Reminder: Bob Kerrey Cast the Deciding Vote for the Clinton Tax Hike

ATR ^ | 2012-03-02 | Kristie Shu

[92nina]

Bob Kerrey looks to be a challenging replacement for Ben Nelson in the Nebraska 2012 senate race, so constituents need to be reminded of his left-leaning track record.

Most prominent was his August 1993 deciding vote in favor of Clinton’s 1993 tax hike, which he himself declared as the “biggest tax increase in the history of the country.” “Kerrey helped lead the fight to unravel Ronald Reagan’s bipartisan Tax Reform Act of 1986 when Kerrey supported first George H.W. Bush’s 1990 tax increases and then Bill Clinton’s 1993 tax increases,” stated Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “Both of these tax increases made the federal income tax structure more burdensome, less transparent, and more costly to taxpayers.”

Indeed, the Bush tax hike brought the top personal/small employer rate from 28 to 31 percent, raised the Medicare payroll tax, and increased excise taxes on beer, wine, and tobacco. Two years later, the Clinton tax package increased gas taxes, and brought corporate income tax rate from 34 to 35 percent. It substantially raised top personal/small employer rate—from 31 to 39.6 percent. Subsequent budget surpluses following the 1993 tax hike should be attributed to a GOP takeover in Congress two years later, not to this tax increase. The GOP Congress sharply curtailed spending and supported pro-growth tax policies.

“Republicans in Congress know what works: lower taxes and restraints on spending,” continued Norquist. “But New Yorker Bob Kerrey is a serial tax hiker.”

The implications could not be clearer: Bob Kerrey will resume his support of extreme anti-tax measures once given the opportunity. Once a tax hiker, always a tax hiker.

Read more: http://www.atr.org/reminder-bob-kerrey-cast-deciding-vote-a6752#ixzz1oMqd34wE

[92nina]

In his bid US Senate, Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) looks to be a formidable choice. Voters, however, should consider that Kerry has been a serial tax hiker for years.

Take this article and others I found to the fight to the Libs on their own turf; put the Left on the defensive at Digg and at Reddit and in Stumbleupon and Delicious

[RJS1950]

This is already incorporated into anti-Kerry advertising in Nebraska. I’ve seen it.

[bigbob]

Even if he overcomes the residency challenge, Nebraskans now view him as a carpet-bagging liberal, and his past will come back to haunt him.

[92nina]

Glad to hear that the people in Nebraska are ahead of some of the other folks in this country.

[92nina]

Oddly enough, wasn’t Kerrey considering running for public office in New York once?