Poor and Stupid
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It's like a visit to an alternative universe where black is white, up is down, and 2+2=5. I read some other righty blogs and NRO from time to time, but Luskin takes the cake. Instapundit rarely goes on in detail about his beliefs, and "fisking" is so tedious only immature adolescents must read it -- let alone do it. Luskin, however, describes the strange conservative tax-cuts-are-god philospohy in great detail. It is a sight to behold.
Take this example where he tries to debunk Warren Buffet's attack on the Bush tax plan:
Now let's see how that would change if taxes on dividends were eliminated. Buffett looks at a scenario in which Berkshire Hathaway declares a $1 billion dividend (it actually pays no dividend currently), to which 31% stakeholder Buffett would be entitled to $310 million tax free. That would raise his total income to $360.3 million, on which Buffett says he'd pay an average tax rate of 3%. Buffett says, "And our receptionist? She'd still be paying about 30 percent, which means she would be contributing about 10 times the proportion of her income that I would to such government pursuits as fighting terrorism, waging wars and supporting the elderly."
But 3% of $360.3 million is $10.8 million -- still 144 times what the receptionist would pay.
Note what Buffet wrote: "...she would be contributing about 10 times the proportion of her income that I would..."
And what Luskin writes: "...still 144 times what the receptionist would pay."
They are talking about different things. And unless Luskin has a 3rd grade reading comprehension level (who knows, maybe he went to school in Texas), he's misrepresenting what Buffet is saying in order to make his argument. In other words, either he's an idiot or a liar.
There's more where that came from. Check it out, if you can stand it.