Thom Hartmann: Well the astroturf programmes roll on in Congressional districts all across the United States. Dick Armey in the background laughing and wringing his hands with glee, I’m sure, as poor suckers show up and try to heckle and shout down their members of Congress in the House of Representatives. You know, following this brilliant memo. I mean, this is really quite extraordinary, this whole memo.
It says, “Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: “Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington.”
– Be Disruptive Early And Often: “You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”
– Try To “Rattle Him,” Not Have An Intelligent Debate: “The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.”” Whoa.
Dan Gainor is the T Boone Pickens Fellow at the Business and Media Institute, businessandmedia.org, a Conservative think-tank. Dan, I am guessing that you would be as horrified by these kinds of practices, whether practiced on the Right or the Left, as I am.
Dan Gainor: Well, I think that, I always like to see civilized debate. That’s one of the reasons why you and I talk. I prefer to save my yelling and screaming for football games. And I do my best in that regard. But, you know, I think there’s a lot of bogus indignation coming from the Left about this, just as there would be were ACORN suddenly to come out right now and do one of its typical events if Conservatives complained about it.
Thom Hartmann: I don’t recall ACORN ever shouting down elected members of Congress.
Dan Gainor: ACORN prefers other crazy, equally large protests. Putting furniture on a lawn, showing up at people’s homes, like they did for the…..
Thom Hartmann: Wait a minute, Dan. Let me get this straight. Are you defending people disrupting Congressional…..
Dan Gainor: No. I’m saying that both groups are equally wrong.
Thom Hartmann: I see. Ok.
Dan Gainor: You know, look, we should have, it would be nice to actually have a rational debate on some of these topics.
Thom Hartmann: I think so too. It’s one of the reasons why I try to have these conversations with you. And, in fact, I, you know, health care we’ve talked about many times, and I guess both our issues, both our positions are well known, but I have to say, Dan, with all due respect, which you know, as John Stewart points out, people always say when they are about to insult somebody...
Dan Gainor: I’m used to it, Thom.
Thom Hartmann: Ok. With all due respect, I think you’ve hit a new low here, picking on consumers, on attacking, you know, this cash for clunkers programme. I mean, here’s a programme that is incredibly successful at stimulating the economy, you give average working people money that they can buy a car with. They go out and buy a car, the money goes to the workers on the assembly line. It goes to the car company, some of it even trickles up to the CEOs. What’s wrong with trickle-up economics instead of, you know, the trickle-down that just produces a nation of peons?
Dan Gainor: Well, on the face of it, anything that purports to be a tax break sounds good in theory, to me. But, here is the problem. There’s two reasons why you did this programme. One of them is ecological. You know, supposed to help the environment. The other is because it’s supposed to be stimulative for the economy. On the first, it’s not even clear it does that, because basically what you’re doing, you’re taking something that works and destroying it and replacing it with something you had to build, you had to mine, and then you’re getting rid of all this other stuff you just destroyed.
Thom Hartmann: That’s an argument against all consumption of all new goods, and why not just shut down all industry and start making things that are reusable and recyclable.
Dan Gainor: It’s just an argument, saying that if you’re doing this for ecological reasons, it’s not clear that…
Thom Hartmann: Actually, I don’t that it was sold so much as ecology as it was sold on reducing our dependence on oil from countries that want to drop nuclear bombs, you know, to plant nuclear bombs in our cities.
Dan Gainor: …will use energy even in the building process. But then the other part of it is supposed to stimulate the economy. Well, it will stimulate a real tiny portion of the economy, the auto industry, the reason why we’re doing that part, is because Uncle Sam wants you to buy a car, because you and I are now car owners.
Thom Hartmann: But all those people who work in the auto industry, they take that money and they go out and buy a new refrigerator with it, they, you know, from the wages that they have, cause they still have a job, they go out and buy a refrigerator. They go out and buy new table furniture. They go out and buy clothes. They eat in a restaurant. I mean, the stimulation of this echoes throughout the economy, Dan.
Dan Gainor: What it does show, is that when your government tries to stimulate, actually gives to the people instead of going to many Wall Street or banks, or something else, it does have some effect. But here’s what happens with this programme. The reason why this programme is so screwed up is, do you know they under funded it from the very beginning. According to edmunds.com there are sixty to seventy thousand clunkers every month that kind of get dealt with already, as it was. And, this programme only allotted for paying for two hundred thousand. It was supposed to last all the way, you know, for a much longer time.
Thom Hartmann: Right.
Dan Gainor: So what happens is that a lot of people waited their purchases till this programme happened. A lot of people accelerated their purchases. It’s not clear it's actually going to sell any more cars in the long run. And, you know, I’m happy to help people who want to...
Thom Hartmann: Well, wait a minute. You’re telling me that tax breaks don’t help?
Dan Gainor: No. I’m telling you that just this very specific tax break like this.
