Fact Checking 2012 & The Bush Tax Cuts

I'm posting this here so that it is available for posterity and I can refer to it when I get into a discussion with people who recall "history" a little differently than the facts do.

History Lesson: Why The Bush Tax Cuts Were Enacted

(By Glenn Kessler , TheWashingtonPost, 19 December 2012)

 We’ve noted this history before, but many people have forgotten it. Given that the dispute over whether to extend all of the Bush tax cuts has now led the nation to the edge of the “fiscal cliff,” let’s take a trip back in time to recall why the Bush tax cuts were enacted in the first place. (The Fact Checker covered passage of the Bush tax cuts as an economic policy reporter for The Washington Post.)  Oddly, a key reason the tax cut became reality was because of a fear the United States soon would have zero debt.

With federal revenue soaring in 2000, generating budget surpluses, there was pent-up desire for a tax cut, especially among Republicans.  George W. Bush had just been elected on a pledge to cut taxes, but his plan did not get much traction among Democrats until then-Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan warned Congress of a dangerous new specter — that the government would pay down the national debt, and there would be no place to park excess funds.  “At zero debt, the continuing unified budget surpluses currently projected imply a major accumulation of private assets by the federal government,” he declared.  Yep, you read that right. The perceived danger was — believe it or not — that there would be no national debt left.

Greenspan, however, offered caveats and warnings that were largely ignored by Congress. In fact, he said that any tax cuts should have triggers that would halt them “if specified targets for the budget surplus and federal debt were not satisfied.”  In other words, the tax cuts would have been terminated or reduced, depending on the nation’s economic circumstances — precisely the tactic Republicans said was a non-starter in the 2011 debt-ceiling debate.  “We need to resist those policies that could readily resurrect the deficits of the past and the fiscal imbalances that followed in their wake,” Greenspan said, back when the federal debt was $5.7 trillion. (It is $16.3 trillion today.)  The tax cut that emerged a few months later was a classic congressional compromise — a hodgepodge of rate cuts and special-interest tax provisions that actually was much larger than officially scored. It is frequently reported that the tax cut reduced revenues by $1.35 trillion over 10 years, but that’s not accurate.

Moderate Democrats, in fact, thought they had won a large victory when they forced through a budget resolution that cut the tax cut from $1.6 trillion to $1.35 trillion. Thus, because the Senate at the time was split 50-50, with Vice President Richard Cheney casting the deciding vote, the tax cut would have to fit within the terms of the congressional budget resolution in order to avoid a filibuster.  But then Republicans cleverly terminated the tax bill after just nine years, meaning they could fit what in effect was a $1.6 trillion tax cut within a 10-year box. (The tax cut would have terminated after 10 years because of arcane Senate budget rules, but this way, Bush was able to have his cake and eat it too.)  

Few people understood at the time the significance of this shift — and even fewer today remember what happened.  Ironically, no one was really happy with the resulting tax package — especially conservatives.  “Conservatives view Bush's legislation not as an important economic or philosophical statement that shows what Republicans stand for, the way President Ronald Reagan’s tax cut did two decades ago,” we wrote in The Washington Post at the time. “Instead, the Bush tax cut is generally considered a political document, filled with gimmicks and trade-offs that drain it of any real impact.”

As Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, a tax cut advocacy group, put it: “It provides almost zero help for the economy over the next two years and modest help over the next decade.”  Yet almost 13 years later, the Bush tax cut has become sacrosanct. The Club for Growth on Wednesday warned Republicans not to vote for House Speaker John Boehner’s “Plan B” proposal to raise taxes only on people making more than $1 million a year.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/history-lesson-why-the-bush-tax-cuts-were-enacted/2012/12/19/55a93ac6-4a1d-11e2-ad54-580638ede391_blog.html

 

 

The Biggest Pinocchios Of 2012

(By Glenn Kessler, TheWashingtonPost, 21 December 2012)

Virtually all of this year’s fact checking was focused on the presidential election. So, in selecting our biggest Pinocchios of the year, we spent days going though old columns and reliving an election that seems rather distant now.  In many ways, it was depressing reading. So much of the campaign was fought over trivial or inconsequential issues. For instance, we wrote nearly 20 columns dissecting every possible claim about Mitt Romney’s career at Bain Capital, which came under attack both from his Republican rivals and the Obama campaign.  Romney left himself open to scrutiny because he incorrectly claimed that he helped create more than 100,000 jobs at Bain — he mainly created wealth for his investors — but the attacks often were equally false. A candidate’s experience and background is certainly worthy of debate, but all too often in 2012 it just turned into a game of political gotcha.

In this election, fact checking certainly became part of the conversation, with many additional news organizations joining FactCheck.Org, PolitiFact and The Washington Post in scrutinizing politician’s statements, especially during the debates. Since fact checking is a relatively new genre of journalism, however, it is frequently misunderstood.   Fact checking is a complement, not a replacement, for other reporting. Good beat reporters obviously are well-placed to analyze issues and spot falsehoods, and that’s an essential part of their jobs. But, especially in a political season, it is difficult to analyze every claim and counterclaim while also writing day-to-day stories about the news.

