Last updated on 2013.01.06
We Dems have our nominee, Matt Varilek, to take down Kristi Noem this November. One of the few major policy issues that differentiated Varilek from his primary challenger, Jeff Barth, was extending the Bush tax cuts. Varilek says we need to finally let them die and patch the biggest hole in our ongoing deficits. Barth contended that our fragile economy couldn't handle a tax increase right now.
Economist and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich weighs in for Varilek: the Bush tax cuts didn't help the economy, and letting them die won't hurt:
Republicans say we shouldn't raise taxes on the rich when the economy is still in the dumps. This is a variation on their old discredited trickle-down economic theories. The fact is, the rich already spend as much as they're going to spend. Raising their taxes a bit won't deter them from buying, and therefore won't hurt the economy.
...Bush promised the tax cuts would more than pay for themselves in terms of their alleged positive impact on the economy. The record shows they didn't. Job growth after the Bush tax cuts was a fraction of the growth under Bill Clinton—even before the economy crashed in late 2008. And the median wage dropped, adjusted for inflation [Robert Reich, "Why We Have to Raise Taxes on the Rich and End the Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy (and Bill Clinton Agrees)," blog, 2012.06.06].
Matt, as we wait for Team Kristi to get back to you on debates, her to memorize the talking points for this year's debates, fill your brief book with Reich. Better yet, when you debate Kristi at the State Fair, just play this video from Reich.
Deficits crushing the middle class, wealthy paying record low tax rates, wealth concentrating at the top and stifling the middle-class spending that creates jobs... yup. That pretty much refutes 90% of the talking points Kristi will memorize for the debates.
Noem will have to stumble to lose: Varilek can't win the blue-hair vote critical to success in rural states like this one. He can't win the ranch vote. He can't win the male vote.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/election-forecast-obama-begins-with-tenuous-advantage/
Matt will lose the tourism vote. He'll split the ag vote, the public sector, the health care industry, and lawyers.
Young people and the service sector won't turn out, neither will tribes.
Noem wins more because of red state Obama angst than anything else.
Sorry to bum yer gig, Cory.
Yup. We probably backed the wrong horse. If Varilek's got a trick bag, he better start unpacking it, pronto. Having TJ, TD and GM think he's a nice kid just ain't gonna cut it. Let's see some fire in the belly.
Noems' weaknesses lie in her character and her ethics: pounding on those gives Matt a fighting chance and it will have to come from us...the 26%.
No need to apologize, Larry: you speak the truth, as does Bill, that we have some serious swinging to do. Character, ethics... let us also add an atrocious voting record. Varilek needs to wage a hard negative campaign... negative in pointing out that Noem has done nothing positive.
I'm a big believer in using strengths and not changing to hide glaring weaknesses. If Varilek starts breathing fire, it may backfire.
Barth may have been able to play chess, but beating Noem is going to require a poker player not a chess player.
I don't know if Varilek is a good poker player, but he seems to be able to stay cool. If he can find a way to put her on tilt and play his weaker hand better than she plays her admittedly stronger hand, he may be able to make the race interesting.
If one looks at 2008, Obama probably didn't win. McCain lost when he "suspended" his campaign to help "solve" the financial meltdown. He was on tilt and people saw him for what he is. Varilek needs to do the same to Noem.
Of course, I've never run for anything and couldn't sell a steak to a starving man, so Noem will probably win 80-20
Matt should move to capture the Ron Paul/Gary Johnson people: the young voters, the service sector and the tribes.
He needs more than that. Anybody can throw rocks at Kristi. We need to know that Matt's a fighter, not a follower. What's he going to do for South Dakota? Not what he thinks... what's he going to DO. Why should Troy Jones like him? And Schoenbeck? And Newland? And, yes, Nelson. Show us why he understands South Dakota, what we need and how hard he's gonna work to make it happen.
Agreed, Bill: Varilek needs to give folks a reason to vote for him, not just vote against Noem. But would you agree that the negative side of the campaign is a necessary part of the strategy?
Varilek could use the farm/food bill to his advantage: he won't carry industrial agriculture anyway so jettison them for sustainable food production.