Thom Hartmann: Oh tax breaks for working people don’t help.
Dan Gainor: No. I was going to say, if you wanted to do a tax break like this, what would have been smarter, and I mean I think a tax break that maybe you and I would agree on here, is, rather than pick one industry, because by picking new cars you’re hurting used cars. By picking one thing, you’re letting the government choose who wins.
Thom Hartmann: Well, actually, you’re helping the used cars because when people are, you know, buying clunkers with a discount, they’re more willing to turn in their old car at probably a higher price, which means that the used car dealers make a larger profit.
Dan Gainor: But what you’ve done is undervalue used cars because if they don’t make this new eighteen-mile a gallon standard, you know, people don’t want them. Because they’re not getting the government tax break. I guess once you give a government tax break once, the people are going to expect it again. But what would have been better instead of just picking one industry, or one tiny segment of one industry, you know, would have been cut the payroll tax for a while. Cause you know, we’re clearly, we've been in a downturn.
Thom Hartmann: You know, a much easier way to do this, Dan Gainor, businessandmedia.org, would be to simply say, 'let’s raise the minimum wage to twelve bucks'.
Dan Gainor: Well, that helps people at the low end, and costs jobs. You and I have had this conversation before. Every time you raise the minimum wage, somewhere, somebody lays off people.
Thom Hartmann: Why are you advocating increasing the debt of government ?
Dan Gainor: I’m saying that if you want a new stimulus, which everyone in Washington is wanting to do, because we’re in a downturn. You know, you’re basically borrowing from the future to pay for the present. If you want to do that, do it in a way that actually gets the money to ordinary citizens,right away.
Thom Hartmann: But it’ll also produce a spike in the deficit of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, which will be leaped on by people like David Walker, and yourself, and others who will say “Oh my god, look at that, these programmes are going bankrupt even faster than we thought!”
Dan Gainor: Well, they’re already going bankrupt, ever faster.
Thom Hartmann: That’s my point. Why not, you know, instead take money out of the, I mean if you’re going to create a deficit, if you’re all in favor of increasing the Federal deficit, then why not take Federal tax revenues out of the general fund, and simply give everyone a thousand dollar tax credit, instead of reducing their payroll taxes by a thousand dollars. That way we can generate, you know, we can just sell some more bonds to China.
Dan Gainor: You see, the reason why people don’t want, I mean, people in Washington don’t really want to cut the payroll tax, is because what it would do, is right now the tax gets… most Federal taxes people pay, they don’t kind of realize how much they pay until you remind them. So if you were to suddenly to give a three-day, three-month holiday, let’s say, on federal payroll taxes…
Thom Hartmann: Then when the tax comes back in, everybody is gonna say “Whoa, my taxes just went up! Now I’m outraged!” There’s a great way to really, you know, piss off the middle class and the working people. Is that your idea?
Dan Gainor: No, but it would remind people. See, people don’t remember how much they pay for government.
Thom Hartmann: That’s cause it doesn’t matter.
Dan Gainor: It does matter.
Thom Hartmann: No, it doesn’t, because the market for work, the marketplace for labor, is a post-tax marketplace. And, you know, in countries that have higher taxes, they have higher wages. In countries that have lower taxes, they have lower wages. For working people, as taxes go up, wages go up. As taxes go down, wages go down. For people who make their money like George W Bush, you know, born with a million dollar trust fund, when taxes go down, their money goes up. They actually have more money to stick in a Swiss bank account or buy Halliburton shares with. But, for working people, it doesn’t matter, Dan. Find me one country in the world that doesn’t follow that trend. You could see it in the United States over the last sixty years. Just track wages and taxes.
Dan Gainor: Tell that to people who are self-employed, have to pay self-employment taxes, and know exactly how much…
Thom Hartmann: They’re the exception to that, and I think that when Reagan doubled the self-employment tax, it was a crime.
Dan Gainor: I think when you remind people how much money they pay for government, they’re going to want government to be more accountable.
Thom Hartmann: Right, like providing them with health insurance.
Dan Gainor: [cross talk] you’re going to want government to be more accountable. Don’t spend so much darn money like you do in Washington. Hey, both parties do it. I mean this is a nice bipartisan bit of stupidity. Our deficit’s right now one point eight trillion dollars.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah. No, it’s a crime. All this wild spending that Reagan and Bush and Bush engaged in.
Dan Gainor: And Reagan, Bush and Bush, Clinton and Obama.
Thom Hartmann: Well Clinton, as I recall, balanced the budget.
Dan Gainor: As Bush.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah, OK. Dan Gainor, you can read all about it. Dan’s got a new piece out about the cash for clunkers programme, over at businessandmedia.org. Dan, always good talking with you. Thank you for dropping by.
Dan Gainor: And not yelling.
Thom Hartmann: There you go again. Thank you, Dan Gainor.
Transcribed by Gerard Aukstiejus.
