Conservative Media Shout "Class Warfare" To Defend Tax Breaks On Corporate Jets
The right-wing media responded with outrage after President Obama called on Congress to eliminate tax breaks on corporate jets in order to help stave off a default crisis -- accusing Obama of waging "class warfare."
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"Class Warfare": Right-Wing Media Figures Object To Rolling Back Tax Breaks For Corporate Jets
Fox's Bolling: Focusing On Corporate Tax Breaks Was "Not Fair" And "Was A Class Warfare." Commenting on Obama's press conference, Fox Business host Eric Bolling said that Obama "talked yesterday about corporate jets, hedge fund managers, oil companies, saying if they're not willing to give up their corporate jets than poor community college kids weren't going to be able to go to school, and God forbid we don't have a National Weather Service. That's not fair." Bolling further said, "It was a class warfare he set up, and it was completely off base. If we really just bring some entitlement spending in line and you can fix it." [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/30/11]
Dobbs: Obama's Speech Was "Straightforward Class Warfare." On his Fox Business show, Lou Dobbs said, "Did you hear the president today talking about millionaires, billionaires, and corporate jets? I mean, that's straightforward class warfare." [Fox Business, Lou Dobbs Tonight, 6/29/11]
Limbaugh: "Obama Once Again Cranking Up The Class Warfare." Playing a clip of President Obama's press conference, Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show:
LIMBAUGH: Here is Obama with corporate jet owners in the crosshairs again -- and remember, now, it was just last week, the USA Today ran a story about how the corporate jets were starting to fly again, corporate jet owners were utilizing the aircraft. It was a sign! USA Today so happy! It was a sign of economic recovery. Today in his press conference, Obama once again cranking up the class warfare.
[...]
RUSH: This is just -- dangerous is what this is. This is full-fledged demagoguery, and we're listening to this from the chief architect of the destruction of this economy. And once again, pitting groups of Americans against each other. One group -- his aim is for one group of Americans to hate and despise another group. What? What are you - well, that's what he's banking on: he's banking on that most Americans will agree with him because this is fair, and to a certain extent there's some Americans who will agree with it. [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 6/29/11]
Beck: Obama "Launched An Unprecedented Class Warfare" On The "Private Jet Class." On his radio program, Glenn Beck accused Obama of singling out "the private jet class." Beck said:
Once again, yesterday, Barack Obama showed his sheer, unadulterated disgust for the wealthy, the successful, and anyone who's ever tried to do anything with their life here in America. He disparages them. Big business he disparages, of all kinds, every chance he gets. He has launched an unprecedented class warfare in this country, and the media remains silent. [Premiere Radio Networks, The Glenn Beck Program, 6/30/11]
Drudge: "Obama Launches Class Warfare." The Drudge Report displayed the following headline in a link to a National Journal story about Obama's press conference:
[Drudge Report, 6/30/11, cached version]
RedState: Obama Went "Straight For The Class Warfare Jugular." From a post to the conservative blog RedState:
Barack Obama has once more taken a major crisis and turned into a campaign prop. The entire debate on the debt ceiling is one big false choice now. We can have a $25Tr national debt in 10 years and feed the children, or all we really care about is rich people with private jets. And let me be clear, we're talking rich, corporate people with private jets. Like Al Gore for example.
Leave it to a liberal to go straight for the class warfare jugular when they have no valid point whatsoever. [RedState, 6/29/11]
In case you haven't noticed, class warfare has been happening for a couple of decades ow and while those at the top have lobbed round after round on those less fortunate, we have been idly sitting by hoping things will improve. It is well past time we start pushing back a little and insist on a little fairness in the system.
Unsuccessful people clamoring to take from those they envy.
How many kids could have gone to college with the $800,000 dollars Michelle Obama just spent going to Africa?
Oh yeah, and her private jet is bigger than 99% of corporate jets.
Whining & jealous losers.
Are you referring to your whining about Michelle Obama ? Yeah, you really do sound like a jealous loser.
/snark/
It's ridiculous to suggest that she shouldn't get to do stuff while she's married to the President. It's ridiculous to assert that she's not an asset for the USA.
Probably a lot less than could have gone with the trillions that the "successful" bankers took throught unapologetic fraud.
Shadow sword or Cloudy sword.
Here's a better handle for him:
Anaboko-Ketsu
Randy
President Obama went to India to secure business deals.
