Greg Sargent: No, `both sides’ aren’t equally to blame for supercommittee failure

[brooklynite]

Here’s why the supercommittee is failing, in one sentence: Democrats wanted the rich to pay more in taxes towards deficit reduction, and Republicans wanted the rich to pay less in taxes towards deficit reduction.

Any news outlet that doesn’t convey this basic fact to readers and viewers with total clarity is obscuring, rather than illuminating, what actually happened here.

I agree with those who have argued that supercommittee failure doesn’t really matter all that much, and that the obsession with the deficit is itself misguided and makes solutions to the actual crisis at hand — unemployment — far less likely to happen.

But since the press is going to be obsessing over the supercommittee’s failure for days to come, and since we will be inundated with reams of bogus false equivalence reporting about it, it’s worth stating as clearly as possible what really transpired.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/no-both-sides-arent-equally-to-blame-for-supercommittee-failure/2011/11/21/gIQAj31ehN_blog.html

[Vincardog]

1. The rich have not paid their share of taxes since RayGun

[rfranklin]

3. We probably shouldn't even say "fair share"

Since they keep coming up with convoluted statistics to prove they are overpaying taxes. We should instead emphasize that prosperity has been greatest in the past when taxes were progressively higher on the superrich.

[Vincardog]

6. The only ones who don't know that are the ones paid not to know it

[rfranklin]

7. That would include a large swath of the population...

When I talk to people that I don't ordinarily talk to, I find the propaganda that they take at face value startling.

[emulatorloo]

2. Yep. Thanks for posting.

[jaxx]

4. K&R

Really good column.

[The Second Stone]

5. Republican loyalty to wealth exceeds their loyalty to America

plain and simple.

[Martin Eden]

8. K&R -- very well stated, gets right to the point. n/t