suggesting that Bill Randles wants to be Missouri’s dictator or that he has the brutal proclivities of Somoza, a man about whom the epithet “butcher” does butchers the world over a grave injustice. I will point out, though, that as a Harvard educated lawyer, he’s probably doing pretty well for himself. Which makes it all the more troublesome that he’s apparently channeling the spirit of Bill Lembke, the mean-minded twit who was willing to turn Missouri’s long-term unemployed out into the streets in order to make some inane point about government spending. But there it is: Randles has stated that if elected, “he would deny federal funds for education, the environment, health care, and, eventually, Medicaid.”

Why, given the poor state of Missouri’s finances, would anyone refuse to let the federal government return some of the money paid to it by Missouri taxpayers? How, given the over-the-barrell condition of the current state budget,  can Randle prattle about preferring to let Missouri devise its own Medicaid alternative? He claims that if the state succumbs to federal demands, “Medicaid will occupy too much of the state budget in the near future.” In other words, to hell with the people Medicaid serves – too many of them, so too damn bad for them.  

Seems that Randles, like Mitt Romney, isn’t worried about poor people. Romney claims that his lack of concern stems from his belief that they have an ample social safety-net, while, out of the other side of his mouth, he promises spending cuts that would savage the safety net. Mr. Randles, for his part, declares with a straight face that, in order to bring down health care costs, he would “change requirements for emergency rooms so that they are only required to treat uninsured patients for life-threatening injuries.” Forget about maintaining the only avenue for health care open to those folks Republicans are hell-bent on keeping uninsured.

Randles states that the federal government may “send money, but they require us to spend more money to get it. So you have to say at some point, ‘what is this deal worth’?” Based on this assertion, I would guess that Randles not only has problems with basic math, but also might not be absolutely open about his real priorities which are, clearly, to kill social spending that might threaten tax “relief” for rich businessmen.

Like Somoza, who sacrificed the welfare of Nicaraguan farmers in the service of a patriotic fantasy about the Nicaraguan soul, Randles is willing to not only sacrifice the welfare of Missourians, but their federal tax dollars in the service of a fantasy about preserving the state from the debilitating effects of that right-wing bogey, “big government.” Like the Somozas, who were more than willing to forego the spiritual properties of Nicaraguan soil and prance around the country fully-shod, the consequences of Randles’ high-minded effort to divorce Missouri from federal dollars is very unlikely to affect well-off Kansas City lawyers in the same way that it will affect the average Missourian.

As an afterthought, there’s one more story about Somoza that might be apropos here. When asked why his government spent so little on education for the largely rural and illiterate Nicaraguans, he replied that he didn’t want them educated, they were, afterall, only oxen. Draw your own conclusions.

Another chapter in the the evils of bought-and-paid-for politics is now playing itself out in Wisconsin – and, indirectly, in Missouri. Union-busting, Tea Partying, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker announced today that he had raised $4.5 million during the period from December 11 – Jan 17 in his quest to fend off a recall. You might be inclined ask just who is giving Walker all this money. He is clearly not too popular with the citizens of his state since over a million of them were eager to sign a petition for his recall.

And you would be right to ask. As Talking Points Memo’s Eric Kleefeld puts it:

… it becomes clear that Walker has been taking advantage of a key aspect of the state fundraising law for recalls – that until the election is officially triggered, the targeted incumbent can bring in unlimited donations.

Walker’s campaign staff claims that out of 21,443 donations, 16,406 were small contributions of $50 or less. However, WisPolitics.com did the math and concluded that, in spite of the Walker camp spin:

… 45 percent of the $4.5 million Walker collected during the two reporting periods filed yesterday came from those giving $25,000 or more. Most of his top donors also hailed from outside Wisconsin, according to a WisPolitics.com review.

Here’s the kicker, though, for those of us in Missouri: three of Walker’s biggest donors hail from our fair state and are, in fact, familiar names to those of us who follow the careers beneficent activities of the state’s main political sugar daddies:

Walker also received $250,000 from David Humphreys of Tamko Building Products in Joplin, Missouri, and another $250,000 from Sarah Atkins of Tamko.