Fact checkers, by contrast, can dig deeply into an issue or even a single statement. We can help explain, at length, how a politician justifies his or her assertion and whether there is much of a factual basis for it.  Some commentators said after the election that fact checkers had failed because politicians kept saying misleading things. That’s ridiculous. Fact checkers are not trying to change the behavior of politicians. We are simply trying to inform voters.  Indeed, after more than 30 years of writing about Washington institutions, we believe there is little difference between Democrats and Republicans in terms of twisting the facts and being misleading when it suits their political purposes. So if a politician believes he or she has a winning argument that moves voters — such as attacks on Romney’s Bain record — then there is little motivation to drop that argument simply because a journalist says it is misleading.

While we deal in the facts, the most difficult — and controversial — part of the job is assigning the number of Pinocchios at the end of the column. We try our best to be consistent, but by its nature the rating is somewhat subjective. It gets especially difficult in the Two- versus Three-Pinocchio realm. We appreciate informed commentary by readers and critics — such as Mark Hemingway in the Weekly Standard and Sean Higgins in the Washington Examiner — who have pointed out our leaps in judgment or inconsistency of standards.  Still, a study by George Mason University’s Center for Media and Public Affairs released in October found that this column split its ratings almost equally between the two parties.  In compiling this list, we primarily focused on claims that had earned Four Pinocchios during the year. To keep it simple, we have shortened the quotes in the headlines. Click on the headlines to read the original column.

‘Mitt Romney hasn’t paid any taxes for 10 years’

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) made this inflammatory charge, repeatedly, without offering any evidence except for vague references to receiving a phone call from someone who had invested with Bain Capital. At the time, Romney (citing dubious precedent) had only made public two years of tax returns — though he later released a summary prepared by his accountants showing he had paid federal and state taxes in each of the past 20 years. But in any case, Reid was reckless in making such a claim without any evidence to back it up.

‘Obama sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China.’

This was the key point of a 4-Pinocchio television ad that the Romney campaign aired in Ohio during the waning days of the campaign. As we noted at the time, it was a sign of desperation. The series of statements in the ad individually may have been technically correct, but the overall message of the ad was clearly misleading — designed to piggyback off of a claim by Romney during a speech that Chrysler was moving Ohio factory jobs to China. Even more remarkable, the Romney campaign fiercely defended the ad, even as it came under harsh criticism from, among others, Chrysler.

‘As a corporate raider, Romney shipped jobs to China and Mexico. As governor, he did the same thing: Outsourcing state jobs to India.’

This line came from an Obama campaign ad that managed to jumble together a series of inaccurate claims about Romney’s business experience. He wasn’t a corporate raider, he did not outsource jobs to China and Mexico and as governor he did not outsource jobs to India. (With the support of liberals and conservatives, he vetoed a bill that would have terminated at state expense a $160,000 phone-service contract. The jobs returned to the United States when the contract ended.) Special mention should also be made of a 29-minute video released by a pro-Newt Gingrich Super PAC, titled “King of Bain,” which also made wildly inaccurate claims about Romney’s business career.

‘90 percent of the budget deficit is due to George W. Bush’s policies’

President Obama repeatedly reminded voters that he became president during a grim economic crisis. But he went too far when he claimed that only 10 percent of the federal deficit was due to his own policies. About half of the deficit stemmed from the recession and forecasting errors, but a large chunk (44 percent in 2011) were the result of Obama’s actions. At another point, Obama falsely suggested that the Bush tax cuts led to the Great Recession.

‘Let me tell you how I will create 12 million jobs’

For a business executive, Romney sometimes had trouble with numbers. He claimed that he would create 12 million jobs in his first term, touting an energy plan (3 million), a tax plan (7 million) and cracking down on China (2 million). But these numbers came from studies that often had little to do with Romney’s policies — or had time lines as long as a decade. In other words, the figures bore no relation to reality.

‘Mitt Romney closed my plant, I lost my health insurance and short time later my wife died.’

This ad by the pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA Action featured a steelworker, Joe Soptic, who blamed Romney for the death of his wife after he lost his health insurance when the steel plant closed. But Romney was no longer actively managing Bain when the plant closed — and Soptic’s wife did not die until five years later. She also continued to have health insurance for a number of years after the plant closed. It is also quite likely that Bain’s involvement extended the life of a dying steel plant, in which case Soptic kept his insurance longer than he might have expected.

‘Ten percent of all deaths in the Netherlands are from euthanasia — and half of those people are euthanized involuntarily at hospitals because they are older and sick.’

Former senator Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) made this claim during the GOP presidential primaries, spawning huge headlines in the Netherlands. He even claimed that the elderly in the Netherlands wear “do not euthanize me” bracelets. But there was not a shred of evidence to back up his claims. About 2 percent of deaths in Holland are from euthanasia, with virtually no reports of action being taken without the explicit request of the patient.

‘Reagan made a deal to cut $1 in taxes for $3 in spending cuts, and the Democrats never made the cuts.’

We recently explained why this claim — a feature of the current “fiscal cliff” debate — is simply historical myth — and a deal that President Ronald Reagan himself misunderstood. (He makes this assertion in his memoir.) The agreement was not 3:1, but more like 1:1. Congress actually delivered on a good hunk of the spending cuts, but the Reagan administration failed to do its part. So this bit of historical fiction should be dropped from the political discourse.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-biggest-pinocchios-of-2012/2012/12/20/27b69404-4ae7-11e2-b709-667035ff9029_blog.html#pagebreak

The Right To Petition The White House Prompts Grievances, Gags Online

This is why we still need representational government.  If we go strictly by popular vote, Twinkie bailouts will become more important than averting financial crashes.  Check out the "punchline" in the last two sentences. 

