The Big Wall Street Money Behind Rafael “Ted” Cruz

And it turns out that pandering to the .001% is not a particularly bad paying profession. This is not a surprising, but the actual numbers here are staggering.

It’s up to $31,000,000/week, if you find the right sugar daddy.

This was what was warned about when the Supreme Court gave down the “Citizens United” ruling, that a single person, or very small group of people, could fully fund a “radical” candidate and how that’s not really good for democracy in general.

Trying to convince the Cruzies (rhymes with “crazies”) of the simple fact that the guy is backed by a single billionaire (although more will jump on board when the realize his supporters don’t give a shit what he *actually does*, only that he talks good) will be near impossible.

And trying to let them know that the 3.9% tax on investment income over $400,000/yr that is the cornerstone of paying for the expansion of medical insurance under the ACA is the simple financial motivation for such a person to back Cruz….well….the problem with that argument is that it is logical and fact based.

It goes like this…$1,000,000,000/yr in investment income. 3.8% of that (over $400,000) is $37,984,800/yr.

So this guy can invest in Cruz, and if it pays off….that’s about $40,000,000/yr (per billion in unearned income) that he can then spend on politicos to save that much in taxes.

It’s a pretty sick calculation (essentially taking heathcare aware from millions of Americans so one guy can have a slightly bigger dick in the measuring contests these assholes care about), but that’s what we are currently facing in this country.

That’s how bad it has gotten.

Ted Cruz, breaking fundraising records…that’s how bad it has gotten.

The reclusive Long Islander who made his fortune using computers to outsmart the stock market is a key early bankroller of Senator Ted Cruz’s fast campaign start.
NYTIMES.COM|BY ERIC LICHTBLAU

Moore Couldn’t Be More Wrong on Obamacare

Long article, but a good one.

It’s sad that even top tier “conservative economists” have to lie and obfuscate to fill pages. What’s tough is that pulling apart the b.s. leaves folks often in the “well, you can prove anything” horseshit lazy-thinking lane.

People like to claim they are “data driven” but then when they ignore vast swaths of data, it makes it really hard to take with a straight face.

Our media system does little to help alleviate this issue, as they are paid on who and how many people watch, not on what those watchers learn or how accurate that knowledge may be.

It’s the Heritage Foundation. We are dealing with morons here.
NYMAG.COM|BY JONATHAN CHAIT

Found Someone Willing to Give the Government Free Money…Twist…His Name is Matt Drudge

Multiple tax experts have also since explained that the estimated tax filing doesn’t even have a way to designate a specific sum as satisfying the penalty.

So as one tax expert put it to the Huffington Post: “For whatever reason, Matt Drudge has decided to give the government an interest-free loan.”

via The Bizarre Case Of Matt Drudge And His Obamacare ‘Liberty Tax’.

This is the kind of stuff that happens when you start to believe your own bullshit.

Obamacare gets Cheaper

Over the next few years, the government is expected to spend billions of dollars less than originally projected on the law, analysts said, with both the Medicaid expansion and the subsidies for private insurance plans ending up less expensive than anticipated.

Economists broadly agree that the sluggish economy remains the main reason that health spending has grown so slowly for the last half-decade. From 2007 to 2010, per-capita health care spending rose just 1.8 percent annually. Since then, the annual increase has slowed even further, to 1.3 percent. A decade ago, spending was growing at roughly 5 percent a year.

But even though the Affordable Care Act might be more a beneficiary of changes in health care spending than the primary driver of them, the law’s provisions to control costs could prove increasingly important as the economy improves, demand for health care increases and spending picks back up.

via Cost of Health Care Law Is Seen as Decreasing – NYTimes.com.

So even as this continues to work, and the magic of the market does its thing….the GOP is going to lie about both working, while encouraging people to not get healthcare, not take responsibility for their own lives, and instead be parasites.

I’m pretty sure their hatred of Obama has killed the notion that the GOP is a national entity and a rational actor.