Evil Tax Cuts & Humpty Words

Like Instapundit, I have no problem with inaccurate news stories being corrected (although pulling them altogether is a bit dramatic), and so I am happy to read the correct information, which the press has quickly presented to us.

The official said when the administration saw the story, published yesterday afternoon, they contacted one of the Reuters White House correspondents.

The White House pushed these points:

– Our budget explicitly calls for permanently extending the Bush tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. – Our budget explicitly calls for allowing the top rate on dividends to increase to 20% for households making over $250,000. – Our budget accounts for the cost of continuing the AMT “Patch”. The last administration’s budgets ignored these costs, but we explicitly account for them. – Our budget extends expiring tax provisions through 2011.

The official said the Reuters White House team “worked to quickly remedy the situation and helped get the story completely withdrawn” last night.

How about that? They quickly “remedied” the situation, and corrected the record, and they didn’t even mock the president and his team for complaining about erroneous stories, as they did to the last administration.

But what struck me was this line:

Our budget explicitly calls for permanently extending the Bush tax cuts for households making less than $250,000.

What? People who were not rich got Tax Cuts under Bush? I thought the Bush Tax Cuts were evil, and immoral, and they were only for the “top 1%” of earners in the country – his gift to his rich pals?

You mean there were Bush Tax Cuts that were not evil or immoral and that deserve to be extended? That they were, in fact, so respectable that the Obama administration even acknowledges them as “Bush” tax cuts and retains them?

This is the same White House that is also retaining most of Bush’s policies on terrorism and stuff, right?

The same predecessor Obama keeps blaming for everything?

The one who left Obama with so much “red ink” due to profligate spending, that Obama argues he must spend trillions more in order to save us . . . even though the spending is not, um…well, where the hell is all this “job-creating” money they’re supposedly pumping into the economy, anyway?

Oh, forget it. Obama is “stumping for jobs” by “pushing health care”. And judging by these headlines, I won’t be able to get a straight answer to any question.

Nothing means anything, anymore. Words truly are “just words,” now, and in this Looking-Glass Administration, words mean exactly what Obama says they mean at any given moment. They will mean something else, in five minutes.

`I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”‘

`But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.

`When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

`The question is,’ said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

`The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master — that’s all.’

The president says he wants to create jobs, and to do that, he is surrounding himself with people who have never created them. But his words mean something.