In my last commentary I focused on the impact of the recession on ordinary Americans. I reserved making my comments on the what transpired to bring about our calamitous economic collapse and what is happening now re: objections to the current proposed stimulus package, H.R. 1 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. No sooner did I begin to gather my thoughts and compose my message on this subject than did Paul Krugman published his article on the same: Bad Faith Economics, NYT 1/25/09 as did Bob Herbert: The Same Old Song, NYT 1/26/08. And why not? They are professionals who do this for a living. I am merely a hobbyist.

Dr. Krugman argues from the point of view that the Republicans are being disingenuous in their objections to the proposed plan. They have blown out of proportion the implications of some provisions of the plan and have just misrepresented the implications of some other provisions.

According to Krugman the motivation for doing so is:

"Conservatives really, really don’t want to see a second New Deal, and they certainly don’t want to see government activism vindicated. So they are reaching for any stick they can find with which to beat proposals for increased government spending."

Bob Herbert argues that the Republicans have no ground to stand on when they ask for more tax cuts and less government spending.

"Have they no sense that their policies have sent the country hurtling down the road to ruin? Are they so divorced from reality that in their delusionary state they honestly believe we need more of their tax cuts for the rich and their other forms of plutocratic irresponsibility, the very things that got us to this deplorable state?"

. . .

"When the G.O.P. talks, nobody should listen. Republicans have argued, with the collaboration of much of the media, that they could radically cut taxes while simultaneously balancing the federal budget, when, in fact, big income-tax cuts inevitably lead to big budget deficits. We listened to the G.O.P. and what do we have now? A trillion-dollar-plus deficit and an economy in shambles."

There is much to criticize about this plan. It does not focus enough on the type of spending that will have the greatest and most immediate impact. Considering the size of the US economy and the size of the problem, it just is not big enough. It appears that the Democrats see a perhaps one time opportunity to get through congress a redress of the Bush programs. As the Republicans pushed through much of their agenda by attaching it to legislation, like the defense budget, that the Democrats could not vote against, here are the Democrats doing the same thing.

In an earlier commentary, The Economy and Other Tragedies, I discussed what I considered the ill advised attempt to assuage the potential objections of the Republicans to the plan by including some tax cuts in the initial proposal. I argued that doing so only would change the position of the Republicans to start at that point and then ask for even more tax cuts. That is what has happened and as they argue for it they do so accusing the Democrats of not being bipartisan. Thus it turns out to be a lose-lose proposition for the Democrats.

The Republicans are not attacking Obama when they attack the plan. In fact they go out of their way to praise Obama for his bipartisanship and willingness to listen and include them in his considerations. No, it would be political suicide for the Republicans to attack Obama. And Obama is doing everything he can to follow through on his pledge of bipartisanship. His one slip was in an exchange with Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) about the proposal. The president shot back: “I won,” according to aides briefed on the meeting. I guess even the coolest of cats can get testy when confronted by unremitting stubbornness. Working out of a mediation model of cooperation rather than negotiation requires both parties acceptance of the model.

The Republican strategy is to attack the Democratic congress. That is much safer than attacking Obama and they can still fake bipartisanship.

Tax cuts, even for the middle class, have less impact in reviving the economy than does government spending. The monthly decrease in withholding just will not spur the type of spending necessary to make much of a difference in the short term. They also argue that cutting taxes will yield an actual increase in tax revenues. If this were so, then the budget deficit would not have climbed so rapidly during the Reagen and G.W. Bush administrations. Further, during the Clinton administration, sandwiched between Reagen and Bush, taxes were substantially increased and an economic boom occurred with the budget realizing its first significant surplus since the Eisenhower administration (1957). (A slight budget surplus was reported in 1969 when Lyndon Johnson first integrated the Social Security surplus as part of the US general fund.)

Providing tax cuts to small business would make some sense to stimulate business spending if there was any demand to be satisfied. The major problem now is that there is no demand. The supply siders are spitting in the ocean if they think business will spend money if they can claim a tax break while they are losing money, laying people off, closing outlets, shutting down production lines, etc. etc. Also, where will this money come from with the banks unwilling to lend money?

