Bruce Bartlett, former Reagan and Bush Sr official, has published a new book called The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform – Why We Need It and What It Will Take.  But guess what? He says the wealthy have been getting huge tax cuts for decades, and that’s part of what put the federal government into record debt!

He also says, in an interview with Bill Moyers, that right wing Republicans are stupid when it comes to understanding how much taxes they really pay, and how taxes really work:  “Back when the Tea Party first came into existence, back in 2009 they had a big demonstration in Washington. And we went around and we surveyed…You know, questions of just straight factual knowledge, not opinion. And it turned out that these people all thought taxes were vastly higher than they really are, and that they were paying exorbitantly high tax rates that would be impossible for them to pay.”

Bartlett also says the right wingers are stupid religious nuts: “…it’s very much like religion. And I think that it’s not a surprise that so many very, you know, devout Christians are a part of the Republican Party and accept a lot of this. Because the nature of deep religious belief is faith, which means you accept things for which there is no proof. And so, I think it’s not that hard to shift that faith over to believe …That if you cut taxes, revenues will go up…That all tax cuts are good and all spending cuts are good, and all government is bad.”

He blames Right Wing radio and Fox News: “You hear the same idea over and over again. Or you can call it propaganda if you like. It’s broadly believed and people just keep saying these things all the time, that ‘Rich people create jobs.’ ‘Yes, rich people create jobs.’ ‘They’re motivated primarily by taxation.’ ‘Yes, they’re motivated by taxation.’ ‘We must cut their taxes.’ ‘Yes, we must cut their taxes.’”

“Year after year after year of people watching Fox News and listening to talk radio, had conditioned them in advance to believe that the government is responsible for all of our problems.”

Bartlett says once enough stupid Tea Party members realize it’s their own Republican officials who are doing them in, they’ll Join the Occupy Movement: “…once they start to realize that the Republicans really do want to not just cut Medicare, but essentially abolish it, you know, I just think those people are not going to be part of the Tea Party. They’re going to be over with the Occupy Wall Street.”