The Right To Petition The White House Prompts Grievances, Gags Online

(By David Nakamura, Washington Post, 09 December 2012)

Forget the “fiscal cliff”: When it comes to the nation’s most pressing concerns, other matters trump financial calamity.  Several thousand Americans, for example, are calling on President Obama to nationalize the troubled Twinkies industry to prevent the loss of the snack cake’s “sweet creamy center.”  Thousands more have signed petitions calling on the White House to replace the courts with a single Hall of Justice, remove Jerry Jones as owner of the Dallas Cowboys, give federal workers a holiday on Christmas Eve, allow members of the military to put their hands in their pockets and begin construction of a “Star Wars”-style Death Star by 2016.  And that’s just within the past month.

The people have spoken, but it might not be what the Obama administration expected to hear. More than a year after it was launched, an ambitious White House online petition program aimed at encouraging civic participation has become cluttered with thousands of demands that are often little more than extended Internet jokes. Interest has escalated in the wake of Obama’s reelection, which spurred more than a dozen efforts from tens of thousands of petitioners seeking permission for their states to secede from the union.

The idea, dubbed “We the People” and modeled loosely on a British government program, was meant to encourage people to exercise their First Amendment rights by collecting enough electronic signatures to meet a threshold that would guarantee an official administration response. (The level was initially set at 5,000 signatures, but that was quickly raised to 25,000 after the public responded a little too enthusiastically.) 

Administration officials have spent federal time and tax dollars answering petitioner demands that the government recognize extraterrestrial life, allow online poker, legalize marijuana, remove “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance and ban Rush Limbaugh from Armed Forces Network radio.  The last issue merited a formal response from the Defense Department: “AFN does not censor content, and we believe it is important that service members have access to a variety of viewpoints,” spokesman Bryan G. Whitman wrote to the more than 29,000 people who signed the anti-Limbaugh petition.

The “We the People” program emerged in the news last week when petitioners demanded that Obama block an appearance at Sunday’s “Christmas in Washington” concert by Psy, the South Korean “Gangnam Style” singer who is under fire for anti-American lyrics. The program’s rules require that petitions relate to “current or potential actions or policies of the federal government,” prompting the White House to pull down the petition because Obama has no authority over booking at the privately run charitable event.

As quirky — and potentially embarrassing — as some of the most popular petitions are, White House officials profess to be encouraged by public interest and participation. More than 94,000 petitions have been created, and they have garnered 5.9 million signatures from 4 million users, said Macon Phillips, the White House director of digital strategy. The administration has issued 82 responses.

“We could create a carefully staged social-media experience . . . but it would be the most boring thing imaginable,” said Phillips, who oversees a staff of 11, including three who work extensively on the project. “Would I prefer not to go around the office here and be known as the guy carrying [obscure] petitions? That would be nice. But I view this overall as a huge win because we are able to address issues people care about on a scale that’s never happened before.”  Unlike some of his peers, Phillips, 34, who worked on Obama’s first campaign, believes there’s no such thing as bad publicity. He contends that the notoriety surrounding the more offbeat petitions has helped drive interest to more serious efforts, including some that have had a direct effect on policy.

As an example, Phillips points to the administration’s response to two petitions that garnered more than 100,000 signatures opposing legislation aimed at forcing Web sites to monitor users for copyright infringements. In an 820-word response, the White House indicated it would not support the bills as written — and both were later dropped by Congress.  “I don’t think the administration would have weighed in as quickly” without the petitions, said Phillips, who envisions linking “We the People” to Facebook and other social media to solicit even greater participation.

On a less serious topic, the White House agreed to release its homemade Honey Brown Ale recipe to the public in September after more than 12,000 people signed an electronic petition.  “With public excitement about White House beer fermenting such a buzz, we decided we better hop right to it,” White House assistant chef Sam Kass wrote in a playful response titled “Ale to the Chief.”  Not every request achieves such immediate results.

Stephen Bassett of Bethesda had high hopes when he petitioned the White House last year to disclose knowledge of human contact with extraterrestrial life and acknowledge government efforts to cover it up. His initiative attracted 12,000 signatures.  Bassett is still waiting for E.T. to phone his home. Phil Larson, a policy and communications specialist in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, wrote in response that there is “no credible evidence of extraterrestrial presence here on Earth.”

Still, Bassett, executive director of the Paradigm Research Group, which is dedicated to uncovering what it says is suppressed information about UFOs, feels he accomplished his goal of bringing attention to a subject some might consider fringe.  “You always hear people say Social Security is the ‘third rail’ of American politics, that no one is going to touch it,” Bassett said. “But no one considers Social Security a fringe issue. The E.T. issue is the most highly charged third rail there is.”  Phillips acknowledged that during internal deliberations before the program was launched, some administration officials expressed concern that awkward topics would draw attention. But in the end, they agreed that the program would inform the populace and help set the record straight.

Many petitioners complain that, even with the more serious petitions, the administration has issued boilerplate responses with little opportunity for follow-up. One petition asked the White House to take the petitions more seriously; that one garnered 37,000 signatures.  Andrew Rasiej, founder of Personal Democracy Media, which examines the nexus between politics and technology, said it’s not surprising that petitioners holding un­or­tho­dox points of view often dominate the site. “The organized minority is always more effective than the disorganized majority,” he said.  Last month, Rasiej’s organization suggested in an online essay that the administration hold more conference calls with petitioners and find ways to allow them to talk to one another to help bridge partisan and ideological divides.