Larry, profoundly useful 538 link. Looking at Romney's 98% chance of winning South Dakota, I wonder if any SD blog attention to the Presidental race is superfluous.
Yup. Kick ass and take names. Campaign like there's no tomorrow:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WflkuBweSYo
No cheap chots and snarky clever bullshit. Stand up and fight. Honest, hard, strong, no nonsense. That's what we need. Remember Barth's question "Aren't you sick of it?"
Yeah, we're sick of it, Congress.
Let's clean house, Matt.
Veterans and returning service members are huge in the state: reaching out to them shows universal good will. TriCare for all makes some sense if the individual mandate falls.
I really wish Robert Reich hadn't said "tax the rich because they can afford it". It sparks a deep ire in me (and no doubt many conservatives) when the rationale for taking property is "you don't need it."
Robert's argument that the rich aren't paying their fair share is enough. The fact that Warren Buffett and Mitt Romney are paying less in taxes as a percent of their income than I am is all the moral agency I need.
I want the rich to pay the same percent as me. No more. No less. If we should all be equal under the law, we should all be equal under the tax code. Only those so poor that paying their fair share would leave them destitute should get special consideration.
That said, I'll be voting for whomever runs against Noem this fall.
LK. We know Matt is smarter. But is he tougher? Will he fight for SD? Will he fight Obama if necessary. Fighter, or follower. That's what we need to know. But I agree, it's not about pounding on tables like Stace Nelson. It's about having the best ideas and knowing how to sell them. You and me and Troy are his first customers.
Reich was Labor Sec., not Treasury Sec.
Wayne, I'm with you on fairness. You recognize that straight mathematical percentage isn't a fair criterion for taxation at the lower end, since any arbitrary percentage hits the very poor much harder than the rest of us. By the same progressive token, Reich would likely argue that 20% out of your hide is a harder and thus less fair hit than 20% out of you when you finally become a multi-millionaire (as we all will, if we all just work hard and pray right like Mitt Romney and the American dream tell us we will, right?). The straight numerical percentage does not create fairness in taxation any more than saying that because my daughter is one-third my weight, she should eat only one-third as many calories.
That said, I'm glad we can count on your vote against Noem. Thank you, Wayne! The anyone-but-Noem vote won't win us the election... but it will get us some votes!
Doh! Thanks, Bob! Correction made!
Crisis? What crisis? The President just told us to go out and spend money. There ya have it.
"I really wish Robert Reich hadn’t said “tax the rich because they can afford itâ€."
Hard to say, "tax the poor because they can't fight back."
He needs to bone up on Paul Krugman's writing as well. Between Reich and Krugman, the Republican economic mythology falls apart even if like Zombies, those theories which never worked in practice keep being dragged back into political discussion because while they did not work as claimed, they did benefit narrow special interests.
My two cents might not mean much here because I have never run for public office. I have however sold several thousand dogs in my life, “some to people that didn’t really want a dog.†I don’t know if there is any relationship between the two or not but selling is selling if it’s a dog, ice, or prostituting yourself for money or public service. It is in that light that I give my suggestions to Matt for a possible win.
First, don’t run away from your principals. It doesn’t matter who or what organization you are talking to “walk the walk†don’t say what you think they want to hear. There are very few things that piss me off more then a person pandering to their audience knowing full well that they don’t believe what they are standing there saying.
Tell the truth as you know it to be and admit that you made a mistake as soon as you find out that what you have said wasn’t true. It happens all the time, a candidate says one thing and then we find out it wasn’t true then someone from their staff comes out and talks for an hour about how they had been misinformed. That’s bullshit. If the candidate said it they can sure as hell come out and admit what they said was wrong.
Answer every question that you are asked. I might get pissed off at someone pandering to their audience but one of the things that will make me refuse to vote for someone is their inability to look you straight in the face and answer the questions that they are asked. Not once have I listened to Kristi answer the question that she was asked, not one single time. She always answers some other question then the one that was asked. I would reference all the online stuff from the last election and put it all together for an add.