President Obama has been to many place to improve US relations. First Lady Michelle Obama is doing the same.You think that $800 000 is a problem try $3.9 trillion as thr estimated cost for thr two wars, then add in $2.9 trillion in tax cuts for the rich. So in ten years ( 2000 to 2010) we wasted $7 trillion. You penny wise and pound foolish my friend...
Are you paying for people's education, other than through taxes? Are you investing in the future of America, or are you simply taking? What are you doing to make this a better place? Just curious.
A classic example of veiled class warfare is how the right blames Barney Frank, and by default poor people, for the housing bubble. Oddly, it was mostly well to do white people that lost their investments from that crisis. Ohh and it was created by Goldman Sachs..AIG...Lehman Brothers, etc...The idea was to blame Acorn, who by the way had very few people lose their houses because they advised them PROPERLY.
If you look at Greece and its economic troubles, the current problems stems from investment companies , like Goldman Sachs. these companies helped to hide the Greek debt problem in teh early 1990's and then lured investors. I will say in teh last 200 years Greece has been in default on its debt for 50 of those years.
blah..blah...
But you want to save $800k by putting Michelle Obama under house arrest?
Not very strong with numbers, are you?
Do as I say, not as I do!
Let them eat (fat) cake!
No belt tightening in the Obama Admin. That's for the others to do!
Heads of State travel to secure business deals and to promote peaceful relations. I guess Presiddent Obama should sell the Whitehouse and move into a more "eco-friendly house", and trade in the armored limo for a Prius?
Pilot you obviously listen to Rush and think you are smart because you read Ann Coulter.
I'm guessing you really don't get that the President represents our country and uses those TOOLS to promote our country.
I don't envy you.
You possess nothing I want, and I would have to sacrifice most of what makes me human to meet you on your level.
You lot are possessed by fear and motivated by ignorance.
BOTTOM LINE: Anyone who doesn't make $300,000+ a year and votes Republican is either clinically psychotic or functionally retarded. (And the rest are just greedy. Rational, perhaps. But still greedy.)
Get a brain, moran.
No one achieves their success in a vaccuum.
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IMHO
UTOPIA
most south american countries. Protect the very rich no matter what and to hell with the middle class. In countries like Ecuador, there is no middle class, just a very few rich and millions of very very poor.
Rush Limbaugh is the biggest fat ass there is. He swears he is patriotic.From what I have seen he is the most treasonist person I have seen. He will twist any story or any fact to fit his warped sense of how things work, all to keep bringing money into his own pocket. Don't ever forget, that is his whole soul purpose. The best way to take him is to realize that the truth is exactly the opposite of what he proclaims.
The Republican party had best get their act together and recognize that in order to fix the fiscal quandry we are in from the previous president's credit card wars and credit card taxbreaks for the rich is to judiciously cut spending and at the same time increase revenues by taxing those who can most afford it. The tea baggers and their extremism is on the verge of their own self-destruction taking the grand old party of Abe Lincoln with it unless repubs wake up. And don't give me this crap that I've heard now since the Reagan years that the 'rich' create jobs. They don't create a damn thing. Only we the people with our market demands for goods and services CREATE JOBS.
Demand for goods and services only come from the masses when they have money to spend.
Blabb radio needs to take a hard look at China. China invested a far higher precentage of their GDP into a GOVERNMENT stimulus program to jump start their economy out of the recent past recession with great success. ... did you get that .. .COMMUNIST CHINA has beat the so-called 'free market' economies of the western world in getting out of the recession.
Last but not least tax revenues in the USA are currently less of a percentage of GDP than they have been for the past SIXTY YEARS!!! Get it, you have to go back to 1951 to reach a time when tax revenues in the united states took such a small percentage of GDP.
WAke up republicans, YOU have to get off your 'no tax' pledge to fix the current problems.
I hope you grow a brain some day and realize how STUPID you are. What a useful idiot. I am pretty sure Obama knows better than to make the suck up to the rich argument that YOU were brainwashed with
I hope you grow a brain some day and realize how STUPID you are. What a useful idiot. I am pretty sure Obama knows better than to make the suck up to the rich argument that YOU were brainwashed with
I hope you grow a brain some day and realize how STUPID you are. What a useful idiot. I am pretty sure Obama knows better than to make the suck up to the rich argument that YOU were brainwashed with
Middle class people supporting these rich bastard's luxurious lifestyles while they exploit their labor force and puch the tax burden back onto the middle class?
GOOD OLD, ALL-AMERICAN CAPITALISM.
Pointing that out?
CLASS WARFARE
Screw these bastards. The benefits of their success tsopped accruing to the rest of the coutry back with Ronald W. Reagan. They've betrayed they American Workforce, abandodned their responsibilities to the American Economy, and are in outright revolt against any part of the Government they can't buy.