Stanley Herzog of Herzog Contracting in Missouri gave Walker $250,000.

That’s $750,000 going to support retrograde politics in Wisconsin. Of course these fine folks have a history of lavishly dispersing their largess around Missouri and elsewhere (see Herzog’s recent contributions here; Humhpreys’ here). One of the things that they buy in Missouri are politicians who are willing to make sure that these millionaires pay the same 6% flat tax rate that you, presumably, and I pay. If these individuals have money to throw at Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, maybe the rest of us should demand that they start pulling their weight here in Missouri as well.  

There is a second issue here, though. While there is nothing wrong per se with people spending money to support politicians, there might be something wrong in permitting them to spend as much as they do in any single place. Just consider the $250,000 contributed to Scott Walker by Dave Humphreys, for instance. Since, many of the working people in Wisconsin who hope to recall Scott Walker might have to make an effort to scrape up $250 – or even $25 – to contribute to his eventual opponent in the recall, it does seem that, when it comes to buying government, Mr. Humphreys and his fellow members of the 1% have managed to create and perpetuate a system in which they can far too easily outbid the rest of us 99 percenters.

 

Take a look at the video of Elizabeth Warren talking about taxes that Michael Bersin posted today if you want to understand why the Buffet rule involves the issue of fairness. Then consider the following fact about anti-tax crusaders Vicky Hartzler, Sam Graves, Blaine Luetkemeyer and Billy Long:

Just a few of the small-minded, mean-minded and very wealthy Missourians who are busy working middle class Missourians over. As for the case that Elizabeth Warren makes for asking these folks to finally pay their fair share, I echo Steve Benen’s longing for principled, articulate Democrats:

… if more Democrats were able to make the case for the underlying social contract as effectively, our discourse would be vastly less mind-numbing.

To quote Michael Bersin: “Any questions, Claire?”  

Last Tuesday the Missouri Senate passed an $85 million dollar corporate tax cut. The legislature, in its infinite wisdom, believes that this cut is desirable even though we read daily that the state is hemorrhaging revenue and drastic budget surgery is required.

Specifically, the lege passed a bill that would cap and phase-out the state’s franchise tax on large corporations. Franchise taxes are corporate taxes that are based on a calculation of the worth of a company’s assets rather than its income. Generally they are levied at higher rates by states with low or no corporate income tax, and are not levied or are levied at low rates in states with high corporate income taxes. However, Missouri’s corporate income tax rate is relatively low and so has been the franchise tax rate.  

The Missouri legislature has done nothing to offset the revenue lost from this corporate tax cut. And this is significant. Why? Because, according to the budget cutters in Missouri’s statehouse, we’re so broke that we’re going to have to jettison the poor and helpless who depend on the state’s safety net. Massive cuts have been proposed to transportation, education, and  health and human services – in a state where these sectors were already poorly funded.

The justification for this tax cut is, as always, the claim that low taxes create jobs – despite the fact that there is little or no evidence to support this claim. As noted above, Missouri’s corporate taxes are already very low in comparison to dozens of far more prosperous states, and this generosity to the corporate sector has done little or nothing to spur job growth. That inconvenient fact has not, of course, stopped the see-no-facts, hear-no-facts, speak-no-facts Missouri GOPers from repeatedly dragging out the discredited tax-cuts-equals-jobs mantra to justify tax breaks for the well-connected. Sadly, though, saying it’s so doesn’t make it so.

Often the job creation mantra involves invocations of “small business” which can usually be relied upon to stimulate reverence and silence critics. However, that can’t be the issue this time since in 2009, the legislature, with the support of Governor Nixon, passed a jobs bill, that, by rasing the asset cap from $1 million to $10 million, “eliminated the franchise tax for more than 16,500 Missouri small businesses, or 82 percent of all businesses that owed or paid this tax … .”

Some also claim that franchise taxes comprise “double taxation.” However, as noted above, they are usually applied in combination with or as an alternative to income taxes. Some argue that used singly or in combination with income taxes, franchise fees more fairly represent the complex issues involved in valuing corporations.