Be specific in your answers. I have to admit that sometimes it is as much the fault of the person asking the questions as the one giving the answers. Example, Kristi where did this horse shit come from? From the stables. Matt where did this horse shit come from? It came from the stud in stall 24 yesterday afternoon. Sorry about that but I know horse shit and I don’t know politics.
Its hard enough for the people of South Dakota to vote for a demarcate, you have to give a good reason to cross party lines, but it has been done. If you have to reinvent yourself for the election you wont win.
I have never voted a straight ticket in my life for one simple reason, the credibility of the candidates. This election will be like no other before it here in South Dakota. It will be won or lost because of the things that have been said in public and recorded either by a news outlet or on the net. Is there enough out there to get Matt elected? Who knows?
Do I have the answer? Nope, I'm just a man that can sell dogs to people that don’t really want them.
The Blindman
I have no illusions - there isn't a snowball's chance in Texas I'll ~make~ a million a year... My dream is to make enough so I can actually retire, live comfortably, and pass on enough to my progeny so they can have a better life than I had.
Kids have a preternatural sense of what is fair. If you get a bunch of kids together, and have them make cupcakes for a bake sale, then take away a certain percentage of cupcakes from each of them (for whatever arbitrary cupcake eating monster we need to create to justify taking cupcakes), it's pretty easy to justify - we took away the same percent... Jill made 10, so she gets 2 taken away; Bobbi-Jo made 20 and was taxed 4. But it takes a lot more persuasion to tell Susie that, since she made 150 cupcakes, she needs to cough up 60 because she doesn't need as many.
How is it fair that Susie, who produced more, had to give up a greater percentage? It makes sense to help out Billy, whose batch was ruined when he tripped and fell and only managed to produce 3 cupcakes...
***
The essential dialectic is a confrontation between "Need" and "Deserve"
If we base a system of taking away from people based on excess, we make a tacit claim that they deserve less of what they earned. I'm not comfortable saying that my boss, who makes considerably more than what I do, is entitled to less of what she earned because she needs less of it; she's earned that money through hard work and a lifetime of experience. The government should be entitled to the same percentage of her income as it is mine.
WayneB-
I forget the exact quote, but we live in a society that provides all kinds of services such as roads to transport cupcake making materials, police to make sure that other monsters don't come and eat some of your other cupcakes, and firefighters to come and put out your now flaming stove if you leave your cupcakes in too long. You were only able to make your cupcakes because of those around you. You and your cupcake making kitchen do not exist in a vacuum. You should feel, and are, lucky to be one of the few that gets to make cupcakes. Not everyone gets to do so. Perhaps I, strictly due to luck, am only able to make oatmeal cookies and will never be able to taste the sweet that is a cupcake.
Your kids may also be lucky that you plan to provide for them. Perhaps they will be able to make cupcakes strictly because you will provide for them. Why should your kids get to makes cupcakes while mine will only ever get to make oatmeal cookies?
We like to believe that we get out of life however much we are "worth". This isn't the case. If you are given a lot as a child you will automatically get more through out life. I believe that we need a progressive tax structure to attempt to give those that don't much in their early life a chance to also be successful. Without it we will (and are currently!) develop a permanent underclass.
Any flat tax structure automatically leads to an underclass. Whoever gets ahead first stays ahead forever.
I like the cupcake analogy. I'd like to add a bit to it:
Jill looks at her 8 cupcakes, and sees that they cover a part of the table. She can recognize that there are plenty of cupcakes for one child. Bobbi Jo sees that her 16 cover an ever bigger part of the table. She is satisfied. Then Susie sees her 90 cupcakes entirely covering a different table, and claps her hands in glee!
Nah, I doubt that Susie will feel she has been cheated. She has worked hard and is justly rewarded.
It's a good analogy. On the other hand:
Jill has baked 10 cupcakes, and gets to keep 8. Bobbi Jo bakes 20 cupcakes and gets to keep 16. Susie hasn't done a damn thing, but a couple of servers bring in 150 cupcakes for her, and she gets to keep every one of them because she has baked lots of cupcakes in the past.
