Looks like somebody took some good notes in How To Manipulate Statistics 101.

Greg Blankensh links and quotes from a Lawrence Kudlow column in today’s Washington Times (for those unfamiliar, the Washington Times is a conservative propaganda piece, akin to a print version of Fox). Curiously, Mr. Kudlow’s headline was “War Against Prosperity”… Mr. Blankensh embellished it to “The Democrat War Against Prosperity”.Nicely wordage, Mr. Blankensh. In all fairness, maybe the “i” and “c” keys got stuck on his keyboard, just like the “i” and “p” in Blankensh.

Right off the bat, you know the column is a doozy of a spin job what with Mr. Kudlow’s equating of the Democratic presidential contenders’ calls for tax investments to “attacks” and “assaults” (not to mention that whole “war” analogy launched with the headline)… Of course, the proposed taxes Mr. Kudlow rails against are for levels most Americans actually don’t see — certainly I’m not there, and Mr. Blankensh is likely not at that level either. And business taxes are business taxes — we’re all in this together, individuals and businesses alike, though Mr. Kudlow seems blind to that fact.

But far be it from Dems (and a few Repubs, as Mr. Kudlow notes) to hope for fairness in our tax structure so that those who enjoy the most benefit from the American system also contribute back most of the costs of paying for that system.

Listen, no one enjoys paying taxes but my relatively low tax charge helps keep my nation’s Army armed … and prevents planes from crashing over my house … and keeps highways up and running so I can visit my family … and on and on. Others enjoy even more benefits from America’s governmental system, as those wealthy upper classes and the like enjoy the fruits of our courts as the Equal sweeteners of the country sue the pants off the Splenda sweeteners, our Commerce Dept. promotes their businesses worldwide, and on and on.

But wait, those taxes aren’t investments that keep our nation’s engine oiled and running… Nope. According to the Bizzaro World of Kudlow and Blankensh they are assaults, indeed, taken together they are a war against keeping that very engine oiled and running even though without them we as a nation are forced to turn to Communist China and the oil princes of Saudi Arabia.

Ah yes, don’t we all miss those days in the 90s when jobs were too easy to come by, salaries didn’t stagnate and the Clinton economy was humming along just too well. Where’s the fun and challenge in an economy that works for all Americans, instead of the rich-getting-richer Americans we have now under President Take-Two-Tax-Cuts-and-Call-Me-in-’09?

Everyone knows you shouldn’t spend money you don’t have … well, everyone except Mr. Blankensh’s Republica allies. Call it the Republica War on Common Sense. Instead of bringing in revenues at reasonable Clinton levels, the elephants cut revenues and then went on a spending spree. Sen. John McCain said the Republicas were spending like drunken sailors. The pachyderms even had to raise the debt ceiling a few times under their watch in order to accumulate more debt from Red China and the Saudis.

But wait, Mr. Kudlow remembers his notes from How To Manipulate Stats 101. He chides Sen. Hillary Clinton by saying “business tax collections as a share of overall tax revenues have skyrocketed — well above levels witnessed during the Clinton 1990s.” Duh. That’s because Pres. Bush and the Republica Congresses cut income taxes … so other taxes are naturally going to have a larger share of the overall pie. That’s no fuzzy math.

At the heart of Mr. Kudlow’s slam against everyone contributing their fair share is another ridiculous argument in favor of the conservatives’ pipe dream of a flat tax. Essentially, it’s another huge windfall payout to the wealthy at the expense of everyone else — the wealthy gain as the see their tax bills cut by a third or more and everyone else is forced to make up the difference. Rich Little put it best during the Bush 43 Inauguration when he told the assembled GOP bigwigs that the Class War was over, and the wealthy won. But, Mr. Kudlow is still fighting those old battles against the middle- and lower-classes with his promotion of the flat tax. I’m surprised he didn’t bring up the idea of a national gross receipts tax, I mean, sales tax (aka, the conservatives’ Unfair Tax).

You want to see Mr. Kudlow’s ideas in action? Just talk to anyone who’s tried to get a passport at some point in the last year. Pres. Bush’s Dept. of Homeland Security put out an unfunded mandate requiring passports for travel between the US and Canada, Mexico and Caribbean nations. The State Dept’s passport processing center still hasn’t recovered — and there’s no money to devote to raising staffing levels to those necessitated by the unfunded mandate. You want to see more of the results of Mr. Kudlow’s taxes-are-bad myopia? One word: Katrina. Why was it that hurricane response under Clinton actually worked as well as could be expected, but under Bush it failed miserably?

One more point that completely obliterates Mr. Kudlow’s harping about taxes being a “war against prosperity”.

The stock market does significantly better (and is less volatile) under Democratic presidents than under Republica presidents. You can look it up. It could be because Democrats actually give two shakes about seeing that everyone does well, not just the “base” as Mr. Bush has called wealthy elitists, and when everyone fares better the entire economy rises right along with them.

But do you think Misters Kudlow and Blankensh can ever bring themselves to recognize common sense? …Don’t hold your breath.