Another GOP Sellout On Tax Increases
By Lawrence A. Hunter, Ph.D.
UPDATE: July 9, 2:30 pm: A Majority of Republican Senators (25) went on
record Thursday supporting a tax increase to impose “shared sacrifice” on debt and deficit reduction.
Here is the language of the non-binding resolution (
S. 1323) that passed the Senate 74 to 22 on Thursday declaring class warfare on the citizens of the United States by their own elected representatives:
“It is the sense of the Senate that any agreement to reduce the budget deficit should require that those earning $1,000,000 or more per year make a more meaningful contribution to the deficit reduction effort.”
Interesting that you can spell “Judas” so many different ways—at least 25—in Washington, DC. Here is the list of betrayers:
|
Alexander (R-TN) |
Kyl (R-AZ) |
|
Brown (R-MA) |
Lugar (R-IN) |
|
Coats (R-IN) |
McCain (R-AZ) |
|
Cochran (R-ME) |
McConnell (R-KY) |
|
Collins (R-ME) |
Moran (R-KS) |
|
Corker (R-TN) |
Murkowski (R-AK) |
|
Cornyn (R-TX) |
Roberts (R-KS) |
|
Graham (R-SC) |
Sessions (R-AL) |
|
Grassley (R-IA) |
Shelby (R-AL) |
|
Hoeven (R-ND) |
Snowe (R-ME) |
|
Hutchison (R-TX) |
Thune (R-SD) |
|
Johanns (R-NE) |
Vitter (R-LA) |
|
Kirk (R-IL) |
|
UPDATE: July 8, 2:00 pm: While Republicans continue to protest they are not going to increase taxes to lower the deficit -- despite having embraced so-called "revenue-neutral loop-hole closings" in the name of "tax reform" --
Politico reports they are in search of an additional trillion dollars in higher revenues:
"Nothing is yet fully resolved, and just implementing the deal would require a complicated two-stage structure that poses its own perils politically. But if successful the hope is both to generate up to $1 trillion in added revenues for real deficit reduction over the next decade and give a shot-in-the-arm to a lagging economic recovery."
So, let me get this straight. Republicans now define "revenue neutral" as a trillion dollar increase in revenues, which they claim won't really be a "tax increase?" What a way with words. Republicans clearly believe they can make words mean anything they damn well please and that we CAN tax our way to prosperity.
By the time the cock crows on Monday morning after the Sunday meeting with the president at the White House, I expect the Republicans will have betrayed the American people three times: Social Security benefit cuts; further cuts to Medicare; and a tax increase, all without real reform of any kind.
UPDATE: July 7, 7:00 pm
You can’t make this stuff up. According to Politico:
“Speaker John Boehner told a closed meeting of the House Republican Conference that he was not going to provide them many details about his talks with Obama on a debt ceiling increase, but said tax hikes were ‘off the table,’ even as he considers a variety of ways to increase revenue.”
As I
wrote two weeks ago:
"Cantor’s walkout [of the debt-limit negotiations] is a political version of what happens inside high-energy particle accelerators where protons collide head on with their opposite anti-protons and transform into quarks, unstable elementary particles with strange properties and extremely short life spans that decay into common photons. In this case, when the irresistible Democratic force to raise taxes meets the unmovable Republican stonewall against tax increases head on, one should expect to observe the creation of a zoo of exotic non-tax-increase revenue raisers—‘loophole closings,’ ‘improved tax-collection efforts,’ ‘improved tax compliance measures’ and other exotic ‘revenue enhancers’ resulting in reductions in the ‘tax gap,’ all of which will quickly decay right back into higher taxes. To paraphrase one of quantum physics’ pioneers, Richard Feynman, ‘Anyone who claims to understand the U.S. tax system, doesn’t.’”
Meanwhile, while Obama runs interference for the Republicans in putting lipstick on the tax-hike pig, Republicans are blocking down field for Obama on cutting Social Security benefits. Once again, Republicans have come up with a way to
chisel old people’s Social Security benefits by cutting cost of living allowances (COLAs) behind the technocratic fig leaf of “improving the way inflation is measured.”
So here's where we are: Two parties, one Establishment determined to raise taxes and cut Social Security and Medicare without reforming any of them. It is time for all good conservatives to come to the aid of the party and the country and demand that the Republican Leadership either step down voluntarily or be removed forthwith.
There's not a dime's worth of difference between the two parties; just differences in style.
Original Post: July 7, 10:35 am
In less than a week, the Republican line on tax increases has gone from, “No how, no way,” to “Let’s make a deal on ‘closing loopholes.’”
AP
reported the sellout right from the traitor’s mouth, quoting the Republican Majority Leader himself: “If the president wants to talk loopholes,” Cantor said, “we’ll be glad to talk loopholes.” Faster than you can say, “Republicans lied again,” the House Republican Leadership has completely abandoned its earlier “unswayable” position that absolutely no so-called loophole closings would be discussed outside a comprehensive effort to reform the tax code.
It’s another Republican sellout, pure and simple. How long is the American public going to put up with this treacherous, duplicitous party? Endlessly, it appears.
Just like Charlie Brown with Lucy and that damn football, conservatives knew in their hearts the GOP jerk-out on the debt deal was coming. Yet, most conservatives remained willfully blind, joyfully gullible, believing all the GOP’s blustering as they fell again for Republicans’ now routine diversionary tactic of “Watch the Birdie.” The same Republican Leader, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (VA), who staged a dramatic walkout of the debt-limit negotiations a few weeks ago over the Democrats’ insistence that Congress raise taxes with so-called “loophole closings,” has now embraced them. I
predicted this a couple of weeks ago but even this old cynic didn’t believe the Republican sellout would come so soon, so brazenly.
Congress has become so accustomed to holding itself above the law, it now appears our arrogant representatives believe themselves to be above the voters. If voters troop to the polls in 2012 and stupidly pull the lever for Republicans on the grounds that they aren’t as bad as the Democrats, they deserve the slow-boil poaching Republicans are famous for administering to their loyalists. The motto of the GOP is “Leave No Conservative Unravished.” Conservatives’ attitude, despite all the Tea Party hoopla, seems to be, “It is inevitable so we might as well lie back and enjoy it.”
And what is Obama’s part in the Faustian deal with the Republican Leadership? He has agreed to go along with Republicans in
cutting Social Security and Medicare without reforming either one.
The conspiracy between the White House and the Republican Leadership to raise taxes and cut Social Security and Medicare without reforming any of them has become so craven that White House spokesman Jay Carney refused to acknowledge that meetings even took place between Speaker of the House John Boehner and President Obama. According to the AP report, “Carney said the negotiations had a better chance of success if the details of the talks were kept under wraps.” I guess so. Treachery and sellouts always work best in secret.
Exit Not An Option In Chuck Schumer's America. New York Senator Chuck Schumer has introduced the Fugitive Taxpayer Act of 2012 to re-impose taxes on expatriates after they flee the United States and take up residence in a foreign country. Proposal also would impose a mandatory 30 percent tax on the capital gains of anybody who renounces their U.S. citizenship and would bar such individuals from ever reentering the United States again.
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