Up Is Down, Fat Is Lean January 25, 2012March 26, 2017 Thanks to James Musters for these first two items: Click here to see how long it takes Mitt to earn what you earn in a year. If you enter $45,000, the answer is “18 hours, 11 minutes and 53 seconds.” Which is some combination of his skill and hard work, on the one hand, and – possibly – a system that rewards people who do what he does more heavily than it should . . . and taxes them more lightly than it should. Click here to read about a governor (Democrat, I’m sorry to say), who cut funding for education to preserve tax breaks for a creationist theme park. It’s from Forbes, and includes a fascinating 4th Century passage from St. Augustine. Turns out, vaguely similar mistakes were being made 1700 years ago. GIVE . . . ME . . . A . . . BREAK John Boehner on NBC Nightly News before the President’s speech: “Well, you know, the big problem is this: The President’s policies have failed. And I’m afraid based on everything I’m hearing about tonight’s speech that he’s going to offer more of the same: higher taxes, more spending, more regulation. His policies have not helped the economy; I’d argue they’ve made it worse.” Let me break that down: << The President’s policies have failed. >> No, the President’s policies, to the extent the Republicans allowed any of them to take effect, did not fail. We are not in a Depression, the auto industry did not collapse, 3 million private sector jobs have been created over 22 straight months, manufacturing is up. (Morale in the military was not disrupted by allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly; the effort in Libya worked at minimal cost in lives and treasure; we’re significantly importing less oil. And on and on.) << And I’m afraid based on everything I’m hearing about tonight’s speech that he’s going to offer more of the same: higher taxes, more spending, more regulation. >> Higher taxes would be more of the same? Hardly! He cut taxes on 98% of working Americans; he cut taxes 17 or 18 different ways on small business. More regulation would be more of the same? Hardly! He enacted fewer regulations in his his first 3 years than Bush did in his first three; and has, as noted here, moved to cut dumb regulations. More spending would, I suppose, be “more of the same” – but it’s exactly what we need now: spending on infrastructure and research and education and alternative energy to put people back to work, get the economy growing again, and renew our economy to succeed in the 21st Century. << His policies have not helped the economy; I’d argue they’ve made it worse. >> In the year before Obama’s policies went into effect (which naturally did not happen the day he was sworn in), we lost about 8 million jobs. In the years since, we have not only stopped losing jobs, we’ve gained about 3 million private sector jobs. How is that worse? Up is down, fat is lean – “by far the vast majority” of George W. Bush’s tax cuts went to “people at the bottom end of the economic ladder.” It’s hard to see how John Boehner and his party do the country any good by saying these ridiculous things.