Some analysts say that $1.00 in government spending yields more than $1.50 in GDP growth. With a marginal tax rate of say 33%, the return in taxes on that same $1.00 would be $0.50 and thus the true deficit from the $1.00 is actually $0.50. Then the equation for the calculating the yield in GDP for each dollar increase of government spending is actually a multiplier of 1.5/0.5 or 3 to 1. Moreover, spending on rebuilding infrastructure, developing alternate sources of energy, and etc. will provide future benefits for economic growth and national well being.

Don't get too excited about this. There are economists who argue that this return on government spending is false. They argue reductio ad absurdum that should the government increase spending by $10 trillion it would raise our GDP by $15 trillion at the true cost to the government of only $5 trillion. This argument is ridiculous on its face because spending hundreds of billions of dollars over the short term and then slowly returning to a policy of fiscal responsibility is just not the same as spending $10 trillion dollars.

That doesn't mean that spending money at the rate necessary to get the nation's economy restarted is not a problem. The question is what will happen if we do not spend the money? The thinking of most economists, both conservative and liberal, is that if we do nothing the economy is likely to slip further faster.

Rebates for the middle class, like the 2008 rebate program, are likely to have a mixed effect on the GDP, less than government spending will have. Analysis of the 2008 tax rebate program showed that most of the rebate money was not spent. Rather it was either saved or used to reduce current consumer debt. That which was spent was spent by those on the low end of the economic spectrum; low income and/or low (or no) net worth. The increased spending occurred in the first two months after the rebates were issued and then returned to pre-rebate levels. Aside from this, much of the increased spending probably was on foreign made goods which means that it mostly supported retail outlets like Walmart while it increased our trade deficit.

These are the items for which money should be spent by the the new stimulus package that I believe would be the best for an economic recovery and to help those hurt the most by the economic downturn.

1. The bulk of the money should go to investment in infrastructure. That will provide jobs and produce a valuable end product. The acquisition of the materials, supplies, and equipment necessary for infrastructure will provide a multiplier to the money so spent. These projects should be funded even if the expenditure stretches out for 2 or 3 years. However, the bulk of the money should be spent as soon as possible for the needed immediate economic stimulus.
2. Investment in development be it alternative energy or other scientific advancement that can yield future economic benefits.
3. Investment in education, primary and secondary, so that we have a future workforce capable of doing scientific development and handling the work requirements of the future.
   
4. Subsidies to the states whose incomes have fallen to a level where they are going to be forced to lay off thousands of employees including those performing necessary services. The loss of these jobs would have a serious negative impact on economic recovery.
   
5. Extension and increase of unemployment benefits to help those hurt by the economic downturn. These benefits should also be provided to those who during the past 2 years used up their benefits and are still unemployed.
   
6. Provision of replacement medical coverage for those who lost theirs as a result of losing their job and can't afford the costs of COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act - the extension of their coverage for 18 months as an individual without the corporate payment of the premium.)
   
7. Extension and increase of the earned income tax benefits to those on the lowest end of the economic spectrum. These people will be most likely to spend the money rather than save it. Besides, it is a matter of compassion to take care of the least fortunate. (Definitely a liberal viewpoint.)

There is no time to waste. The crisis deepens daily. Immediate action is required now. The relief of the mortgage crisis is not included here and should be handled by the remaining $350 billion of the TARP (Troubled ASSET Relief Program) or by another program designed to do so. The TARP when passed last year was supposed to do that and Secretary of the Treasury Paulson and George Bush diverted the funds to rescue the banks with handouts without even getting an ownership stake in most cases; something I objected to from the outset.

Postscript:
This inadequate stimulus plan just passed the House of Representatives (242-189) without a single Republican voting for it. First they worked to eliminate some of their pet peeves such as money for contraceptives and money to upgrade the National Mall in DC. Then they unanimously reject the plan. This is of course the height of hypocrisy, claiming to want to be bipartisan and then acting in a strictly partisan way.

But that is OK. What will now happen is the Senate will take up the measure and hopefully there it will be fixed to be more in line with what is truly needed. However I do not think it will come anywhere close to what is actually needed. Don't let the good be the victim of the best. Better this than nothing.

The Recession

I am beginning to feel like Alvy Singer, the Woody Allen role in his movie Annie Hall, whose favorite movies were about the Nazis and the Holocaust. He was compelled to see these movies even though they made him feel depressed.