Which leaves us where we started. At a time when the legislature and the Governor are enacting massive cuts in services to the taxpayers, they are giving breaks to the wealthiest corporate segments of the state for no discernible reason other than either blind ideology or self-interest. Why are our elected state officials more worried about corporate welfare than fulfilling their obligation to keep the playing ground between powerful interests and ordinary citizens level?

Very rich Rex Sinquefield is getting ready for an unholy war against the poor and middle class; his objective: the unFair Tax. Right now he’s busily deploying his proxies, among them Missouri House Speaker Steve Tilley who, along with sundry other foot-soldiers in the Missouri legislature, is seriously in hock to Sinquefield for big chunks of campaign funding. The brute force brigade, known locally as the Let Voters Decide Campaign Committee, is simultaneously taking its place on the battlefield with the filing of not one, but nine versions of a petition for a proposed constitutional amendment that would abolish the income tax and substitute one or another version of a regressive sales tax, deceptively labeled a “fair” tax, to be applied to a vastly expanded body of goods and services. (The differences between the nine versions are summarized in this St. Louis Beacon article.) King Rex is a strategist; he knows to cover his rear flank should the legislative gambit fail to pay off.

I’ve written about why the unFair Tax is such a bad idea here and here; now that it’s coming down the pike and we are dealing with the particulars of Sinquefield’s proposal, mainstream outlets are also piping up (see, for instance this editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch). Essentially the arguments against Sinquefield’s unFair Tax proposal boil down to the following:

1. The unFair Tax is not revenue neutral and the state would lose money. To make a sales tax/income tax swap an even-steven proposition would entail prohibitively high sales taxes.

2. Revenue from Missouri’s already low income taxes is currently inadequate to meet the needs of the state. If the unFair Tax is enacted as proposed by Sinquefield et al., it would truly decimate state services – and things are already pretty grim on that front.  There’s a reason why CNBC’s Top States for Business Survey ranks Missouri 49th for quality of life.

3. The unFair Tax will create a toxic environment. It’s  obvious that higher sales taxes would seriously impact those with lower incomes. Businesses in border areas could suffer since those of us who can do so will most likely travel out of state when it comes time to make major purchases. To move into the realm of the anecdotal and personal, I would imagine that when it comes time for my husband to retire, should the unFair Tax prevail, we probably won’t be staying in Missouri  – heck, we might even look for a new house on the Illinois side of the river long before retirement. And I bet we won’t be alone; plenty of those who have the option to do so may just head for those nearby hills outside Missouri.

4. Since the proposal envisions exemptions from sales tax for some selected set of services, it doesn’t take a genius to see an opening for some very happy lobbyists and the concomitant nasty corruption.

5. There is no upside – the claim that eliminating state income tax translates into prosperity has been discredited over and over. Take for instance the much touted example of Texas. Unfortunately, it seems that those stories about streets paved with gold in the Lone Star State were fictional; Texas, with a looming $18 billion deficit, is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. And even worse for the anti-tax clique, Texas’ governor and big-time hypocrite, Rick Perry, has been busy for the past couple of years plugging holes in the state budget with the federal stimulus money against which he so loudly harangued – making things look a lot rosier less thorny than they actually were among the yellow roses of Texas.

6. The most important reason to reject the unfair sales tax is that it is so – wait for it – unfair. Rex Sinquefield wants the working people of Missouri to carry rich men on their backs. There are few cases where one can create wealth without leveraging the educational and physical infrastructure that our taxes provide. Those who make money do so because they have access to an educated workforce, transportation systems, and other elements of publicly provided infrastructure. It is not fair for those who have parlayed those tools into big bucks to weasel out of paying for their use – which is just what Sinquefield’s unfair sales tax would permit. Take a look at the following chart* which gives one a picture of how state and local taxes are actually apportioned:

It’s clear who’s carrying the weight of sales taxes here – and it isn’t the likes of Daddy Warbucks Sinquefield. Now imagine what the chart would look like if income taxes were eliminated and the sales taxes were increased across the board. Did you say regressive? Just before you fainted? All I know is that I’m sure as hell not going to sit idly by while King Rex and his pals try to get a free ride at my expense. And if you want to call this class war, well go ahead. As far as I’m concerned, I know who fired the first volley.

