Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for April 29, 2012

By working their “butts off”, do they mean getting their butts all wrinkled and shriveled in the hot tubs?

Are we finally going to find out why the dumb masses hate rich business people that actually produce a tangible product, but venerate rich actors and producers who are paid obscene amounts of money to merely entertain them. By the way, Gary Trudeau is in the Canadian top 1%.

I’m beginning to class Jeff along side Duke’s son. Maybe even a little lower than that. He’s got the burden of dragging Dukes’s sorry rear end around and still be effective.

@Heidi TenteeJeff’s goofball book is a “tangible product”? Also, not everyone venerates rich celebrates. Some of us don’t pay attention to them at all.

One shark in the ocean, another in the hot tub and one destined to be swimming with the fishes.

Jeff is morphing into Duke.

credit default swaps are a tangible product? Buying a company leveraging it to it’s maiximum to pay out bonuses and then letting it go bankrupt is a tangible product?

Please don’t blame Canada for William Shatner……they’re still trying to get over Bieber!

The first two panels were the funny part. Jeff might have to move his company offshore, to get motivated.

Anyone notice the really important thing about this strip? In panel 4, Jeff’s right hand is attached to his left arm.

Y’know..sometimes I think we’re a little too critical of Jeff. Let’s not forget, while Rick and Joanie are awesome people with values and a great work ethic, they were not too attentive to their son’s upbringing often choosing work over family and letting the babysitter (and TV) raise Jeff instead.

Bottom line for me is, they’re both alone in those tubs.

“And just who pays the bulk of the taxes here? The so called 1%”Another Fox distortion. The 1% may ‘pay the bulk’ of income taxes (or they may not, I haven’t checked lately). But the “1%” routinely use creative accounting to pay much lower rates than any of us. Mitt Romney makes more money in one day than I do in an entire year, and yet pays a lower rate than I do.In addition, everyone pays sales taxes and payroll taxes, the bulk of which comes from the “99%”.

Another difference between the two Trudeaus is that Pierre Trudeau is DEAD…

I love the way most of you, and particularly night-gaunt49 are creatively misreading Heidi’s point to avoid asking yourself hard questions. Way to go!

My how I hope th eTea Party figure out how they’ve been manipulated and used for subversion by quite a few of the 1%…IF they can figure it out, they’ll hang them ALL for us.

Anyone who thinks Garry Trudeau is in the Canadian richest 1% must be unable to tell the difference between Pierre and Garry. Garry is a lifelong New Yorker.

I just read back through a month’s worth of this strip to see what I have been missing. Instead I see why I stopped reading it several years ago. I had forgotten just how hateful most of what Trudeau writes really is. Sure, some of them are funny, but when he goes into attack mode, he comes across as a self-righteous jerk. Sorry, Garry, but I’ll go back to the strips that are entertaining, not politically oriented lame excuses to attack anyone who disagrees with you.

How is it that in panel four, there’s been a miraculous hand transplant, right hand to left arm? Either that or Jeff can spin his head like the kid in Exorcist.

Once again, I have to say satire is not for the thin of skin; actually, it’s the right who have proven themselves unable to tolerate the slightest disagreement. And they can’t be argued with, they can only call people names. That’s what passes for a conservative “argument”.

Since when does Jeff smoke? He looks like Duke when he does that…

Pierre and Garry are distant cousins.

Or were distant cousins. Pierre died some years ago.

Just because you believe that the rich should pay their fair share doesn’t mean you begrudge rich folks for being rich. I think it is great that some are so blessed. Just level the playing field. Eisenhower had folks paying much higher rates than Clinton, and when Clinton left we had a surplus. Imagine. Ike wasn’t against rich folks either. Just thought we should have a fair tax code. Even Ronnie Reagan thought that fat cats should have to pay more than their secretaries. Google it.

Lay off the cigars Jeff or you won’t live long enough to enjoy any benefits. Mr Butts’ fatter cousin.

For years I heard conservatives wail that the income tax as originally designed was only supposed to effect the richest stratum of society. It was sold to the country, they complained, on the basis that most people would never have to pay it, only those with large incomes. Now there are so many people unemployed or underemployed or poorly employed that many don’t pay income taxes. Instead of rejoicing over the fact that so many don’t have to pay anything, the conservatives are are now bemoaning that! And remember, folks, about a quarter of all Americans don’t pay income taxes because they are children or students and have not yet entered the workforce.

We ….don’t have….ANYthing…..against…..Captain KIRK!

As a liberal, I DO have an issue with the Kennedy’s wealth – it was gained illegally. Joe Kennedy got rich by bootlegging during Prohibition. And while I am no fan of Prohibition, bootleggers in that day were not ones to shrink from murder, graft, bribery, assault etc. The morality of those who get rich by illicit means is not something to venerate.Just like I cannot venerate someone who got rich by firing people, and running the companies bankrupt because he could squeeze more “profit” out of it. I certainly won’t vote for such an “Etch-A-Sketch” for President.

For his hand to be correct in panel four, his head has to be on backwards, or at least turned so far around to look down his back, that his neck would face permanent injury.

So how much are the Koch Brothers paying you at the Tea Party marches? They DO bankroll it. If you can’t see that you are being played, then you are as sadly deluded as, well, the average Tea Party puppet.

It concerns me not a bit whether the Tea Partiers are paid or not. They are WRONG, either way.

Profits should be taxed. “Obscene” profits should be confiscated. Where there is no profit, there should be no tax.

We’ve been trying trickle down for 30 years. If it works, why are things getting worse instead of better?Reagan oversaw a period of growth, then handed a recession to Bush I. Clinton’s growth numbers were better with higher top marginal rates, but conservatives always explain that away one way or another. And the Clinton budget was a compromise…he got the higher tax rates, they got the spending cuts. If the current GOP was reasonable, we could cut the deficit the same way, undoing Bush II’s irresponsible deficit creation.

“No profits means no business. It is like no heart beat means death. I can see you have never owned a business or even been part of a small business.”

Incorrect on all but one count: I have never owned a small business, that’s true.

Many businesses, small and large, go quarters or even years in which they make no profits. They do not cease to exist if, for one or more taxable period, their payables exceed their receivables.

It worked? When? Evidence, please?

“Speaker O’Neil lied”? And poor Reagan was left holding the bag because he was a man of honor? Nice fairy tale. Reagan’s defense spending increases coupled with his tax cuts tripled the deficit.

The facts are that Clinton oversaw a period of growth every bit as strong as that under Reagan, without the increase in deficits. The facts are that the American economy was showing solid growth for years before Reagan, thus making it difficult to tie any growth to his policies. The tax increases he signed also muddy the picture.

If by “tax rate on business” you mean our corporate rate, yes, it is high. Of course, the obscene number of deductions and credits, most bought and paid for through campaign contributions and lobbying, mean that most companies pay a far lower rate, if they pay anything at all. We could afford to drop rates if and when we get most of these holes closed.

And what spending would you cut? What regulations? It’s easy and popular to rail against the government for overspending, but much harder to actually cut spending without harm to our economy or citizens.

what does megan fox have thaat we dont?

Why does he have a right hand on his left wrist?