I seem to be compelled to watch TV, and read news and books about the sorry state of the economy amongst our other political catastrophes. I either get angry or depressed (which some describe as anger turned inward.)

I take my daily walks every day at the local enclosed mall during these cold winter days. To "amuse" myself during these walks, remember that I am drawn toward things that are depressive, I count the number of closed retail outlets. The number has risen now to 7 closed and 2 with signs that they are having final store closing sales.

We all hear stories about the economic downturn. Most of us know that the current official unemployment rate is 7.2%. Most of us know that job losses are increasing at the rate of some 500,000 per month. The estimated underemployment rate, the rate at which people are either working fewer than 40 hours per week or are working at jobs beneath their capability or educational level, is also soaring. Businesses of all types are failing at an increasing rate.

How often do we connect with the human suffering connected with these statistics? Many of us probably connect to the economy when we think about our retirement funds or housing values that have drastically shrunk over the past couple of years and the possible consequences to our lifestyles. But what of the millions of Americans and others throughout the country and the world who have suffered job loss with subsequent house foreclosure and loss of medical insurance and possible loss of purchasing power to buy daily necessities such as food for themselves and their families? How many of us are in touch with the realities of life that are behind the statistics?

So there I was in front of my computer watching my Sunday evening source of depression, 60 Minutes, the CBS news magazine TV program. The lead story for last night was about Wilmington, Ohio, a city that is suffering the worst from the current economic downturn. Watching this story is what moved me to write this commentary. It was a powerful piece that touched me deeply.

I wont at this time digress into political condemnation of the causes and objections to the plans to alter the course of our current recession. Right now I just want to reflect on the pain and misery caused by those who have had a role in perpetrating this travesty. If you are not in touch with your feelings about these conditions then you are like most of our politicians; legislators and administrators alike.

For those who are interested in the 60 Minutes story and who would like to connect with your feelings, I provide the following link where the video of the show is available:

60 Minutes - Wilmington, Ohio

Banks and Bad Asset Resolution

In an article by Paul Krugman he presents an easy to follow analysis of what is wrong with the current thinking on bailing out what he refers to as either "dead banks walking" or "zombie banks", banks that have actually gone bust but are continuing to operate. In doing so he refers back to the 1989 Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) used during the real estate crisis in the 1980s.

I recommend reading Mr. Krugman's article, Wall Street Voodoo, however I do not think that Dr. Krugman's article goes far enough in describing the differences between the RTC solution and the current proposals. I will make my pitiful attempt the do so here.

The major difference between the RTC and what is being proposed now is that under the RTC, the banks were first nationalized, the bad assets were taken over by the RTC to be sold off at some future day, and then the bank was sold to new owners sans bad assets. The current proposal is to give the banks enough money to make them solvent and have the bad assets taken over by the government through what is being called a "bad bank".

What is the difference in outcome? Under the RTC program, the bank management is replaced by the management that purchases the bank at "fair market value" with the bad assets gone and the original stockholders are left holding an empty bag. The proposed plan would ensure that the management remains unchanged and lets the original stockholders reap the "benefit" of holding a bag of some undetermined value at the cost of the government.

The supposed added value of the proposed plan is that the banks, with an infusion of cash, usually in excess of the current market value of the unloaded bad assets, then will be enabled immediately to make loans again.

I have problems with the outcome of the proposed plan. First, although the banks may be enabled to start making loans, there is no guarantee that they will. Look at the results of the first $350 billion handout to the banks.

Second, there is no consequence to the misconduct by the current bank management and since they have already demonstrated a level of incompetence or skulduggery, doesn't the concept of accountability apply here? As for the stockholders, doesn't the conservative principle of risk taking apply to them? Invest to make a financial gain and either reap the benefits or suffer the losses.

With respect to the two issues above, doesn't the argument being made by the conservatives apply here? Doesn't bailing them out only encourage them to be reckless in the future? Or at least less diligent in their responsibilities.

And my final point is that none of these plans offer any direct help to those who are suffering the most, the homeowners being foreclosed upon. If we are going to violate the principles of the free marketeers, shouldn't we first take care of the least well off rather than the wealthy bankers and investors? And in so doing, wont rescuing them have a bigger payoff for economic recovery?

I would love to hear from you. Let me know what your thoughts are and if you agree or disagree with my thinking. It is time for all of us to let the president and our legislators know what we want. As Obama says, it will have to come from the bottom up.

