Reality based community? The Progressives? Ha!

Given what has been going on here in NH the last couple of weeks, I didn’t want to take the time to respond to this nuttiness from Dean over at Blue Hampshire (where the post was really about Healthcare):

My favorite part of this is not how he skillfully and willfully ignores how his buddy Judd used reconciliation to jam tax cuts for the wealthiest down the throats of the rest of us.

The "Progressives" keep throwing that around as if it were true – I have YET to see one of them, including Dean, actually show that this is true. The best they can do is to say "the rich got $xx,xxx back per year.  Of COURSE they did – the ABSOLUTE dollar number is higher on the same percentage of taxes if you are rich than if you are poor (10% of $20K is $2K; 10% of $2,000,000 is $200,000).

And Dean should know better – he’s a teacher (and I assume they can still do simple math correctly).

I’ve been blogging about taxes for a long time (try this and that and that for starters); the actual number to look at, review, study, and analyze are not hard to get…

But here’s the questions for Dean and all of the other Progressives that have been whining forever about who pays taxes:

Who earned the money in the first place?  And why are you so envious of those who earn more than you in the first place – why do you want to punish them by taking away THEIR PRIVATE PROPERTY?

For that is what is being done – the money they earn is theirs, first and foremost.  Why can’t we all be equal and all pay the same percentage to the government?  Why do you want to discriminate against a special class of people (heh!)?

Anyways, since Dean doesn’t want to listen to me, In My Copious Free Time has another way of putting it (was actually responding to the slam that Obama gave to the Tea Party participants, but it fits here as well and emphasis is mine):

And while we’re at it, let’s stop pretending that your $400 tax cut is actually a "tax cut." Because a tax cut means taking less of someone’s money. It doesn’t mean refunding money to people who don’t even owe any income tax, which your $400 "tax credit" does. Even if you justify giving out this money by saying that those people still owe payroll tax, this is still a transfer payment, not a cut in their payroll tax, and transfer payments need to be paid for — either by raising taxes in some other area or by borrowing still more money. Even the Congressional Budget Office scores these credits as "direct spending." A serious conversation would admit this.

Let’s also stop justifying your policies by pretending that under the Bush administration, only the wealthy received tax cuts. Millions of people who previously had owed federal income tax each year ended up owing no federal income tax at all after the Bush tax cuts. Middle-income earners paid lower federal taxes under President Bush than they did under President Clinton. I know I did, and I’m far from wealthy. Not to mention that lowering the bottom rate from 15% to 10% is hardly a tax cut for the wealthy. If you want to argue that the wealthy got more than their share, then go ahead and make that case, but frankly, I’m tired of being told by any member of the "reality-based community" that I never received a tax cut under the Bush administration. And a serious conversation wouldn’t ask me, "Who are you going to believe? The words on my teleprompter, or your lying checkbook?"

Let’s also note the irony of touting a $400 tax credit as a major boost to families and the economy, Mr. President, when during the campaign, your own wife dismissed the $600 stimulus payments with the phrase "What can you do with that?" A serious conversation might include some explanation about how a payment of $200 less suddenly became so much more effective and meaningful.

(H/T: Instapundit)