*Chart from “Who Pays?” (PDF), prepared by Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

 

About a week ago, Claire McCaskill was intereviewed by Dan Marsh on St. Louis Public Radio KWMU’s “Talk of the Town” radio program. (You can hear the interview here; McCaskill’s segment begins about half way in.) McCaskill is a smart lady although she spouts lots of pure twaddle (more about that later in another post), along with pushing some really bad ideas – like spending caps (which she is confident will be enacted “now” – by which one expects she means now that she has more Republican allies). She nevertheless does get some things right.

In this particular interview, her shining moment came on the topic of tax policy. McCaskill quite correctly insisted that spending cuts were not the be-all and end-all of deficit reduction strategy. To her credit, she broached the issue of generating revenue. She offered some very cogent observations about reforming the tax code in order to generate greater revenue while lowering the tax burden. Her main points can be paraphrased as follows:

— A fairer tax code means more revenue and lower taxes.

— Reform has not been tackled because the much vaunted size and complexity of the tax code does not affect most taxpayers, 70-75% of whom do not itemize. The tax code was written for the benefit of the wealthy, and its complexity reflects the success of many lobbyists over many years.

–Subsidies for almost all segments of our economy have been thrown into the tax code; if we were to clean out the “junk” and the government were to stop “cutting checks” to, for instance, the oil industry, along with scores of other industries, we would solve the revenue problem.

Although I don’t have numbers to back up McCaskill’s claims, the argument is not hers alone but is gaining intellectual traction even within the Obama administration. Wasteful subsidies are beginning to get more attention in general. The Washington Monthly, for instance, just published an article by Jeffrey Leonard, significantly titled “Get the Energy Sector off the Dole,” that argues persuasively for gutting all energy subsidies, even those for green or alternative energy sources.

However, Leonard may be relying on will-o-wisps to support his further argument that the time for subsidy reform may have come. Specifically, he is hopeful that an alliance with the more libertarian, anti-government spending Tea Party types might actually provide the political clout to finally get the job done. And it’s a logical supposition based on the libertarian rhetoric of some of the new GOP legislators he quotes.

Alas, I’m a Missourian now, and in respect to optimistic hopes of beneficent, cooperative Tea Partiers, I offer two words: Vicky Hartzler. We all remember how Hartzler went to war during her campaign against government spending and interference – except for the corn subsidies that she and her husband receive and which she tried to rationalize as essential to national security. I can also pull up two more discouraging words: Roy Blunt. Coasting to a win with support of the Missouri Tea Party types, Blunt floated a jobs plan that was arguably little more than a giveaway to the very industry interests who most profit from tax subsidies.  Indeed, if you look at the GOP as a whole, within a month of election, thirteen new members of the House GOP appointed industry lobbyists to manage their offices. More such appointments have followed. I am very much afraid that Tea Party concern with government spending will stop when the money is not being directed to any of the various shades of undeserving poor who inhabit their fantasy “handout nation.”  

Nor are Harzler and her GOP confrères alone in their reluctance to make changes that come close to home or otherwise upset the fat cats who pay for campaigns. Senator McCaskill herself has stepped up to the plate to defend ethanol subsidies recently. If even McCaskill, who certainly knows the score, won’t walk the walk, I’m afraid we’ll have a long wait before we see significant reform.  

Today St. Luis Public radio KWMU broadcast our Missouri senatorial delegation’s somewhat muddled thoughts on the President’s proposed tax deal.

Claire McCaskill, as usual, says as little as possible as deliberatively as possible:

So, I’m gonna continue to drill down and look at it very carefully, make sure that what we are doing is very stimulative. Frankly, that extra bonus for the multimillionaires, that’s not very stimulative. If it were stimulative we would have had a lot of jobs created the last decade and we haven’t.

Let’s see … McCaskill’s going to have to “drill down” to figure out how stimulative giving a hundred thousand dollar minimum tax break to each American millionaire might be? Somebody should acquaint her with the fact that economists are already on the record that there’s little stimulus to be found in that quarter. It’s actually common knowledge, which is why the Republican rhetoric is so hilarious and will cost them dearly in the long run. And why isn’t she worried abut the effect on the deficit? This is a woman who opposed a program proven to be  stimulative, the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program, because it wouldn’t be “fiscally prudent.”

