Digby wrote today that "They Got Tweety" here. I'd say they already had him. Regardless, here he is on Hardball repeating the Republican talking points that we just have to make spending cuts instead of raising taxes on the rich and that Americans don't want to see taxes go up on the upper earners in America.
Heaven forbid the Villagers would want to see the rich have to suffer in these tough economic times.
On Hardball this afternoon Matthews was talking about "cut-go" with Todd Harris and Steve McMahon, the Tweedledum and Tweedledummer of the Village and he ranted and raved about how both parties promise spending cuts to bring down the deficit but refuse to give any big specific items that would really make a difference. The Republican Harris went on about how "it's going to be tough, it's going to be painful and like I said, I hope entitlements are on the table." (Now keep in mind, they were talking about "cut-go" in the context of raising the debt ceiling, which means Harris is advocating for immediate cuts to "entitlements".)
After Harris babbled for a while about "entitlements" destroying the country, Matthews again said how frustrated he was that Republicans always refuse to say what they will cut --- "give me a couple hundred billion at least, give me somethin' big, they give me nothing. Democrats too, by the way."
McMahon piped up at that and said:
I'll give it to you right now. Democrats are going to come with a bill to take away the tax cuts for people making 250 thousand dollars a year. That's 700 billion dollars that we borrowed ...
Matthews: I hate to break it to you, but that's not a spending cut it's a tax increase.
McMahon: no it's not a spending cut, but it results in revenue that will...
Harris: It's a tax increase!
Matthews: Just remember the difference, it's a tax increase. You ask Americans whether they want that tax increase and a majority will tell you they don't want that tax increase.
As Digby and a lot of others have pointed out recently, that's just not true. Most Americans would like to see taxes raised on the wealthy to balance the budget.
At least McMahon looked like he was laying off of the eggnog today and talking about repealing the tax cuts again instead of austerity measures.
