At Crooks and Liars, Brad Reed writes that Tim Noah “makes an excellent point that it's become perfectly acceptable for elected officials to claim that showering already-wealthy people with even more money is the only way to create jobs since they otherwise might feel sad and lose their will to work.”

Yes, we've had our fair share of "trickle-down" troglodytes for some time now. In 1932, FDR used the phrase to criticize Hoover and Mellon. But similar phraseology pre-dated even that one. Here's William Jennings Bryan in 1896, in a section of his famous Cross of Gold speech: 

There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests upon them.

Miss Liberty thinks William Jennings Bryan was a man before his time and asks if he will please come back!

This is the time where most people would say I told you so, but that would just be childish. 

Earlier this year, it was revealed that the records available from Sarah Steelman's time as State Treasurer were lacking to say the least. 

Steelman, now a Republican candidate for U.S.  Senate, has often touted the virtues of transparency and open government.  In a 2004 editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, she wrote that "every elected official at every level of government should strive to ensure that our laws, our records and our meetings are open to the public's scrutiny."

During her time in office, her staff even pointed to "special information technology" that was used to preserve e-mails for years.

[Jon Galloway, the treasurer's office director of communications and policy,] said the current office has e-mails that were received by Steelman to her state account, "but there are no sents."  He also said there were no "executive boxes" turned over to the Secretary of State's office at the end of her term for preservation.

Many of these state records are supposed to be retained for 5 to 10 years or longer. What's even more troubling is Steelman never offered a clear explanation for why she didn't turn over executive records to be archived. Who knows if the Steelman campaign will ever provide a clear answer, but the people of Missouri certainly deserve one. 

It's hard to believe, but Ed Martin is still pushing death panel nonsense. 

FactCheck.org evaluated this sad attempt to keep the death panel lie alive in December post titled, "Let the distortions begin."

The Independent Payments Advisory Board was created to slow the growth of Medicare spending; it has no power to ration care.  

Via the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities: "This chart, based on data from the Tax Policy Center (TPC), sums up the case for the President’s proposed 'Buffett Rule'"  a significant group of very wealthy people pay a smaller share of their incomes in federal income and payroll taxes than large swaths of the middle class.  There are two reasons why:  the capital gains and dividends rate is so low, and wealthy people pay payroll taxes at a much lower rate than middle-class Americans."

The President is calling for Congress to to make sure that no American making more than $1 million a year pays at a lower rate than middle-income families, as part of a comprehensive tax reform package.

Peter Kinder, hating on special interests and insiders with special interests and their champions in Springfield

August 31 - Peter Kinder says mean things about his party's "self-described kingmakers, ... special interests and insiders"

September 7 - Peter Kinder campaigns at a private party in Cape Girardeau  with Karl Rove, the reigning national consultant for GOP special interests and insiders.

After the past week, people might start thinking Morris Buttermaker has taken over for John Hancock as the driving force behind John Brunner’s phantom campaign for US Senate. 

• Public Policy Polling showed that of the three GOP candidates who are currently losing to Claire McCaskill, John Brunner is the weakest.

• And just today, PPP released a real beanball: John Brunner is polling in single digits (6%) with GOP primary voters, trailing Sarah Steelman by 32 points.

• Even Missouri’s contrarian conservatives are starting to write him off.

All this comes as his promise of a big post Labor Day announcement remains unfulfilled, but, with numbers like this, he may realize it is not worth spending his family fortune on a lost cause. 

The American Cancer Society filed a petition seeking to raise Missouri's lowest in the nation tobacco tax to 80-cents per pack. Here is how the change in state law is described in their press release:

The measure filed today would ask voters to approve an 80-cent per pack cigarette tax increase and an equivalent increase on other tobacco products. The revenue from this tax increase would go towards local public K-12 schools, colleges and universities statewide, and tobacco use prevention and quit assistance programs. Additionally, it would close a loophole that allows certain small tobacco companies to avoid contributing to a fund that reimburses the state in part for tobacco-related costs.

American Cancer Society Tobacco Tax

More from Public Policy Polling on their numbers in the Governor’s race, and the news actually gets worse for Peter Kinder.

Missouri Republicans aren't exactly giving Peter Kinder a big vote of confidence for being their Gubernatorial nominee.  Only 22% say they'd like Kinder to be the party standard bearer compared to 35% who prefer a generic 'someone else' and 43% who say they have no opinion one way or the other.