Kit Bond, on the other hand, sleepwalks it in:

And I expect if this bill goes through it is going to generate the jobs. And I think it is simple economics 101 and I am disappointed that some people don’t understand that. No jobs are created by raising taxes.

Glad to know that Kit’s got those expectations. Not likely to be realized though; as those of us who actually took economics 101 know, the relationship of tax policy to economic growth is just a little more complex than he realizes. Ample evidence exists that tax cuts don’t always create jobs – if they did, the Bush tax cuts would have done so over the ten years they were in force. Instead, after years of lack-luster performance, we are in a employment crisis.    

Interesting fact: Missouri has 55,000 households that earn over $200,000. It has around 280,000 unemployed. Whose spending do you think is going to do the most for the economy? Believe me, those 55,000 aren’t going to do that much to provide an alternative for the 280,000 who need jobs – real stimulus is the only thing that will do it.

Interesting question: Who are McCaskill and Bond working for? The 55,000 households that would see their tax on income over $250,000 increase? Or those of us who muddle along – including the 280,000 who won’t muddle along too much longer without continued unemployment subsidies. How much longer will we put up with pols who would even consider holding the welfare of the majority hostage to the welfare of their wealthy pals.

Later thoughts …. Reading this over, I am not sure that I made it clear that I think the problem is that our Senators are seriously considering a deficit-busting deal that would give away $133 billion in tax breaks to 4.8 million people on the GOP side, as opposed to $214 billion in tax breaks and other provisions to benefit 156 million people on Obama’s side. It costs too much for the amount of stimulus it will provide, it’s unfair to the working poor, and there are too many risky elements – setting a precedent for raiding Social Security payroll taxes, for one.

An elegant solution: let all the tax cuts expire, come back in 2011 and introduce legislation for a middle class tax cut and let the GOP oppose that if they dare! The only issue that gives me any pause when I consider this suggestion is that of the unemployment benefits extension, but I truly believe that if they were willing to fight, the Democrats could get benefits extended for a lot less cost.  

Since I spent some time examining how Todd Akin (R-2) has tried to spin his support for extending the tax giveaways for the super-rich with his on-going hectoring about deficits, I thought I would mosey over to look at the response to the issue by another Missouri GOP favorite, Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-9).  And guess what I found out? Good old, by-by-the-GOP-rule-book Blaine is hewing close to the Crossroads GPS strategy outlined earlier today – feign outrage and talk lots and lots about jobs, small businesses and the recession:

Today is a disappointing day for our job-creating small business owners, who are greatly affected by the job-killing tax increases that Democrats support, which will take effect in less than a month. Today’s job-destroying vote will continue to subject our small businesses to damaging tax hikes, which will only perpetuate the ongoing uncertainty that small business folks have been dealing with for months. My pledge to the people of the 9th District was to oppose all tax increases and to cut spending during these tough economic times. …

Once again, loud and clear – Blaine Luetkemeyer voted for tax increases for 98% of the American taxpayers, and his “pledge” to oppose “all” tax increases amounts to a willingness to sacrifice that 98% for the sake of those with enough of the green to fork over the big campaign moolah. Nothing more, nothing less.

But Luetkemeyer is right in line with the recommendations suggested by Glen Bolger in a Crossroad GSP GPS funded report on how to obfuscate those facts: Pretend, despite clear evidence to the contrary, that the tax giveaways for the wealthy would affect a majority of small businesses, and that they could have more than a minimal stimulative effect in general. He also deftly uses Bolger’s suggested ploy of conflating the tax giveaways for the wealthy with the middle class tax cuts put forward by the Democrats, creating an image of himself as a fighter for equal treatment for all, even those who have had an unequal advantage for the past eight years at least.

Just in case anyone’s inclined to take the equality bait, it is useful to look at this chart (source: The Joint Committee on Taxation, via Ezra Klein) that shows just how unequal the middle tax cuts vs. the wealthy tax giveways really are:

Somehow makes Luetkemeyer’s (and Akin’s) rhetoric about about extending the tax cuts for all “equally” seem just a little hollow.