Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) isn't exactly going out on top of his game. The far-right Arizonan is wrapping up his lengthy congressional career this year, but he's departing on the heels of several sour notes, which have made him appear, at various times, dishonest, confused, and obstinate.
But Travis Waldron noticed Kyl's remarks on the Senate floor yesterday, which were odd, even for him.
After calling President Obama's focus on the middle class "misguided and wrong and even dangerous," Kyl argued:
"[W]e have a president who talks incessantly about class, particularly the middle class (1). Maybe you've noticed that. He defines class strictly by your income (2). In the president's narrative, someone who makes $199,000 a year is a member of one class and someone who makes $200,000 belongs to another class. Does that make sense? (3) Indeed, each day the president's out on the campaign trail championing himself as the great protector of what he calls the middle class and pitting these Americans against their fellow citizens by arguing that the wealthiest class is victimizing them through the tax code (4)."
I've annotated the paragraph because it's a sentiment so strange, it's worth considering in more detail.
(1) The Senate Minority Whip is whining that the president talks too much about the needs of the middle class. As political criticisms go, I don't think I've ever heard this one, and I have a hunch Obama and his supporters hope other Republicans subject the president to the same attack.
(2) Well, when we're talking about economic classes, using income levels to help define different groups seems rather sensible.
(3) Does it "make sense" to set income plateaus to set income tax levels? Of course it does. Kyl himself has long supported different levels of taxation for different income groups.
(4) Obama has never said the wealthy are "victimizing" the middle class. As he too often does, Kyl made this up.
Still, I wouldn't be too surprised if the president inserted a new line into his stump speech: "A member of the Republican leadership complained recently that I'm too focused on the needs of the middle class. I plead guilty as charged."
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Mark Twain on class:
In New York they ask "how much money does he have?" In Philadelphia, they ask, "who were his parents?" In Boston they ask, "how much does he know?"
Republicans obsess over the first-money, but it is the latter pair that builds a nation.
Don’t kiss the Queen of England or touch her unless she extends her hand, what kind of nonsense is that. That so-called Queen isn’t any different than anybody else and is certainly not God. There can be a humorous antidote where in the movie 2012, if the people left over on the ships handed the Queen of England a pitch fork and told her to make herself useful now by shoveling out the animal stalls. Can you see the Queen of England actually doing some real work by shoveling crap out of a stall?
Does anything you say ever make sense, Deb? Do you actually know how to think? I think not. but it's always good for the rest of us to see a confused wingnut publicly display the fact they have no clue what they're saying.
Can you imagine Mitt Romney actually doing some real work? I see him standing there with the pitchfork, laughing that creepy nothing-funny laugh, and glancing around for one of the little people to do it for him...
Team Obama ought to just take the video of Kyl and slap an Obama campaign logo on the end and run it as a positive spot.
In other words: the president should care about the 1% so that the GOP can claim that he is out of touch with the middle class.
YES !! MORE of THIS, Please !!!
Someone in Arizona please contact Kyl through his web page and forward this to him.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/24/12927000-kyl-complains-obama-focuses-too-much-on-middle-class#comments
I'm sure Kyl meant none of this as a factual statement.
And I'm sure this will be his argument once the criticism starts rolling in.
Listen Steve, if you are going to make stuff up about people, at least make it believable. A politician beating up on another politician because he cares too much about the middle class? That's just crazy...
***Watches Video***
He really said that? I'm a bit speechless.
It's not just Kyl, it's all the republican's in the congress and senate.But of course they're not leaving so they ca'nt say how they really feel about the middle class.
The fact that the Republican Party has, over the last four years, become openly pro-plutocracy, pro-kleptocracy and anti-democratic, that they just stand there and straight up say so in as many words, and yet the majority of independent voters simply refuse to believe that they could actually be that way is the the most devestating harbinger of decline I know of. Tell people in a focus group what's in the Ryan plan and they say "awww, you're just makin' that up." Tell people that they deliberately manufactured a "crisis" where none had existed before despite clear warnings that it would damage the economy and they say "both sides are at fault."