For those who agree with what I have written, please pass this email along to others.

This is the link to inform Obama of your thoughts:

Office of Public Liaison

The Whitehouse web site has been redone by the Obama team. It is worth a visit:

The Whitehouse.gov

Michael

re: Latin America

I recently received an email raising questions about Hugo Chavez's connections with Russia and Iran and the role that Citgo plays in supporting Chavez's anti-American activities. The message claims that it is verified by SNOPES, yet does not give the link to the Snopes page that would verify it. I checked it out and found out that while there is some truth in the notice, it is basically mostly trash and Snopes carefully explains what is true and what is drivel designed to alarm people and incite them to take inconsequential action.

The truth is bad enough without being loaded with such narrishkeit* and U.S. foreign and domestic policy has put us at risk from Putin in Russia, Ahmadinejad in Iran, and Chavez in Venezuela. But note that the economic consequence of the precipitous drop in the cost of a barrel of oil is being felt by all three. However, they certainly warrant the strongest possible diplomatic action on the part of the U.S. to forestall an ongoing threat to our national interests and to Europe. Until recently Russia had been holding Europe, including some of the former Soviet satellite states such as Georgia and Ukraine, hostage to the availability of natural gas.

As for munitions factories in Venezuela, the Russians have been active there for some time now and are increasing their activities which, it is estimated, will significantly increase the production of armaments in the next couple of years. This too is of concern to us as are all of Russia's, Iran's and Venezuela's activities in the Western Hemisphere. And while all that has been happening it appears that the Bush Administration has once again been asleep at the helm of the U.S. Ship of State. Here are references to two articles that generally discusses this problem for the U.S.:

The Economist - Latin American Diplomacy

The Economist - Venezuela and The Kremlin

There are numerous very conservative publications and bloggers that present the same information in a much more emphatic and perhaps hostile manner.

To depend upon the drop of energy revenues to harm Russia, Iran and Venezuela is probably putting the cart before the horse. I consider the current economic collapse throughout the industrialized nations including the U.S. and our dependence on foreign energy, bigger threats to our security than what is happening immediately in Venezuela. Until we resolve the economic crisis and stop spending half a trillion dollars a year importing energy, we will be like a flea running up the tail of a bear with the thought of rape in mind.

President Obama will have more than enough to keep him and his brain trust busy for the next four years. One thing he has to do is operate full scale on multiple interrelated problems at once. He can not do one thing at a time as Bush has done, acting as if we can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Not only is the mid-east (Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan) deserving of our attention, so is Latin America, the Far East, Europe, Africa and the rest of the world simultaneously.

*Narrishkeit: A Yiddish word: See Definition

The Economy and Other Tragedies

Here I am getting an uneasy feeling about what is happening to President Elect Obama's stimulus plan and hearing the conservative radio and TV pundits talk about the failure of FDR's New Deal. What the hell is going on? The economic crisis is the most serious of all the problems that the Obama administration will inherit. It isn't that the multiple wars in the mid-east aren't important However, even those wars have an impact on our economy. Likewise for our health care system and our dependence on mid-eastern oil and global warming, and etc. etc.

We are being told that 40% of the cost of Obama's stimulus plan estimated at about $775 Billion, will be in the form of tax cuts rather than in the form of rebuilding infrastructure, or developing alternate forms of energy, or immediate relief to stop the home foreclosure tsunami, or aid to those who have already used up or are about to use up their unemployment benefits.

The tax cuts include a sizable amount as a reduction in payroll withholding, but that form of tax cut will do less to stimulate the economy and in addition, will not contribute to any longer term benefit than will any of the programs mentioned above. Neither will they help even moderately to ease the pain and suffering of the now 7.2% unemployed (probably over 10% if the people who have already used up their unemployment insurance and have dropped out of the job market are counted) or the millions of homeowners who have lost their homes or are about to lose them.

The pundits are saying that Mr. Obama is offering tax cuts to assuage the conservatives and gain their support for his stimulus plan. However, if the plan does not provide the most bang for the buck we are going to go further into debt than we need to. And, going further into debt without getting something for it is something we must avoid. We have already spent $350 Billion, most of it wasted because it did not accomplish enough of what was needed to stem the home foreclosure rate or loosen up credit to prevent businesses from having to declare bankruptcy.

