PROOF that tax cuts do not create jobs: Bush’s decade was a lost decade for U.S. economy, workers (via Under the Mountain Bunker)

I always thought that once supply side economics failed in the 1980’s, the idea would be dead. That was a major miscalculation on my part. The idea that cutting taxes raises revenue is so much fun for some people, that facts do not inconvenience them.

James Pilant

PROOF that tax cuts do not create jobs: Bush's decade was a lost decade for U.S. economy, workers From the Washington Post: There has been zero net job creation since December 1999. No previous decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent. Economic output rose at its slowest rate of any decade since the 1930s as well. Middle-income households made less in 2008, when adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1999 — and the number is sure to have declined further during a difficult 2009. The Aughts were the first decade … Read More

via Under the Mountain Bunker

Policy failures of the GOP: the debt could disappear if the rich paid taxes at 1960s levels (via Under the Mountain Bunker)

Well, yeah. I knew that.

James Pilant

Is anyone surprised by this? Yet discussion of increasing tax revenues from the wealthy and corporations is off the table,  no compromise, according to the teaparty Republicans. If Corporations And The Rich Paid Taxes At The Same Level As The 1960s, The Debt Would Disappear … [Institute for Policy Studies’ (IPS) Sam] Pizzigati cites an IPS paper from last spring to make the argument that if corporations and households making more than $1 millio … Read More

via Under the Mountain Bunker

NOAA Makes It Official: 2011 Among Most Extreme Weather Years in History (via madaboutthenews)

Facts are facts. Whether about evolution or climate change, the data is going to just keep accumulating in ever larger stacks of hard to ignore facts.

It’s getting hotter. Now, tornadoes are not very get indicators of climatic change – too many variable. Hurricanes are a little better but not much. The best indicators are average temperatures over time and weather volatility.

However, with the rise of “intelligent design,” more and more science is a matter of opinion. Thus, the United States is gradually losing that key part of the democratic process, critical thinking. If we don’t like what science or history or sociology says, we just get together with a few other disgruntled individuals and rewrite history or science. It’s easy. Pretend there is a controversy, and that you are God’s seekers after truth.

Will we be burning witches soon? Or giving faith healing status to collect insurance for services rendered? I don’t know. Let’s watch. The 14th century awaits.

James Pilant

NOAA Makes It Official: 2011 Among Most Extreme Weather Years in History Just past the halfway point, 2011 has already seen eight weather-related disasters in the U.S. that caused more than $1 billion in damagesAmplify’d from http://www.scientificamerican.comEXTREME WEATHER: Halfway through, 2011 has already seen eight weather-related disasters that caused more than $1 billion in damagesThe devastating string of tornadoes, droughts, wildfires and floods that hit the United States this spring marks 2011 as one of the mo … Read More

via madaboutthenews

John Ensign Ethics Report: Hot Off the Press (via NotionsCapital)

You should probably read the report and get your fill of the seamy side of capital hill. The combination of power and sexual access is intoxicating. It is hard to do the right thing when there is just so much money and so much temptation. That, of course, is not an excuse.

James Pilant

Special thanks to NotionsCaptital.

John Ensign Ethics Report: Hot Off the Press Adulterous Nevada Republican John Ensign resigned his U.S. Senate seat before the Senate Ethics Committee issued a report that would have led to his expulsion. The last time the U.S. Senate expelled a member: 1862. The Ensign ethics report is out, so add it to your summer reading list. Some may think it’s not a romance novel, but Mr. Ensign’s web of deceit involved a long-term affair with His Neighbor’s Wife (an employee and spouse of an employee … Read More

via NotionsCapital