Show them this, and they shrug it off as more #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement stuff.
When the GOP coastal citizen's are standing arse deep in seawater, will they cry that no one warned them about sea level rise? Of course they will, and the GOP leadership will somehow blame the Dems.
I actually think Kyl was trying to make a point about $199,000 vs. $200,000. Yes, the number is arbitrary, but tax code has to have cut-off points for the different tax brackets. But since the higher rate only applies to the income above that point, it's not like there is a bright line between the "classes."
And Kyl knows this. So he is doing a bad job of trying to make a class-warfare argument that he knows is false.
Yeah, time to hang up your spurs.
Yep 199 - 200 is just a few more Sundays in church or trips to the donation box.
Kyl is gone, right? Retiring, right? So why is he trying to emphasize that government is for the benefit of the rich, not the middle and lower classes?
I think he's angling for some $$ from the Kochs, Heritage or other big bucks guys whose aim is to keep the government they bought from changing direction.
Wow. That's a winner. Attack the engine that drives this nation. Nothing like our daily insult from a Republican.
Further proof that my great-grand-uncle who worked for Harry Truman was right 6 years ago when he said "the only 'good Republicans' are pushing up daisies." They have ALWAYS been like this.
#notintendedtobeafactualstatement
I think the problem is Obama is not playing by the republican rules.
Democrats are supposed to raise taxes on everyone so that republicans can say Democrats don't care about the middle class (and are only out to help minorities).
There may not be enough Joe the Plumbers whose aspiration to the top 2% make them vote against the interests of the middle class
Kyl is giving people insight into how the Republican Party really thinks. That's why I'm always amazed that they get more than about 20% of the vote in elections. You have to hand it to them, they're good at conning the uninformed masses. (Well .... come to think of it .... we HAVE been handing to them for a long time, but maybe that will change.)
I find it strange that Republicans attack Obama for being anti-business and against the wealthy. The banks, business and the wealthy have done very well under Obama, but they still want more. Edward Kennedy was right on the mark when he stated on the Senate floor "How much more do they want." The Republicans will continue to press for more until Dems push back and show their constituents whose side they are on. There are many Dems who have sold their soul to corporate interests to detriment of the 99%. Obama must continue to lead the way and push the Dem party to represent their constituencies, but that will mean he will have to do more for the middle class and poor instead of paying lip service. Unless Dems push back, the country will continue to be pulled further down with trickle down Reaganconomics. Kyl is just another Republican hack in a long line of many who keep saying the same mantras.
Perhaps the gentleman from Arizona has been frequenting the hideaway of his friend from Utah who, some months ago, reminded us how tedious it was to have to listen to the Democrat party whine about the plight of the 'poor,' and his well-founded desire to see those people do something to earn the pornographic amounts of his money he has left in gutters for them to steal.
Fiscal conservatives are primarily interested in two outcomes:
1) Increasing the income divide between the wealthiest Americans and the rest of society
2) Increasing profit margins for corporations via lowered taxes and minimized environmental and workplace regulations
Reducing unemployment is a secondary issue -- if said corporations opt to use their increased profits to hire additional employees, that's their prerogative.
Alas, historical evidence overwhelming demonstrates that increased corporate profits do not translate into increased hiring -- increased demand for goods and services does.
And, of course, increased demand requires increased purchasing power by that subset of society which does the majority of the purchasing, i.e., the middle class.
Senator Kyl has become a truth-teller. The Upper Class no longer needs much of a Middle Class to support it. The Cold War is over and communism no longer threatens their wealth. The wealthy can now retreat to enclaves with a few professionals to serve them. it is 1900 all over again! Senator Kyl has foolishly told the truth. The middle class virtues - saving, education, family - are just unfounded rumors!
Live in AZ. Hope Kyl can live without those middle class votes. He sure won't get many lower class ones around here.