And, yes, I’m a long-time left-of-center Democrat, so while it’s unusual to find myself agreeing with someone like Santorum, the more remarkable thing is that his point is poison in today’s Republican party.

Apparently they all think that the pronoun “his” (as in “Bush and HIS court”) can ONLY means “ownership.” But it also can be used to express other relationships.

The Good Doctor was speaking loosely, assuming a commutative relation:
“The president and his right-wing Court” in the sense that the Bush presidency is certainly a creation of “this right-ing court”.

So strictly speaking, while this Court may or may not be Bush’s, BUSH certainly “belongs” to this court.
So “the President and his Court” is not a false statement.
You can talk about “a dog and his owner”,
a “bad joke and its author”.
“Bush and his Court” is a parallel construction.

“The president and his right-wing Supreme Court think it is ‘okay’ to have the government take your house if they feel like putting a hotel where your house is,” Dean said, not mentioning that until he nominated John Roberts to the Supreme Court this week, Bush had not appointed anyone to the high court.

That’s from CNS.com, Texan, not necessarily reliable to you because you don’t believe anything said by organizations that don’t share your biases.

But here’s one of your pals at Kos on Dean’s statements:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/26/165119/316

Dean has not denied or backed off the statement, which was made to the College Democrats.

After further review (which takes some time, since most of the right blogsphere that is whining about Dean doesn’t actually quote him, which is probably a good thing since those who do apparently can’t read) I find that the above statement is false.

Why am I not surprised?
.

Look! Over there! Guys who aren’t in charge saying stuff!

No, over THERE, over THERE!
.

If he likes, he might start with an old one, Clinton’s claim that the economy in 1992 was the “worst in 50 years”.

Or, he might check on Howard Dean’s recent claim that Bush was responsible for the Kelo decision.

I look forward to his posts on the errors by Democratic politicians.

(Is Santorum right? I have no idea, and I have enough trouble keeping track of the dynamic duo here in Washington state, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, to spend much time on the question.)

Santorum is a reductionist consequentialist.

‘Right’ means ‘wins elections’.
‘Wrong’ means ‘loses elections.

Yes. Wandering into your local bookshop to see Zell Miller doing a signing of one of those crapulent tomes.

Ted—thanks—I was at work and didn’t have time to read the Tax Policy site. Also, correction—15.2% should have been 15.4%.

If they are including only the employee’s portion of FICA, they are undercounting—the portion “charged” to the employer is equally part of the taxes paid by the employee. (Geeky aside—economic theory says that the distribution of tax burdens on a transaction is based on relative bargaining power, not the party responsible for making the payment.) That would increase the median household’s tax burden in 1950 by only 1.5%, but today by 7.7%—so the actual spread, from the Tax Policy site, would be from 8.9% in 1950 to 22.1% today.

Adding in the median/mean difference—you can assume that the difference in income between the median and the mean household is taxed at around 40% (15.4% FICA and 28% income tax)—and Santorum’s claim isn’t as far-fetched as it initially seems.

Funny.

Wouldn’t it be nice if a journalist asked him about it?

Even funnier.

You should write for Comedy Central, dude.

Santorum discusses what has happened to the “average” family. You discuss what has happened to the “median” family.

If the “average” family has changed, say, by getting richer, then naturally the “average” family is going to have a higher income tax burden now than previously.

The average family could get richer at a rate faster than the median family if high end earners are significantly more rich than they used to be. My understanding is that this is the case.

If the numbers used to be, in a hypothetical 5 person nation,

10k
12k
20k
40k
80k

and now are

12k
15k
25k
70k
150k

Then the median increased by 5k, but the average increased by 22k. So, statistics based on the income of the “average” earner would show a greater increase than those based on the median earner.

If he’s seriously advocating returning to the 1950 income tax model – more power to him. Let’s do it.

When one subtracts social security and medicare total federal expences are about the same, total taxes (including SS and medcare) are a lower percentage of GNP since they’ve been since the fifties.

Still there is waste, but how big and how much of it is acceptable? Reduced spending on roads to 1950 GNP proportions? I thnk not! Medicaid, except 2/3rds goes to the elderly and disabled, yo want hundreds of thousands of helpless folks tossed out of nursing homes? Cutting shots for poor kids doesn’t save that much.

Or you could propose that corporate taxes and those on the wealthy mirror percentages of GNP in 1950? That would cut down the median tax burden. A lot.

All Santorum does is fabricate. What do you want? You don’t want unpleasant truths. You don’t want unpleasant lies. So?