Uh, I don't think they are going to like that.
Or perhaps Susie breaks a fingernails while baking, so she gets to keep 120 cupcakes due to depreciation. The others aren't going to like that either.
Get my drift?
Bishop, you took and twisted that metaphor pretty hard to make Susie into some heiress rather than an industrious cupcake maker... if you have to make the super rich out to be lazy contemptuous slobs in order to be able justifying taking a greater percentage of their money, then I contend your position is based on envy rather than civic justice.
Tell my why Susie, who personally baked 150 cupcakes, should have a greater proportion of her proceeds taken away than the less industrious.
Tony's got a much better argument going. Of course nothing is in a vacuum, and all but those incapable of contributing should contribute to the infrastructure that protects our society. But should someone who has done well, either by luck or by diligence, be forced to contribute at a greater rate than the person who didn't do as well? Should they contribute more than the person who says "good enough for government work" and never gives their all?
I don't disagree that we need to provide every reasonable opportunity to get ahead - especially through excellent education and affordable means to get to college. But I don't think we need a progressive tax structure to do it. It's about deciding where to allocate resources... something our government is very bad at.
We haven't seen what a flat tax structure would do - we've not had one. The "progressive" tax structure we have no is only progressive for the middle class. The wealthy get all sorts of outs because they can buy them.
I have every problem with Mitt Romney paying only 14% of his income to the government. I also don't think he should be giving 70-90% of everything above $150,000 he makes to the Fed.
The problem is compounded because there are plenty of taxes you and I pay which don't give a hoot about our ability to pay - property taxes, sales taxes, etc. I say
Wayne, think of it this way.
If you make $70,000 and are taxed 25% of your income, that drops you down to $52,000, which is, compared to how much you're making, much less. 25% less, obviously, but more than that, $20,000 is enough to buy a decent car in a year for your family, or to pay quite a few big bills that need to be paid. You can send your kid to school with it. You can help your kid when he can't find a job after graduating.
Alternatively, if you make $3,000,000 a year and you're taxed 35% (assuming you're actually making that, and it's not mostly investments), your after-tax income is $1,950,000. That's more, in both percentage and in dollars, but how much of that is going back in to society? The $20,000 from the middle-class guy is going mostly to benefit things (his family might need a car, because their old one is a piece of crap, or his kid might need money because, as I said before, he can't find a job after graduating). There's no actual, real use for $195,000,000 every year, except for that guy to invest (and make more money to no one's benefit) or to buy a yacht or some such.
As has been said many times before, everyone owes back to society. The debt everyone owes to society, in fact, can't be paid back in full. The cost of a person using roads, public schools, etc., plus depending on other people to use roads, public schools, etc., is much more than that person, or anyone, will ever pay in taxes in their life. The fact is, as a society, we all get together to afford these things, like a family getting together to buy something they need. The wealthy have benefited more from society than anyone else (they couldn't have gotten where they are without the work of thousands of people lower down the ladder), and so they should pay the most. Not only that, but they can afford to pay more. It's everyone's responsibility to pay taxes, and, like Spiderman says, "with great power comes great responsibility". If you have more money, you have a larger responsibility to pay back to the society that got you to where you are today.
Good Carter. That's about as clear as I've ever seen that laid out. Thanks for it.
Here's one way to drive oil prices down to stimulate the economy during the summer driving season: eesh.
I think that SD Democrats have put ourselves in a pretty tough position. I supported Barth because at least he could attack Kristi. Matt has run as a nice, sensible guy who is also progressive. That means that 35% of this state will vote for him. However, when he doesn't support progressive ideas (MARRIAGE EQUALITY) he loses a lot of the energy around his campaign. And any sort of back an forth with Kristi will only make him seem less friendly. He needs a campaign that can make this all about character without him doing anything that looks like a mean attack. There is also the gender problem, attacking Noem will always be hard to do for a male candidate because it is a slightly finer line to walk. Matt should just try to meet every voter in the state and run a real grassroots campaign.
Recent Reich: Regressives destroying US constitution.
http://robertreich.org/post/25903259668