Those divides are on full display on the site. Seven secession petitions are currently among the top three dozen on the list, including one from Texas with 120,000 signatures. The second most popular — one of many petitions seeking to legalize marijuana — has 65,000.  Requests for a recount of the presidential election results, the repeal of the health-care law and the impeachment of the president each have surpassed the 25,000-signature threshold — even though the recount petition was based on voting statistics that a fact-checking Web site rated “Pants on Fire” false.  There is at least one request focused on the fiscal cliff. A petition posted on Nov. 18 calls on the White House to reach bipartisan compromise on the issue with Congress so young people “can have bright futures.”  Fewer than 650 people have signed it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-right-to-petition-the-white-house-prompts-grievances-gags-online/2012/12/09/c9adf3fc-3f10-11e2-ae43-cf491b837f7b_story.html

Who Pays The Most Taxes?

This link ( http://www.businessinsider.com/who-pays-taxes-2012-8 ) started me thinking about this subject the other day.  It has lots of charts and graphs which conveys some really interesting points.  I then looked at a few other pages for more info and balance.  Here’s those results.

 

Millionaires Who Pay the Highest Tax Rate

(By Robert Frank, CNBC, 23 November 2012)

Warren Buffett and Mitt Romney have managed to create one of the enduring myths of our tax debate: that the rich pay a lower rate than the rest of America.  This may be individually true. Buffett pays a lower rate than his secretary and Romney pays a lower rate than most of us who make our living from salaries.  But nationally, the tax code is still broadly progressive. The more your make, the more taxes you pay as a percentage of your income.  According to new data from the IRS, people who make $1 million or more had an average tax rate of 20.4 percent in 2010. Tax filers who earned $30,000 to $50,000 paid an average rate of 4.8 percent, while those who made between $50,000 and $100,000 paid 7.7 percent. Those making under $30,000 had a negative effective rate, meaning they paid no federal income taxes after deductions and credits.  Put another way, millionaires pay a rate that's more than four times that of the middle class.

One caveat: Rates go up as income goes up - but only to a point. Once you hit a certain magic number among super-high earners, your tax rates start to fall slightly.  According to the IRS, average tax rates increase as income increases - until you get to around $1.5 million in annual income. Once you make $2 million, average tax rates start to decrease. The average tax rate peaks at 25.1 percent for those making between $1.5 million and $2 million.  After that it starts to go down, and falls to 20.7 percent for those making $10 million or more.

So the millionaires who pay the highest average tax rates in America are those who make between $1.5 million and $2 million. That $2 million could be called the "Top Turning Point" on the income ladder, where rates reverse.  The reasons for this aren't complicated. Once you get above $2 million, your share of income from investments increases. Investments are generally taxed at the 15 percent capital-gains rate, compared with the top ordinary-income rate of 35 percent.  Those making $10 million or more earned nearly half of their income from capital gains and dividends.  Rates don't fall all that much once you get above $10 million. Even among the top 400 earners in America, whose average income is more than $200 million, the average rate is 18 percent - still more than three times the rate paid by the middle class.  Both sides of the current political debate on taxes will no doubt see these data differently. The right will say that the rich already pay more than their fair share, while the left will point to the low rates paid by the wealthy relative to the official tax rates.  But the figures show that the more you make, the more you pay - up to the Top Turning Point.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/millionaires-pay-highest-tax-rate-170212760.html

The Facts On Tax Rates: Who Pays What

(By Harry Jacobson, CNBC)

 The current discussion led by President Obama that top earners are not paying “their fair share” of taxes is not supported by the facts. His claim could result from an unfortunate reliance on anecdotal information or (as is more likely) a political strategy to gain support for tax increases from an unwitting public and media.  So what is rhetoric and what is fact? The most common way this issue is presented by the president and his supporters is that millionaires and billionaires don’t pay as much in taxes as their secretaries. To quote directly from the recent State of the Union address, “Now you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.” Most Americans should know (but unfortunately do not) that millionaires and billionaires pay a whopping amount in federal taxes and disproportionately much more than their secretaries.

The Obama Tax Plan: Who's In The Crosshairs?

(By Roberton Williams, CNBC)

Let’s look at the numbers. Using data from the Internal Revenue Service in 2009, the top 1% of earners, including individuals with incomes of $343,927 or greater, represented 16.9% of all income and paid 36.7% of all federal taxes. Their average tax rate was 24.01%. The top 0.1% who had incomes of $1,432,890 or greater represented 7.8% of all income and paid 17.11% of all taxes. Their average rate was 24.3%. If we assume that a secretary’s adjusted gross income falls between $32,396 and $66,193 in 2009, the average tax rate for that income group (which represents individuals in the top 25%-50% of all earners) was 5.56%. (The entire group of earners between the top 25%-top 50% earned 20.7% of all income and paid 11.0% of all Federal income taxes.)
If we take a closer look at the top 0.1% of earners, their average adjusted gross income in 2009 was $4.4 million and their average tax bill was $1.07 million. Included in this group were 137,982 tax returns. Their total tax bill was $147.6 billion. Several sources indicate that the average income range for Secretary III’s and Administrative Assistants is between $38,000 and $43,000, and that there are 4.3 million secretaries and administrative assistants in the U.S. (www.bis.gov). Using the average 5.6% tax rate for the tax payors in the top 25%-50% of earners, each secretary on the average pays between $2,128 and $2,408 in taxes.