Offering something to the conservatives at the outset without assurance of getting something in return means that they will now be in a position to demand even more of the same old - same old failed tax policies that benefit the wealthiest and leave the nation no better off economically.

The attacks on the New Deal are part of the conservative PR campaign to discredit Obama's public investment programs and to add more tax relief to the program. Those attacks are a fine example of "figures don't lie, but liars figure".

Here are links to two articles which discuss these issues in greater detail. To be informed about what's happening on the most crucial issue of the day, the economic crash, they are must reads:

Plan to Jump-Start Economy With No Manual

The Obama Gap

And below is an emailed article that I am passing along on the same subject.


Conservative media peddle a raw deal

by Jamison Foser

The conservative punditocracy that has spent the past eight years propping up a president who gave us an illegitimate war and leaves us with an almost unimaginably bad economic crisis apparently grows weary of defending this spectacular failure of a president. And so they have begun to shift their efforts to an easier task: trying to turn Americans against the president who ended the Great Depression, initiated the minimum wage, created Social Security, and helped defeat the Nazis.

Yes, they're trying to bring Franklin Roosevelt down to George W. Bush's level. Good luck with that.

On Fox News, for example, Brit Hume insisted this week that "everybody agrees, I think, on both sides of the spectrum now, that the New Deal failed."

Unless by "both sides of the spectrum," Hume means "far-right ideologues who have shows on Fox News and far-right ideologues who do not yet have shows on Fox News," he's overstating the consensus by a fair amount.

Economist Paul Krugman, for example, disagrees.

Krugman may not have the gravitas that comes with being Washington managing editor of Fox News, but he does hold the most recent Nobel Prize in economics. Krugman says the New Deal included "long-run achievements" that "remain the bedrock of our nation's economic stability" and "brought real relief to most Americans" and notes that "[b]y 1937, things were a lot better than they were in 1933." According to Krugman, the New Deal would have been even more successful had Roosevelt not been "eager to return to conservative budget principles."

Ben Bernanke disagrees with Hume, too. Bernanke has neither a Nobel Prize nor a gig at Fox News -- but he was appointed to chair the Federal Reserve by President Bush. Bernanke wrote in his Essays on the Great Depression: "Only with the New Deal's rehabilitation of the financial system in 1933-35 did the economy begin its slow emergence from the Great Depression."

So liberal Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman says the New Deal was a success, and the Bush-appointed Fed chair says the New Deal was a success. That's quite a broad spectrum of people who disagree with Brit Hume's assertion that "both sides of the spectrum" agree that the New Deal failed.

Not that Hume is alone in his attacks on the New Deal. Washington Times columnist Jeffery Kuhner called it "a complete and utter failure" during an appearance on Michael Savage's radio show, in part because it "never tackled the problems of unemployment and poverty." And Pat Buchanan added that "[b]efore 1940, not once did unemployment fall below 14 percent," concluding that "economically, the New Deal was a bust."

That sounds pretty bad, doesn't it? Unemployment above 14 percent every year of the New Deal? What a failure!

Well, maybe not. Here's a Heritage Foundation chart upon which Buchanan is likely relying for that statistic. Note that at the point Heritage identifies as the beginning of the New Deal, unemployment was higher than 35 percent. Suddenly 14 percent looks like extraordinary progress, doesn't it?

But there's another problem with Buchanan's use of the 14 percent figure, as Media Matters noted: It ignores public sector jobs. Given that a significant part of the New Deal consisted of jobs programs like the Works Progress Administration, which put millions of people to work doing things like building highways and bridges, excluding public-sector jobs in order to claim that the New Deal created few jobs is simply absurd, not to mention dishonest. It boils down to saying, "If you ignore all the jobs the New Deal created, the New Deal didn't create many jobs." Well, sure. Hard to argue with that.

In any case, even using Buchanan's 14 percent number, the unemployment rate dropped more than 60 percent during Roosevelt's New Deal. You might think that, given the soaring unemployment rate under fellow conservative George W. Bush -- from 4.2 percent when he took office to 7.2 percent today, a 70 percent increase -- right-wing pundits would avoid picking fights with FDR over how to reduce unemployment.

