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They are misleading you.
Author: Raine    Date: 08/09/2010 12:53:12

Yesterday, I had the chance to see a little of Representative Mike Pence on Meet the Press, with David Gregory. Thankfully, so did Think Progress. Both John Boehner and Mike Pence have shown that the GOP Have no idea how to cut the deficit. They also are complaining about things that they themselves have blocked.
GREGORY: You’re not being responsive to a specific point which is how can you be for cutting the deficit and also cutting taxes as well when they’re not paid for?

BOEHNER: Listen, you can’t raise taxes in the middle of a weak economy. […]

GREGORY: But tax cuts are not paid for is that correct?

BOEHNER: I am not for raising taxes on the American people in a soft economy.

GREGORY: That’s not the question. Are tax cuts paid for or not?

BOEHNER: Listen, what you’re trying to do is get into this Washington game and their funny accounting over there. …

GREGORY: Do you believe tax cuts pay for themselves or not?

BOEHNER: I do believe that we’ve got to get more money in the hands of small businesses.

Later in the program, Pence ran into the same trouble:

GREGORY: This tension that I got out with Leader Boehner. Republicans want more tax cuts seems to me he acknowledged that they’re not paid for and yet at the same time they want tax cuts but they’re so worried about the deficit. How do you resolve that tension?

PENCE: Well I think the way you resolve it is you focus on jobs. …

GREGORY: But congressman, you’re asking Americans to believe that Republicans will have spending discipline when you’re saying extend the tax cuts that aren’t paid for and cut the deficit, how is that a consistent credible message?

PENCE: Well I understand the credibility problem. …

GREGORY: You acknowledge, tax cuts being extended cannot be paid for, it would be borrowed money.

PENCE: Well no I don’t acknowledge that. … I think it’s apples to oranges.

Watch:


The Tax cuts enacted during the Bush Administration were NOT paid for. For the GOP to act like allowing these cuts to expire is a tax increase is not only dishonest, it's extremely misleading. From the Center for American Progress:
More than half of the total benefit from the Bush tax cuts this year alone will accrue solely to the richest 5 percent of Americans while the middle 20 percent of Americans will reap only 7 percent of the benefit.

All of these tax cuts were passed with a “sunset” provision that will cause them to expire at the end of 2010. Virtually everyone in Congress agrees with the Obama administration that we should make permanent all of the reduced taxes for those who make less than $250,000—that’s 98 percent of Americans. The disagreement is limited to those cuts that affect the richest 2 percent of Americans—with conservatives demanding that the wealthiest Americans continue to benefit from the Bush administration’s largess.
And it's that top 2% that most people should be focusing on. Also from the article:
The cost of those tax cuts is going to go straight onto our national credit card unless we raise taxes from everyone else to pay for the $690 billion in tax breaks for the rich or we find $690 billion in spending cuts. And that means increased interest payments on the debt. When we add in the costs of additional debt service, the true price of maintaining the tax cuts for the wealthy jumps by almost $140 billion.** In total, keeping those cuts for the rich will cost almost $830 billion over the next 10 years.
The Bush administration never found a way to pay for these tax cuts, claiming they would pay for themselves thru increased employment opportunities that the rich would create. They didn't really create jobs. There were 132 million jobs in 2001, Three years later there were just 131.4 million jobs. The tax cuts did not add jobs during those three years. By 2007, right before the recession began, total jobs had grown to 137.7 million. In 2008, 2.6 million jobs were lost. Economically, it was the worst year since 1945.
http://i.l.cnn.net/money/2009/01/09/news/economy/jobs_december/chart_job_losses.03.jpg


Sunsetting the tax cuts could potentially add 830 Billion dollars into our economy. If the GOP is really serious about cutting the deficit and focusing on jobs, they would have to be behind allowing these cuts to expire.

If they want to get more money in the hands of small businesses, they would have voted for the Small Business spending bill. If they wanted to focus on jobs, they would have voted for the jobs bill. If they REALLY believed in PAYGO, they should automatically be for this. Bush allowed PAYGO to expire in 2002, and the budget deficits returned. The federal surplus shrank from $236.2 billion in 2000 to $128.2 billion in 2001, then a $157.8 billion deficit in 2002—the last year statutory PAYGO was in effect. The deficit increased to $377.6 billion in 2003 and $412.7 billion in 2004.** They are more concerned about the Stimulus, even though it's 488 times smaller than the impact of the Bush Tax cuts.

The GOP is asking for the very same policies they championed that got this nation into this disastrous economy. Why do they think that the tax cuts that didn’t work the first time would somehow work this time?

Maybe they really don't believe what they are saying and instead they simply have no idea about what to do. They have made it clear through words and deeds that they are against anything and everything this administration does. The bottom line, is if they really wants these cuts extended, they need to find a way to pay for them, and they can't. They just want to lay the debt on the middle class. They want to deflect from the reality and try to fool the American public. It's pure obstruction, and it crippling this nation.

and
Raine

 

31 comments (Latest Comment: 08/10/2010 01:46:41 by TriSec)
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