"Pity The Billionaire": Thomas Frank on the "Unlikely Comeback of the Right" Ahead of Iowa 1

www.democracynow.org — Best-selling author and Harper's magazine columnist Thomas Frank argues that as President Barack Obama fails to provide a coherent, progressive economic alternative, the Right has staged an unlikely comeback — despite the ongoing fallout from the 2008 financial crisis for which its trademark polices were largely responsible. Frank's new book is called, "Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right." "[Conservatives after 2008] didn't take the pundit's advice — they didn't move to the center, they didn't moderate themselves. They did the opposite," Frank says. "They purged their moderate wings, moved dramatically to the right with the Tea Party movement and enjoyed this incredible success in the 2010 election." Frank says whether the conservatives will succeed in 2012 is still "anyone's guess," and says Obama should "start getting some of the rhetoric of the Occupy movement in there. He needs to start talking about the 1 percent. He needs to start talking about what has happened and why over the last 30 years." Democracy Now! also speaks with The Nation correspondent John Nichols about the Occupy movement in Iowa.

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[Junkiebev]

one person is a rube, lol

[rickbar123]

@Dan474834 The tax rate has very little to do with it. The Chinese demand a full 50% partnership fee from American manufactures, not a tax, a full 50% partnership in the profits. Did you know that you Paul Bot dumb shit. How about the full technology transfer that is demanded by the Chinese??? Tell us what you know about manufacturing in China, everything, tell everything you know. It should take you about a second. Come on, tell us what next to nothing you know.

[4teepee]

The problem was not only Obama's banker bailout. There was also his failure to make it clear that a bigger stimulus was going to be needed given the falloff in GDP.

[LiberaLib]

@Dan474834 "If you were rich, and the US taxed you 45% corporate tax, while China only taxed 20%, wouldn't you go to China? " not necessarily, not if i was a good businessman. if i go to a country solely because they have a lower tax rate but their infrastructure was so crappy my shipping kept getting wrecked on crummy roads or i kept having to deal with labor unrest, predatory and unaccountable corporate espionage etc. i'd have made a big mistake.

[PrecisePuncher]

Obama's such a puppet it's not even funny...

[Dan474834]

@LiberaLib If you were rich, and the US taxed you 45% corporate tax, while China only taxed 20%, wouldn't you go to China? That's exactly what has happened. Why do you think unemployement is so high? And what Paul wants to do is only keep corporate tax low for those who keep operations inside the US. So your argument is completely wrong.

AND, he's the only one who wants to get rid of the Fed, which through easy credit dramatically increases inflation, also driving away jobs.

[LiberaLib]

@Dan474834 i've heard all this before. it's simplistic. tax cuts generate revenue up to a point but not in our situation, because for those who already have capital, getting more is easy. so there's no actual incentive to invest. instead the incentive is to speculate or hoard the money or send it overseas. under a ron paul system there will be no incentive to actually produce anything, because the system will be so easy to game, long as you're rich already, anyway.

got it?

[Dan474834]

@highway234 I guess this is what all the media propaganda does to you over time. Paul predicted the recessions.

Here's the deal: Lower spending, use money to pay off debt, then lower taxes to negligible amounts (the government doesn't need as much money), the people have more money, and they spend more. The lower corporate taxes create incentive for businessmen to create jobs, which added to the surging increase in demand, would lower unemployement, bring the US out of the recession. Got it?

[highway234]

@Dan474834 Wow, call us all idiots. that should win over hearts and minds.

cutting a trillion dollars from the economy during a recession is about the dumbest idea ever, by the way. the only reason to vote ron paul is because you're tired of watching america suffer and you want to put her out of her misery. ron paul would have this country looking like somalia within a year.

[Dan474834]

Discontent with the Republican contenders on core economic policies?

Well vote for Ron Paul you Occupy idiots! Is 1 trillion dollars of cuts not enough for you?