There isn't much that's wrong with this country that can't be 99% fixed by eliminating corporatism.
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IMHO
UTOPIA
With tax break after tax break showered on the wealthy these past 30 years (so the top 1% now receive 20% of all national income - they took home 10% of national income in 1980), did these conservative clowns ever scream class warfare?
Hell no!! All we heard was: "on't worry, it'll trickle down."
Bush gets big tax breaks for wealthy people. Ask for some of that back? CLASS WARFARE!
The stimulus included tax breaks for jets. Want to roll back some tax breaks now? CLASS WARFARE!
The pattern is clear.
Why is it unamerican to help a fellow american? What is written on the statue of liberty, "give us your poor, your huddled masses,...'
Are we now a country that is afraid to help one another for fear that we may lose some of what we have.
I don't seem to hear the self made wealthy complaining, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates made their fortunes and are sharing it in philanthropic ways. The Koch brothers are using money made by their father and trying to expand their wealth by exploitation. Glenn and Rush have made their money at the expense and exploitation of others. They are the fear mongers.
My irony meter exploded.
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Left Hook!
http://lefthooktheblog.blogspot.com/
Limbaugh admired Dobler and built his radio shtick on a Dobler principle. Dobler would get between 2 guys on the opposing team and say something like, "Do you know what he said about your mother?" This resulted in arguments and dissension, which helped Dobler.
Limbaugh built a fortune getting working class guys to think another guy (usually just another working stiff) was getting a break at his expense, causing them to argue. The politics of envy.
Long ago Limbaugh could be heard in the SF Bay area broadcasting from Sacramento. In those days he wasn't a shill for billionaires, banksters and frauds like Ken Lay of ENRON.
Argument was the gentle side of Dobler. He was also a dirty player.
Oil subsidies have a kinda lame passable argument on exploratory matters. Big corporations can theoretically create jobs with their billions extra. Those are at least talking points. Rather pathetic and not based in reality, but at least SOME talking point.
Corporate jets? Yeah. Good luck on that, guys. Obama can (and should) run with that to no end. I'm actually kind of annoyed such a thing exists at all and has been left intact.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43585244/ns/local_news-wichita_ks/t/obamas-comment-corporate-jets-angers-local-leaders/
Corporate Jet Expert Tells Us The Truth About Getting Rid Of That Tax Break
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-the-corporate-jet-tax-break-really-means-2011
Corporate Jet Tax Barely Nicks Deficit
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-29/jet-tax-break-cited-six-times-by-obama-would-cut-debt-by-about-3-billion.html
FLASHBACK: AP: Stimulus includes tax break to promote private jet sales
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/06/flashback-ap-stimulus-includes-tax-break-promote-private-jet-sale
The only problem is, the tax break for corporate jet owners -- they get to depreciate their purchases two years faster than commercial jet owners -- is worth about $3 billion over 10 years. During that time, the deficit is projected to be $7.2 trillion.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/06/obama-targets-corporate-jets-hedge-funds-big-oil/1
Mr Obama has latched on to the corporate tax break on jets. They get a better depreciation schedule on jets then do the airlines. He attributes this tax break as favoring corporations. He is half right.
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-628902?ref=feeds%2Flatest
Do a Google search and you will see that once again MMFA is obsessing over what "Conservative Media is saying while giving a free pass to the Mainstream Media that is almost universally putting the onus on Obama for getting a "deal" with Repubicans, but none on Republicans themselves.
Unbelievably useless.
John
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If you are referring to this mission statement:
Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.
You are probably a newbee:
Here is an archive to select from. Choose any date before 2008.
http://web.archive.org/web/20060410075421/http://mediamatters.org/
For example:
http://wayback.archive.org/web/20070101000000*/http://mediamatters.org
Conservative misinformation is and was spread throughout the entire Mainstream Media. Back then, MMFA was denied access to the Mainstream Media because they fairly exposed what they were and still are doing to spread conservative misinformation. Once MMFA let them off the hook starting ( 2008-2009) to obsess over their competitor (Fox News) they were welcome on CNN, NBC, CBS, and ABC. They sold out.
John
Only edit I would make is to replace word "misinformation" with the correct word disinformation.
Misinformation is if they claim the Federal deficit is $14 trillion. Oops, it's the Federal debt that's $14 trillion.
Disinformation is when they claim "Obama is doubling the federal debt," which Heritage did falsely claim.
