Memo to Joe Walsh: Taxes are already at a historic low--even lower than they were under Republican presidents

(H/T Laffy for the video)

I watched the exceedingly rude, arrogant, and condescending Congressman Joe Walsh on Hardball Monday night, and as he interrupted, sidestepped, and over-talked his host, I did a little talking of my own, to my hapless television set (come on, you know you do it, too).

Like virtually all who signed Grover Norquist's No Tax Increase pledge--and then deny that Grover Norquist tells them what to do--Walsh pushes the narrative that even closing loopholes and adjusting definitions of qualified deductions are the same thing as sucking the lifeblood from the job-creators who, he keeps promising, will eventually produce all these magical jobs if we just believe hard enough and stop asking them to pay their fair share.

(Comedian Bill Maher describes this nonsense as regarding "job creators"--aka the wealthy/corporate class--as some sort of delicate and endangered exotic animals at the center of a National Geographic feature: Shhh! Don't upset them! They'll run away!)

And while the deranged House Republicans chug along in their clown car, sometimes spinning in circles, always lurching toward the default cliff they seem to want to take the country right over, too many Democrats are oddly silent about the dire need to increase revenue if we're to ever get within spitting distance of balancing the budget one day, which is what the president wants, even if people like me would suggest that job creation via bold, broad, and inarguably necessary infrastructure spending should be the first priority.

Taxation in America--money coming in--is at a historic low. Expenditures, thanks in large part to those big, expensive wars, are at a historic high. I'm no math fiend, but even I can see the problem here.

But for those who, like Congressman Walsh, would seem to be even more math challenged than I, perhaps a nice graphic would help get the point across:

(Via.)