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Go Home Bernie Sanders, Left-Wing Madman

JONATHAN CHAIT JUNE 28, 2011

Bernie Sanders, Left-Wing Madman

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

If you want a short encapsulation of how far right the economic debate has moved, check out this passage from the Washington Post:

Sen. Bernard Sanders, a Vermont independent with socialist leanings, delivered a 90-minute address Monday outlining his plan calling for 50 percent of all savings to come from tax increases. “The wealthiest Americans and the most profitable corporations in this country must pay their fair share,” Sanders wrote Monday in a letter to Obama.

Such a proposal has no chance of passing because Republicans and many Democrats believe steep tax increases are both politically unpopular and potentially harmful to the struggling domestic economy.

So the socialist plan for one of the lowest-taxed advanced economies on Earth -- a country that could balance its budget entirely through tax hikes and still have a tax burden that ranks in the lowest third among the OECD -- is to cut the deficit with a plan consisting of half spending cuts. And that plan is immediately dismissed as so wildly unrealistic it stands no chance of passage. Cut hundreds of billions of dollars of spending and also raise taxes to cut the deficit, during a massive economic crisis? Go back to Russia, you crazy socialist!

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16 comments

Bernie - I stand with you, tovarich. And I'm beginning to think a little revolution may not be such a bad thing.

- Tristan

June 28, 2011 at 9:40am

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Why are you even quoting this communist nutter? Everyone knows that hard pressed corporations are holding onto record profits are using the recession to slash costs by sacking workers. Any proposal that doesn't include 99% cuts to essential services that benefit the poor is neo-marxist propaganda and frankly, anti-American, anti-growth, pro-debt. Lets have a sensible, moderate, bi-partisan solution that the majority of Americans can support.

- IggyPop

June 28, 2011 at 9:41am

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Iggy nails it.

- GSpinks

June 28, 2011 at 9:54am

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Yeah, come on Bernie!!! We don't have a revenue problem we have a spending problem. I have heard patriots like John Boehner, Mitch, Mike Pence, and John Kyl repeat this over and over so it must be true! It is people like you Bernie that cause so much uncertainty that the magic of supply-side economics is not working!

- MikeB.

June 28, 2011 at 10:01am

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Well gosh, the House RyanCare plan had NO chance of passing the Senate or the President, but the House passed it anyway. I didn't hear anybody characterizing its supporters as Fascist Corporatists trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor. Or characterizing them as Corporate Sympathizers helping wealthy health-care organizations rape the old. But Bernie points out something everybody already knows -- that immediate cuts in spending threaten the recovery, and destroying the social safety net we've maintained since the Depression, are both really bad ideas -- and he's SOCIALIST? When did the Washington Post start repeating Republican talking points as if they're accepted wisdom? Including the sort of irrelevant character assassination Beck and Limbaugh love to put out? This is just bizarre.

- AllanL5

June 28, 2011 at 10:04am

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So, why aren't those fools in the house being characterized as Fascist Corporatists? (Just asking...) Instead, we hear they are BRAVE. Oh boy, it does take guts to whup up on old, sick, poor and disabled people, not to mention the environment, which as everybody knows isn't suffering, no indeed; it's actually KILLING JOBS! Like Bernie, the communist!

- Sophia

June 28, 2011 at 10:25am

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This is straight out of the Manifesto.

- liberalref

June 28, 2011 at 11:00am

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Fascist Corporatism: "the principles, doctrine, or system of corporative organization of a political unit or state...believe that a nation requires strong leadership, singular collective identity, and the will and ability to commit violence and wage war in order to keep the nation strong." Does read like a good summary of Republican domestic and foreign policy. Throw in some toe-tapping country music and some marching Chinese and Islamist images, ending with white picket fences in soft focus and a Republican candidate holding his family and...well...it's just another RNC ad.

- IggyPop

June 28, 2011 at 11:07am

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We cut taxes benefitting primarily the haves. Then, we wage wars fought primarily by the have nots, except where large payments are made primarily to the haves. Then, when the economy crashes, we spend largely to maintain the wealth of the haves and the have nots are still waiting for their turn. Then, after the country is weak financially, it's time for the have nots to pay up by cutting their benefits! Why? Because, as Lewis Lapham criticized, some people believe that: Money is good for the rich and bad for the poor.

- Nusholtz

June 28, 2011 at 11:20am

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And it's IGGY with the two-fer! Just another RNC ad, indeed.

- GSpinks

June 28, 2011 at 11:56am

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Thanks Spinks. I'm actually Jonathan Chait in real life. I just post under this handle to release some partisan, populist steam. Now, if you don't mind I'll just idly stare out my office window that overlooks capital hill and try and forget the unpleasent sacking incident this morning, when the latest intern drew blood while clipping my toe nails. One would have thought the recession would improve the quailty of interns but apparently not.

- IggyPop

June 28, 2011 at 12:35pm

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Yes, it's time for a revolution. One need only look at the graphs in "Mother Jones" recent cover story on the jobless recovery, and you'll be manning the barricades. Especially infuriating is the graph of the income rise of the top 1% vs. overall wages. http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/speed-up-american-workers-long-hours

- dubyadoubte

June 28, 2011 at 12:36pm

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I wish we had about 500 more Bernies in Congress. This country is need of a serious dose of rational thinking.

- singlspeed

June 28, 2011 at 12:53pm

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Iggy nails it twice. Championship title goes to County Westmeath, Ireland. Yes, they put 'county' before the name of the county. How unamerican can you get!

- ironyroad

June 28, 2011 at 1:15pm

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:) Just Meath Irony. Westmeath is where the homeless go to die. I'm a Dublin refugee if the truth be known. Like so many Blue's, I got pushed out to the wild parts of Leinster during the great ponzi housing illusion of 2001-2007. We now huddle together in Dub tops terrified of the primitive natives and their tractors, their monosyllabic language and nocturnal zoolatry.

- IggyPop

June 28, 2011 at 1:25pm

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I recently read Bernie's congressional memoir, Outsider in the House, after letting it languish on my shelf for far too long. I thought it might be a bit dated, but found it quite presciently otherwise. About halfway through, he shared an incident where John Boehner declared that if the House passed a minimum wage increase, he would kill himself. "Where," Bernie asks, "is Republican honor when you really need it?"

- janus

June 28, 2011 at 2:31pm

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