So what do the facts tell us? First, the average tax payer in the top 0.1% of all earners (the group which includes the vast majority of millionaires and billionaires) pays a tax rate over four (4) times that of an average secretary. Second, the average tax payor in the top 0.1% of all earners pays as much in taxes as 444 secretaries (the income of these top 0.1% earners is about 102 times the income of the average secretary). Third, if one raised the tax rate paid by these 137,982 tax payors to 30% (as is being proposed in the so-called Buffet rule), it would take over 43 years of collecting this additional tax revenue to just equal the Federal budget deficit for one year, 2011. (We have a huge spending problem.)
In no way is my presentation of the above data meant to lessen the status and importance of secretaries and administrative assistants (nor is it intended to make a judgment about the appropriateness of income levels). Indeed, my professional life, and I venture to say the professional lives of almost all of those individuals in the top 0.1% of earners, has been blessed and made immeasurably more successful because of the secretarial and administrative support we were fortunate to have. The one and only reason for this factual essay is to make the data available for all to assess and to understand that the popular claim that the wealthy do not pay as much in taxes as do their secretaries is totally absurd.

This country has serious challenges: a government which spends well beyond its means, an education system that is expensive and doesn’t fully prepare our young people for competitive and financially rewarding careers, an energy policy that puts our country in jeopardy vis a vis other world powers, a healthcare system that is too expensive for the health outcomes it delivers, a regulatory and tax environment that restrains economic growth, and the list goes on. Let’s not spend another minute on the debate over tax rates and commit ourselves to address these challenges. Doing so successfully is the key to a better and economically stronger nation.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2012/01/31/the-facts-on-tax-rates-who-pays-what/

Hollywood Reporter: Director Roundtable 2012

(By Stephen Galloway & Matthew Belloni, The Hollywood Reporter, 28 November 2012)

Ben Affleck shares a traumatic on-set memory, David O. Russell reveals which film he made with his "head up his ass" and Quentin Tarantino on when he'll call it quits: "I don't intend to be a director deep into my old age."

In 1997, indie filmmaker Gus Van Sant directed an unknown actor-writer named Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting, which launched Affleck and his buddy Matt Damon to stardom (and won them a screenplay Oscar).  Fifteen years later, Van Sant, 60 (Promised Land), and Affleck, 40 (Argo), arrived at The Hollywood Reporter 's annual Director Roundtable as peers, both riding awards buzz for their latest dramas. The duo joined Tom Hooper, 40 (Les Miserables), Ang Lee, 58 (Life of Pi), David O. Russell, 54 (Silver Linings Playbook), and Quentin Tarantino, 49 (Django Unchained), for a spirited discussion at Milk Studios, during which Affleck acknowledged his acting roots. He quipped (only half-jokingly), "I'm the only one here who could be hired by everyone else."

The Hollywood Reporter: What's been your toughest moment as a director?

Tom Hooper: I was 14 years old. I was directing my brother Ben in my second movie, Bomber Jacket. This involved my brother finding an old Second World War bomber jacket in his cupboard and putting it on. And as he zips it up, he's transported to a Second World War airfield, where he's haunted by Second World War bombers. So I'm on location. I've got 100 feet of film, which I'm running at 16 frames a second, which gives me a shooting ratio of about 1.2 to 1. And my brother suddenly realizes that he has a power over me that never in his life before he ever imagined, which is that if he intentionally makes a mistake on tape, my 100 feet is whittled down to nothing. And he literally had me in tears.

Gus Van Sant: I also experienced making a film at 14 with my sister -- you know, your brothers and sisters, they're not exactly with you, and they don't really want to be doing it in the first place, at least in the case of my sisters.

Ben Affleck: And they don't respect you. (Laughter.)

David O. Russell: Lots of good training.

Quentin Tarantino: (To Affleck) But then you cast your brother [Casey Affleck] in your first movie [Gone Baby Gone]!

Affleck: On the set, he'd go, "This is shit." (Laughter.) A scene we did with my brother, we set the shot up, "We're gonna see down the hall, you're gonna come into the room and f-- the girl up." So we start the shoot. My brother walks in and goes to another room. (Laughter.) Everyone's standing there. There's an empty hallway. Nothing's happening. And I just said: "What are you doing? Don't walk into another room where no one can see you!" It was tough. But I cast him because he's such a great actor, and part of why he is a great actor is 'cause he will walk into a room where he knows the camera isn't, whether it's to f-- with you or because he really thinks it's real.

Tarantino: The telling of the story, dealing with the actors, dealing with the cameramen and everything -- to me, that's the easy part, that's the part where I think, "I was meant to do this." It's just the shouldering of the entire production and leading the army and inspiring everybody every day. You want to have a temper tantrum. You want to just say, from time to time, like, "I've f--ing had it." But you can't say that because everyone really is counting on you to get them up that hill.

THR: Have you ever had a temper tantrum?

Tarantino: We all get frustrated.

Russell: Well, speak for yourself. (Laughter.)

Tarantino: I haven't had a temper tantrum, not yet. You know, it's like, I can't really have a temper tantrum and still be a boss that's respected, at least as far as I'm concerned. But, you know, at some point, though, people got to know that there's a penalty for f--ing up.

THR: How do you deal with executive interference? When Django was running three hours and Harvey Weinstein was pressuring you to bring it lower, how did you handle that?

