FourFreedomsBlog - Say What? The GOP's against Tax breaks?

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Say What? The GOP's against Tax breaks?
Author: Raine Date: 09/08/2010 12:46:24

Back to life, back to reality. Really? This is reality? A reality where TAX BREAKS are met with skepticism by the GOP?

Obama's plans for billions of dollars in tax breaks for businesses are policies Republicans typically embrace, but the party has little motivation to give the Democratic White House a win with polls giving them strong hope of gaining seats in Congress -- possibly winning both houses.

Obama will announce his plans to stimulate the sagging U.S. economy in a speech on Wednesday in Cleveland.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday there was little appetite for new economic proposals from Obama, arguing that the $814 billion stimulus the president already pushed through Congress in early 2009 has not had the desired effect.

"After the administration pledged that a trillion dollars in borrowed stimulus money would create 4 million jobs and keep the unemployment rate under 8 percent, their latest plan for another stimulus should be met with justifiable skepticism," he said.

Let's put aside that the good senator lied about the stimulus claiming it was a trillion dollars (it wasn't.), shall we? Oh hell, let's put aside that Reuters got the amount wrong as well. It wasn't 814 billion dollars, it was $787 billion. This is a BIG difference from a trillion dollars. Perhaps Mr. McConnell hasn't read the report from the Council of Economic Advisors released in July.

In our report, we estimate the impact of the Recovery Act on job creation in two ways. Our model-based approach uses multiplier estimates similar to those used by the Congressional Budget Office to estimate how the Recovery Act tax cuts and outlays to date likely translate into employment effects. This approach indicates that the Recovery Act has raised employment relative to what it otherwise would have been by 2.5 million jobs as of the second quarter of 2010. The projection approach uses statistical procedures to project the likely path of employment based on the information available through the end of the first quarter of 2009. This yields a substantially larger number: it suggests that employment as of the second quarter is 3.6 million higher than it otherwise would have been. By this estimate, the Recovery Act has met the President’s goal of saving or creating 3.5 million jobs -- two quarters earlier than anticipated.

The caveat is that this is an estimate, but it's an estimate that has not been proven wrong as we enter September. There is a recovery still ongoing, even if it is slow. Without the stimulus, 2.5 million MORE people would be out of work.The GOP wants to stop the recovery because it isn't happening fast enough.

Now the Party of No is wary of tax breaks for small businesses, claiming -- get this -- it will add to the deficit. From the Hill:

“Offering $200 billion in narrowly targeted business tax cuts and new deficit spending while yoking taxpayers with a $3.8 trillion January tax hike is like a carjacker offering taxi fare before he rides off in your car,” Carter said in a statement Tuesday.

Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) also weighed in: “The White House is missing the big picture. None of its plans address the two big problems that are hurting our economy: excessive government spending, and the uncertainty that their policies — especially the massive tax hike they have planned for Jan. 1 — is creating for small businesses.”

I have a few simple questions for the GOP and for everyone who opposes letting the Bush Tax cuts sunset -- Where are all the Jobs that were supposed to be created when the Bush Tax cuts went in effect? Why didn't the wealthy (who benefitted the MOST from the Bush Tax cuts) create the jobs then? When in recent history has any Republican Majority balanced a budget much less decreased a deficit? Where did the money come from for the two occupations in the Middle east?

Let me tell you something, even Clifton Yin of the FrumForum (yes, THAT Frum, the republican Strategist) is trying to figure out what the hell the GOP is doing. Who can blame him when they see things like this? From Meet the Press in July:

MR. GREGORY: But, Congressman, that’s a, that’s a pretty gauzy agenda so far. I mean, what specific–what painful choices are Republicans prepared to make? Are they going to campaign on repealing health care, for instance, repealing financial regulation? Would you like to see those two things done?

REP. SESSIONS: Well, first of all, let’s go right to it. We’re going to balance the budget. We should live within our own means, and we should read the bills and work with the American people.

MR. GREGORY: How do you do it? Tell me how you do it. Name a painful choice that Republicans are prepared to say we ought to make.

REP. SESSIONS: Well, first of all, we need to make sure that as we look at all that we are spending in Washington, D.C., with, not only the, the entitlement spending but also the bigger government, we cannot afford anymore. We have to empower the free enterprise system. See, this is where…

MR. GREGORY: Congressman, these are not specifics.

–---------------------
MR. GREGORY: Senator, I’m sorry, I’m not hearing an answer here on specific–what painful choices to really deal with the deficit. Is Social Security on the table? What will Republicans do that, that, that would give them–like ‘94, there was a Contract With America. What are voters going to say, “Hey, this is what Republicans will say yes to”?

SEN. CORNYN: Well, the president has a debt commission that reports December the 1st, and I think we’d all like to see what they come back with. We’ve got three of our most outstanding members on that commission–Mike Crapo, Tom Coburn and Judd Gregg–and I–my hope is they’ll come back with a bipartisan solution to the debt and particularly entitlement reform, as you, as you mentioned. But I…

MR. GREGORY: But wait a minute, conservatives need a, a Democratic president’s debt commission to figure out what it is they want to cut?

As Lizz Winstead so aptly put it: Why isn't the conversation, "Hey rich people, why didn't you created more jobs when given all those taxbreaks so you could create jobs? She's right. Why isn't this the message that people are hearing? This is not reality, it's mass disinformation from the GOP. They don't seem to have any ideas except to muddy the waters and blame other people.