Nick Baumann

"The GDP of the United States is $15 trillion. So 5.5% of GDP would be $820 billion. This means that Spain’s two-year target would be the equivalent of the United States cutting its annual budget by $410 billion. No one — literally no one, not even Paul Ryan — has suggested budget cuts anywhere remotely near those levels. Even though the U.S. economy is in much better shape than Spain’s, everyone believes that budget cuts of that magnitude would wreck our fragile recovery."

"FDR thought most rich people were, like himself prior to polio, fatuous, lazy toffs. The rich had never impressed him, he thought they were sort of lazy fools. But then, after he became governor and then president, his laughter became more cutting…"

"This is an excellent idea and would be a good idea even if the money were simply heaped up in a big pile and lit on fire."

"That’s not envy, that’s math."

"SOME CLASSIC ROCKY - HuffPost’s Hayley Miller got a dose of Jay Rockefeller today, the rare senator who doesn’t have a spot opinion about everything. On a transaction tax: “Lot of things that are up right now and we’ve sort of just got back,” he said, “so I’d rather say I can’t answer you than try to answer you and realize I made a huge mistake ‘cause I was trying to save my pride."

"By the time I feed my family, I have maybe $400,000 left over,” - Rep. John Fleming (R-LA), in an interview on MSNBC, on why as a small business owner he can’t afford a tax increase."

"Social Security is actually [very simple]…. Here’s how Social Security works: every month we take in taxes from working people and every month we turn around and distribute those taxes to retirees. That’s it. That’s how it works, and everyone who actually knows anything about the program knows that’s how it works. Taxes come in, benefits go out. And the key to solvency is simple: making sure that those taxes and benefits are in balance."

"That narrative, however, is what political scientists colloquially refer to as “fucking bullshit.” Contrary to what conservatives love to allege and big government-loving liberals would love to believe, the majority of what the state collects every April 15 goes not to poor, drug-addicted welfare mothers, but to blowing up poor mothers and their children on the other side of the globe with bombs purchased from very wealthy military contractors. While the bulk of state spending is indeed on Medicare and Social Security – the bread to go along with the circus of publicly financed stadiums – those programs are funded, as Balko acknowledges, by direct, regressive taxes that, yes, even poor people pay."