Tarantino: It's not a big deal. I didn't want a three-hour movie, either. It's a big epic and everything, so I figured it would be around 2:45, and that's what it is. When you're cutting it down, at that moment in time, before you watch it with an audience, you know it's too long, but you can't imagine taking anything out. So then you watch it with an audience, and then all of a sudden -- "Oh, wow, that is kind of boring now!" or "No, this is not as suspenseful by the time we got to it as it needs to be." But you can only go so far in the Avid room on your own. At some point, you have to watch it with an audience. And then literally 15 minutes just come flying out, where before you couldn't imagine a minute leaving. (Laughter.)

Russell: You sit through one of those screenings where all of a sudden everyone's bored, and then you come back and just like …

Tarantino: "I mean, guys, the story could never make sense if you take one more minute out of it!" And then you watch the movie and 15 minutes are gone by noon the next day! (Laughter.)

THR: Harvey's known for that, scissor-hands.

Tarantino: Well, if he treated me that way, I wouldn't be working with him for 20 years.

Russell: I welcome them into the edit room, and I will go toe-to-toe with anybody on any note, and I welcome all collaboration because I'm not precious about it. I'm not gonna have you drain the energy out of something, but let's try it, or I'll just disagree honestly about it. But it always ends up making the movie better. Bradley Cooper was in our editing room. Harvey came in. Jay Cassidy, who's a fantastic editor.

Affleck:  Actually, being an actor was a real advantage for me in having that discipline. I've been through so many experiences where I'd go and watch some cut that was very long, and I would go to the director and say, "Man, I'm in the movie, and I'm bored. So surely the audience is gonna be."

THR: Ang, what's the worst moment for you as a director?

Ang Lee: When I have to replace someone. Once I had to replace a composer. I won't tell you which film, but that hurts. I have hits, I have not-so-hits. But I was always proud of them, proud of everybody's work on them. But something like that happens -- I felt defeated, choosing between a good person, a loyal person, a good artist, but something's not clicking.

Russell: That happened to me with Jon Brion, who's a wonderful composer. He composed the music for one of my earlier films, and then on The Fighter he came to see an early cut, and he said, "You don't need a score." I said, "Well, we need a very light touch," knowing that he's a man who writes strong melodies. As friends, we wanted to work together. We then proceeded into this bad idea of him writing melodies that were very strong that did not belong in the movie. And I did not use it, which is heartbreaking.

Affleck:  I've fired a couple of actors. It's the worst thing in the world because I know, as an actor, what it's like. I was a child actor, and the director threatened to fire me. That traumatized me. I was 13 years old. And I went around in fear of being fired. So this movie [Argo] was the only time I really fired people, but I had to do it. I had all these Persian actors who were supposed to speak Farsi. And often they would audition in English and I would say, "You can speak Farsi, right?" "Oh, yes, yes." A guy came in for a really crucial part, and on the day of shooting, we were blocking the scene, and this guy's got this mini speech. And the guy did it, and it was just terrible. He was sort of like, you know, twisting the mustache and being the Iranian villain and having the accent and adding all these flourishes. A couple times I said: "Just do nothing and say your lines. Let's try that." And just previous to that, there was this guy who had a little bit in the movie. But it was so nice. And then when this other guy was blowing it -- and not just blowing it, but hamming it up -- it made it easy to say, "No, you know, you're trying to ruin my movie."

THR: Did you ever fear you wouldn't make it as a director?

Russell: My greatest struggle was losing my way, you know. You can be given enough rope in this business to hang yourself if you're not careful, and I see it all the time. I experienced it where you start overthinking things and you try to make things too interesting, become too particular. Nothing feels right, you know, no project feels right. That was around I Heart Huckabees. After Three Kings, I had had three movies that had done well. I overthought what I was gonna do next, and I think I had my head up my ass on that movie. And then I came out of it. My whole life changed. I got divorced. I had kind of a wilderness period. I made a film that never was finished [Nailed], which is unconscionable 'cause this financier kept running out of money. That was the nadir of everything for me. I was like, "Wow, man, I don't think it's gonna get worse than this." And then Sydney Pollack gave me the book [Silver Linings Playbook] five years ago, and I thought I was gonna get to make that. And then Harvey wasn't ready to make that, didn't have the money. And I thought, "Well, when am I gonna get my chance?" Because that was a personal story to me because of my son [who has struggled with bipolar issues] and everything. So I got to make The Fighter, which I never expected. That's a project, 10 years ago, I might have looked at and said, "I don't know, what is this?" I would have been above it. But I said, "Why don't you try to do this really good?" But now I feel like I'm doing what I can do good work at.

THR: For many directors, there's a period when they do great work and then they don't, and it's often brief. Are you afraid that you might have talent for a moment and then it's gone?

Hooper: I think you have to keep people around you who are going to be absolutely brutally honest to you, and I wonder whether what happens to some people is, they get to a place where they don't want to hear brutal truths anymore about their work. My family are my most important first critics, and they are totally harsh. A couple of them came to my [Les Miserables] mix review last week, and they were like, "You've got pacing problems." I said, "How can I have pacing problems?" And as a result, I then found a solution.

Affleck:  A really big-time studio executive, when I first got out here as an actor, told me in a sort of cavalier and slightly dismissive way that directors are like tuning forks. First we go "Bing!" -- we hit the fork. And for a while it stays in tune. And then at a certain point, it just goes out of tune, and it never comes back. At the time, I was like, "Well, I don't care about that. I'm an actor." (Laughter.) But I think that view exists about directing.

