April 7, 2013

On "This Week," Greta Van Susteren failed miserably in her attempt to explain Republicans' ideological refusal to raise taxes.

VAN SUSTEREN: The reason we have paralysis is because we don't have the money. And I think people want to take care of people. I don't think people want to take the safety net away from people who really need it. Because Americans are really good, decent people.

If we didn't have a revenue fight in terms of how much money we have, the condition of the economy, the condition of the national debt, we wouldn't be having half of these fights. And the two parties might be able to come together a little bit better if we fundamentally got this economy up and roaring, we'd be fighting a little bit --

Where does one even begin to unpack this mess?

Let's start with her claim that "people" don't want to "take the safety net away" with the fact that Republicans have signed on to a budget which slashes the safety net to give tax cuts to rich people, authored by an Ayn Rand disciple who once complained that the nation's "takers" outnumbered our "makers" and famously derided Social Security as a "hammock."

Oh, and by the way, the new chairman of the Heritage Foundation just went on Van Susteren's network and basically called 70 million Americans welfare queens.

So to argue Republicans don't want to get rid of the safety net is to literally argue that up is down.

But the oddest thing about Van Susteren's Palin-esque word salad is the first sentence:

The reason we have paralysis is because we don't have the money.

The government's "money" (or revenue) comes from taxes, which are currently at historic lows and which the GOP absolutely refuses to raise.

So Van Susteren is saying, in effect: Republicans are refusing to raise taxes because tax revenue is so low.

What?

To be fair, shilling for an unpopular party that wants to slash benefits for poor people to give billionaires lower taxes is never easy these days. But Van Susteren really made a mess of it this morning.

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