They claim Bush left office with $5.8 trillion in debt - when it was $10.2 trillion.
Look at what's happened today: there are probably more new items posted to this site today than on any single day in years, but they don't deal with the sorts of things papajohn lists. Instead, these new items are overwhelmingly focused on Glenn Beck, a reactionary clown and marginal freak whose show is ceasing to exist.
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Left Hook!
http://lefthooktheblog.blogspot.com/
You are a LIAR. You are stupid and brainwashed. STFU till you grow a brain
That would be a vast majority of this country.
Moron. You arent paying jack. I most likely put out more in TIPS than you pay in taxes
No they don't. Otherwise, why haven't they been doing that since 2000 when the tax cuts were made?
OMG California is now the 8th largest economy in the world and its the fault of those libs like Schwarzenegger.
You are a LIAR and incredibly stupid. First Californias economy is STILL the 8th largest in the world. Second it GOT that way through liberal policies. Cal has been a liberals state since at least the thirties. They almost elected an outright SOCIALIST as governor Upton Sinclair. They had Two Governor Browns both liberals. Dems have controlled the state houses since forever, we have had two Dem Senators for decades. My GOD but you are too stupid to be communicated with.
Can someone help me understand why average-income Americans need to worry about this?
Why do the nutjobs hate reducing the deficit so much?
Of all the ridiculous ironies in this article, this one stuck out at me the most. I would say becoming an attorney, a senator and the effing President of the United States of America is a pretty good example of somebody that tried to do something with their life and became successful. They do also realize that the Obamas would fit into the bracket of those that will pay higher taxes, don't they? These people have gone straight from ridiculous speed to ludicrous speed.
http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105
For our purposes here, though, this sorry state of affairs is merely the context for what Republicans have adopted; the ever-festering sore they propose to "treat" by making infinitely worse. In the up-is-down, black-is-white world of Bubble People "conservatism," this "treatment" is not to be labeled "class warfare." Standing against it is what gets one so designated.
It's that selective "conservative" use of the concept of "class warfare." Nearly every congressional Republican has just voted for the Ryan plan. This makes the Bush tax cuts permanent, then brings in a whole slew of new tax cuts for the rich on top of them, including eliminating taxes on interest, dividends, and capital gains (capital gains alone make up 75% of the taxable, non-sheltered income of the wealthy per year), reduces the top income tax rate from 35% to 25% (lower than it has been since prior to the Great Depression), maintains various huge tax loopholes for corporations (including $40 billion/year for Big Oil), and so on. Over $4 trillion in cuts, nearly all of them going to the wealthy. At the same time, the Ryan plan eviscerates Medicare, and slashes spending on various other programs--all together, nearly 2/3 of the cuts it would enact are to programs that help the poor and eldery (mostly Medicare).
This--genuine, raw, nowhere-to-run-or-hide class warfare, by any serious definition--is not what is contemplated by conservatives when they use the phrase "class warfare."
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Left Hook
http://lefthooktheblog.blogspot.com/
Get the Middle Class fighting each other over scraps while wealthy siphon more and more money to their pockets.
Laughing all the way to the bank never applied more than now.
Randy
Let's eliminate all the "Bush" tax cuts and add about $3 Trillion over the decade, plus $500 Billion in cuts and see where we are.
Some of us remember when Reagan agreed to a tax increase in the 80s with the "promise" from Congress to cut the budget about $2 for every $1 increase in revenue. Only the revenue side of that equation was ever enforced and I'll leave it to all to guess which side that was.
Is that you, Luntz? Perhaps Ailes? Perhaps Murdoch? Doesn't matter. You've sort of tipped your hand here, showing just how much media is actually under your control, and you've also provided evidence that at least some of the media in this country is all guided by the same mind.
Less surprising is how few in the supposedly liberal media are willing to point out that, yes the corporate share of income tax is way down, and yes the share the wealthy pay is also way down. If you're rich, it's time to pay up after 30 years of graft. Too bad, so sad.
Throughout 99.99% of human history, poor people have had the jackboot of rich folk on their neck. Through the miracle of democracy, the poor and middle class now have the power to enact policy to shift the power imbalance back. You can call it class warfare, if that floats your boat. I'll just call it what it is: payback.
The media is composed mostly of highly paid (millionaires) and owned by even more highly paid (billionaires) who want to protect their tax cuts and lifestyle while asking us to give up life-saving medical care, food, shelter, transportation, etc.
They talk about priorities, but it's clear their priorities are protecting themselves and their bank accounts at our expense.
Who's really conducting class warfare?