THR: Ang, did you feel added pressure on this film because the budget was higher than you've worked with?

Lee: It's crazy. But when you're working, that's when you're sane. It's the in-between that's crazy.

THR: How do you go insane? You look like the most sane person I've ever met.

Lee: That's just the surface. But that's not the real reason I feel insane. It's the next movie I want to do that is a drive. There's focus, fear. Those visceral feelings keep you alert and alive.

Van Sant: Dennis Hopper said that something harder than making a movie is not making a movie.

THR: You've all had a lot of success. Are you afraid it will end?

Tarantino: No, not at all. But I don't intend to be a director deep into my old age.

Russell: Wait a minute. That's bad news for everybody.

Tarantino: I'll probably just be a writer, or I'll just write novels, and I'll write film literature and film books and subtextual film criticism, things like that.

THR: In how long do you plan to make that change?

Tarantino: Well, part of the reason I'm feeling this way is, I can't stand all this digital stuff. This is not what I signed up for. Even the fact that digital presentation is the way it is right now -- I mean, it's television in public, it's just television in public. That's how I feel about it. I came into this for film.

Affleck:  Digital projection as well? 'Cause film's over. I mean, there are no film projectors in the country.

Tarantino: Yeah, and that's why --

Russell: I won't shoot digital.

Tarantino: No, I'm not talking about shooting digital.

Russell: Do you shoot digital?

Tarantino: No, I hate that stuff. I shoot film. But to me, even digital projection is -- it's over, as far as I'm concerned. It's over. So if I'm gonna do TV in public, I'd rather just write one of my big scripts and do it as a miniseries for HBO, and then I don't have the time pressure that I'm always under, and I get to actually use all the script. I always write these huge scripts that I have to kind of -- my scripts aren't like blueprints. They're not novels, but they're novels written with script format. And so I'm adapting the script into a movie every day. The one movie that I was actually able to use everything -- where you actually have the entire breadth of what I spent a year writing -- was the two Kill Bill movies 'cause it's two movies. So if I'm gonna do another big epic thing again, it'll probably be like a six-hour miniseries or something.

THR: How is the final cut of Django different from what you initially wrote or envisioned?

Tarantino: It's shorter. (Laughter.)

THR: Ben, what did you learn from Gus on Good Will Hunting?

Affleck:  A lot. Gus was the first great director whom I worked with. We had read and rehearsed and practiced stuff in Good Will Hunting for three, four years, so I had like 50 ideas on how to play each scene. So I do a take, but Gus doesn't say anything. And I really did not know what was going on. I'd say, "Gus, what did you think?" He was like, "I don't know, what did you think?" It was this transforming experience where I realized I'm responsible for my performance. I'm responsible for my life, my place in the creative universe.

THR: Gus, did you think Ben would have this filmmaking career when you worked with him?

Affleck:  Don't answer that. (Laughter.)

Van Sant: I can't remember. I don't think Ben said that he was interested. But later, when you were making moves towards directing in Gone Baby Gone, I remember Ben was very --

Affleck:  I was grilling Gus. I was like, "How the f-- do you deal with actors?"

Van Sant: Well, when I saw Gone Baby Gone, I thought that you had done something that was way beyond what I had tried to do with mixing nonprofessionals with professionals. I was sort of jealous.

THR: But you didn't imagine that when you did Good Will Hunting?

Affleck:  Gus didn't even know my name on Good Will Hunting. (Laughter.)

Van Sant: I don't know. I'm always surprised when people choose to be directors because it's kind of a weird job. And so when they actually choose, then you think to yourself, "Well, they're in for a lot of shit."

THR: Do you have to have a certain amount of craziness to be a director?

Russell: You have to have a lot of passion, and you have to be very strong.

Hooper: On Les Miserables, many people lined up to tell me not to do the singing live. But in the end, you've got to go with your gut instinct.

Affleck:  You have to shoulder too much responsibility and burden to be really crazy as a director. There's a little more crazy in actors. There's an actor who's a great actor but who takes a Geiger counter and sees how radiated his wardrobe is. A little nuts, yeah. But the guy's also a genius, he does incredible stuff, so who gives a shit?

THR: It's Matt Damon, right? (Laughter.)

Hooper: Also, you're only as good as your powers of advocacy as a director, and almost all your power comes with consent.

THR: Well, David, on The Fighter, Melissa Leo made her displeasure clear until she saw the film and won an Oscar, and then she said, "You know what? David was right." So how much is advocacy and how much is imposing your will?

Russell: You've got to be strong. You've got to stick to your guns, and you've got to be patient. And then let people have their choices. And half the time you end up in the editing room, and I say, "You know what? I'm glad they did their choice because that turned out to be more right for me." I don't always know what's right, but I know I've got to try the one that I'm feeling in my heart.

THR: Quentin said he's planning to leave the film business. Do any of you imagine that you will?

Hooper: No. I will die in the trenches.

Russell: Yeah, that's how I feel. Like John Huston with the air tank.

Hooper: If you talk about the insanity of doing it, I think about the insanity of not doing it. My unhappiest days have always been when I'm not making films.

Affleck:  Usually the business shows you the door before the Grim Reaper does.

Hooper: That's a cheery thought.

Van Sant: Yeah. I wonder if people are still gonna hire me, but if that's the case, there are other disciplines that are as fascinating, like theater or painting or writing.