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina sent out a message marking the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

Gay men and lesbians in the military no longer have to hide who they are, and the service members who were discharged under this policy can re-enlist.

This is one of the administration's signature achievements. Countless Americans fought hard to end this law over the course of nearly two decades, and President Obama is proud to have signed the repeal.

But today's news isn't just a policy promise kept -- it's a personal promise kept to the thousands of people who needed and deserved this change.

The campaign also sent out a video highlighting members of the armed forces who can now live openly under this change in policy.

If you ever wanted to know about Cynthia's entire career and general philosophy on life and governance, you are in  luck.

For instance, I bet you didn't know God made it snow so much last session because Cynthia Davis is no longer in the legislature.

“And you wondered, why did we have a snowstorm every Monday and Thursday last winter? And God did that for me, so I wouldn’t feel bad about not having to drive in the snow to Jefferson City and home.”

If you think you can handle it, watch part 2 and part 3

h/t The Turner Report 

Republicans are totally convinced John Brunner is ready for prime time.

Posted this afternoon to Berger's Beat: 

REX SINQUEFIELD’S VERSION OF FAIR TAX GETS THUMBS DOWN

Careful readers of Rex Sinquefield’s latest version (he’s now up to 13) of the so-called Fair Tax note a poison pill tucked into the wordage: a whopping 350 percent increase in the basic state sales tax rate for groceries, from the current 1.225 percent rate to 5.5 cents on the dollar.  Critics are calling it devastatingly regressive for poor and middle-income-working families.  Rex wants to ask Missouri voters to dump personal income tax in favor of the much higher sales tax, including the higher levy on life’s essentials...

[Emphasis added]

Before we can discuss job creation and the economy, we need to establish an official language. You know, to avoid confusion. 

"This is not class warfare. It’s math...  If we are not willing to ask those who have done extraordinarily well to help America close the deficit … then the logic, the math says everybody else has to do a whole lot more."

Via ThinkProgress, here are some of the tax measures that the president released today:

– Allow the 2001 and 2003 high-income tax cuts to expire and return the estate tax to 2009 parameters: These tax cuts, respectively, benefit the richest two percent and the richest 0.25 percent of Americans.

Progress Missouri is circulating evidence that Congressional Republicans’ stance on debt reduction is definitely outside of the mainstream in many polls. Check it out:

Bruce Bartlett, former advisor to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush:

[P]eople support raising taxes as part of deficit reduction by a 2-to-1 margin over the Grover Norquist/Club for Growth/Tea Party position that the deficit must be reduced only by spending cuts without a penny of higher taxes. In light of President Obama's new budget plan, which includes higher taxes, I am posting an updated table, including a poll on Friday showing that three-fourths of people support higher taxes and only 21 percent support the doctrinaire right-wing position.

Andrew Sullivan via Political Wire:

"Every single poll shows that the American public overwhelmingly supports higher taxes on the wealthy as part of a package to cut the deficit. The margins are staggering: the NYT poll shows a majority of 74 - 21; even Rasmussen shows a majority of 56 - 34. What the president proposed this morning is simply where the American people are at. If he keeps at it, if he turns his administration into a permanent campaign for structural fiscal reform, I don't see how he loses the argument."

A breakdown of 20+ polls showing public support for a balanced approach is available online.

Yes. 

These politicians hope that by being obstinate, they can derail the health care reform law they so despise. But they are denying their states the opportunity to design affordable, consumer-friendly insurance marketplaces.

Opponents of reform need to tell the public what they intend to do about the problem of uninsured Americans. “Let them die” isn’t an acceptable fallback position.

Public polls always have a built in margin of error, and a 19 point deficit is way outside of this one. Taking polling results with a "tanker of salt" is one thing, but it is hard to argue that Peter Kinder is not way behind in the race to be Missouri's Governor beyond 2012.  

One way to judge a pollster's accuracy is to look at their recent track record. For instance, many have started to notice that Public Policy Polling's numbers have been pretty close to the mark.

Also, to suggest that someone is a "Democratic" pollster does not mean their results are always a sign of good news for Democrats. 

The back-and-forth about which poll is more accurate will continue, but when being down seven points is cause for celebration for a candidate, maybe people should take that campaign's legitimacy with a tanker of salt.