But that assumes a level of honesty that simply is not in evidence. This is a crowd that claims to be shocked when it snows in January so that they can argue that global warming is a myth. They think nothing of fudging a few numbers here and there.

(FDR's job creation record isn't the only aspect of his legacy taking a beating in the media. On CNN yesterday, anchor Tony Harris and correspondent Christine Romans described Social Security as a "Ponzi scheme.")

The reason for the conservative media's assault on FDR is clear: With a new president facing economic crisis, conservatives want to prevent him from stimulating the economy via government spending on things like unemployment benefits and infrastructure. Such spending would not only help people who need it most, it would also do more to stimulate the economy than would the tax cuts Republicans prefer. And that's according to Mark Zandi, who was economic adviser to John McCain.

So why don't conservatives want Obama to pursue such stimulus plans? Because they're rigidly opposed to government spending as a matter of ideology. Well, let me amend that: They're rigidly opposed to government spending by progressives. They're rigidly opposed to government spending on things like health care. They're wildly enthusiastic about government spending on things they like; government spending increased rapidly under Bush, just as it did under Ronald Reagan. (Just as their insistence that people have a right to be free from government interference goes by the wayside when it comes to reproductive rights or your ability to marry the person you love or to conduct telephone conversations without fear of Dick Cheney listening in via wiretap.)

So how do conservatives want to fix the economy? Must be tax cuts, right? They always think tax cuts are the solution, no matter what the problem.

And that's where things have gotten really strange.

For years -- no, decades -- conservatives have been repeating as a mantra their complaint that Americans are taxed too darn much. Not just too much, but too often. "We're taxed when we're born, when we work, when we get married, when we die," the right likes to remind us, as though the number of taxes we pay is more important than the amount.

But suddenly, many conservatives in the media seem to think there is only one kind of tax: federal income tax.

That's because President-elect Obama is considering as part of his stimulus package a $500 individual tax credit. You would think conservatives would be thrilled; instead, they denounce it. Fox anchors and Pat Buchanan and Don Lambro and countless other conservatives have attacked the tax credit as a giveaway to "people who don't pay taxes."

What they mean is that some people who would receive the tax credit effectively pay no federal income taxes because their income is too low. But it isn't the case that they "don't pay taxes." They pay payroll taxes and excise taxes (such as taxes on gasoline) and property taxes and sales taxes.

Conservatives used to delight in enumerating the ways in which Americans are taxed. Now, in order to oppose tax cuts for those who could most use the money, those same conservatives are pretending there is only one type of tax: federal income tax. For the sake of opposing Barack Obama, and in order to keep people who most need help from getting it, these conservative commentators are actually arguing against tax cuts, disregarding years of their own rhetoric in order to do so.

Set aside the inconsistency for a moment, though: The more important fact may be that in denouncing tax cuts for people who don't make enough money to pay federal income taxes, conservative commentators like Buchanan are opposing tax credits for the very people who would be most likely to spend that money, thus stimulating the economy.

The conservative pundits, then, don't want to deal with the economic crisis by spending money on things like unemployment benefits and much-needed infrastructure improvements. And they don't want to address the situation by giving tax credits to the people who most need them and would be most likely to spend them (the whole point of including tax cuts in a stimulus package in the first place).

So what does that leave us with? Oh, right: tax cuts for the rich.

Matt Yglesias explains:

Jeremy Pelofsky and Richard Cowan report for Reuters that "Some Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, have pushed for cutting the 25 percent middle-class tax rate as a way to get money into the hands of Americans quickly." But of course conservatives always say they want to help the middle class, but they always mean they want to help multi-millionaires. And as we had occasion to observe yesterday, this proposal is no exception.

Ben Furnas, Yglesias' colleague at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, offers more detail:

A new analysis from the Tax Policy Center finds that this tax change would lower taxes by less than $400 for average middle-class Americans, give a $4,000 tax break to those making over $2.8 million a year, and do nothing for households making less than $40,000.

For households with children the benefits are even more uneven. Families making less than $70,000 a year would see their taxes go down by an average of just $21 and those making between $70,000 and $140,000 would get even less. Households making over $600,000 with children, however, would get an average tax cut of $3,600.

In other words, conservatives don't want to return to Franklin Roosevelt's policies, they want to continue George W. Bush's.

Jamison Foser is Executive Vice President at Media Matters for America.