Tarantino: I don't know about the tuning fork idea. We can all cite examples of where it's not the case. But it's age, it's absolutely age. I'm really well versed on a lot of directors' careers, you know, and when you look at those last five films when they were past it, when they were too old, and they're really out of touch with the times, whether it be William Wyler and The Liberation of L.B. Jones or Billy Wilder with Fedora and then Buddy Buddy or whatever the hell. To me, it's all about my filmography, and I want to go out with a terrific filmography. [2007's] Death Proof has got to be the worst movie I ever make. And for a left-handed movie, that wasn't so bad, all right? -- so if that's the worst I ever get, I'm good. But I do think one of those out-of-touch, old, limp, flaccid-dick movies costs you three good movies as far as your rating is concerned.

Russell: I agree with you completely. I also welcome, as a life challenge, remaining emotionally relevant and compelling.

THR: Quentin, great poets write hundreds of terrible poems and 20 that are great. Don't you have to measure the artist by the handful of great works and accept that failure is part of the process?

Tarantino: It's a grade-point average. I think I risk failure every single time with the movies I do, and I haven't fallen into failure. Risking failure is not what I'm afraid of. Failing is what I'm afraid of. (Laughter.) No, they're not the same thing, and I do think it's a young man's game. I really do. I also have this little idea in my head, and then I'll stop talking all this bullshit. I discovered Howard Hawks when I was 15. I saw Rio Bravo and thought it was fantastic. Then I ended up going to some film festival, and I saw His Girl Friday. Then all of a sudden I'm at home, and I notice that a movie called Barbary Coast is being played, and it said in the TV Guide, "Directed by Howard Hawks," and so I watched that. Well, those three movies in a row really got me into that director. So I fantasize about another 12-year-old girl or boy, 20 years after I'm dead, seeing one of my movies, liking it. "Who the hell did that?" Seeing another movie, and then whatever they choose from the pile -- 'cause they don't know what's good and what's bad, all right? -- I have to keep their dick hard! I have to keep them wanting to go back for more. They can't grab Buddy Buddy! They can't grab Buddy Buddy! It can't -- that can't happen!

THR: What is the weirdest or most interesting interaction you've had with a fan?

Affleck:  I had a letter from someone in China that said they were glad about what we did to the Japanese in Pearl Harbor. I wasn't sure if they understood that it was a historical movie or what, or why they even watched the movie.

Van Sant: One exec wanted me to make a film about a bathroom attendant, which we wrote for him, and then-

Affleck:  Three and a half hours. (Laughter.)

Van Sant: It was really about the Wall Street crash, actually, what we ended up writing. And then he didn't do it.

Lee: Recently I was interviewed by this woman journalist. At the end, she said, "I want to see you doing Fifty Shades of Grey." (Laughter.)

Russell: Since I just made a movie which has some bipolar behavior in it, I had someone write me a letter that said I should make a movie about a bipolar superhero, and the letter itself was bipolar because it was delusional. But it was halfway interesting. The motto of the superhero was, "I hate being bipolar, it's awesome." (Laughter.)

Tarantino: This young 14-year-old girl wrote a little synopsis for Kill Bill Vol. 3.

Affleck:  Wow.

Tarantino: She wanted to play the daughter grown up, or at least at her age. And I actually read it. I called her and thanked her for it. I thought it was just so sweet that this little girl liked the movie so much that she continued the story herself. I always really hope that people take the story on themselves and take it to a different place and fill in the blanks that I didn't tell them about.

Van Sant: We made a silent version of Restless, which was nice, because we did so many silent takes that we cut together a silent version.

Russell: Oh my gosh. Could have beat The Artist to the punch.

Affleck:  It would have been very easy to do a silent version of the [Terrence] Malick movie I did [To the Wonder]. No one talked on set. (Laughter.)

Russell: Back to Quentin, about his whole thing about the young man's game. First of all, I'm gonna try to convince you to keep making movies 'cause I love watching your movies. Second of all, I remember saying to Diane Keaton about 10 years ago, "What is it with Woody Allen?" I felt like his work had gotten shaky. And she said: "I don't know. I don't know how many times he can go back to that well." But the fact that Woody Allen, every year, gets up and makes a movie, I think that's a good way to live, and he hits a good average sometimes. I really loved Midnight in Paris.

Tarantino: It was my favorite movie of last year, actually.

Russell: So I want to be John Huston with the tube in my nose, and I want you to be up there.

Affleck:  I'll be in either of those movies.

♦♦♦♦♦

Ang Lee, Life of Pi: Lee's $120 million-budgeted fantasy epic could win him his first directing Oscar since 2005's Brokeback Mountain.

Ben Affleck, Argo: Affleck's third feature as a director takes viewers inside Hollywood's role in the Iran hostage crisis of 1980.

David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook ;Bradley Cooper stars in Russell's follow-up to The Fighter, a dramedy about the impact of mental illness on a family.

Gus Van Sant, Promised Land: The anti-fracking drama stars Matt Damon, who won a writing Oscar with Affleck for the Van Sant-directed Good Will Hunting.

Tom Hooper, Les Miserables: Hooper, whose The King's Speech won best picture and director Oscars in 2011, recorded live singing in this musical epic.

Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained: Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz star in Tarantino's latest, about a slave who teams up with a bounty hunter in the American South.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ben-affleck-quentin-tarantino-4-394576