Hoyer: Balanced Budget Amendment Would ‘Make it Virtually Impossible to Raise’ Taxes

CNSNews ^

[ExTxMarine]

He is saying this like it is a BAD thing?!?!?!

Not sure I understand...

[WayneS]

I was kind of ‘on the fence’ (and leaning towards opposed) regarding a Constitutional Amendment requiring something which our congress should already consider itself duty-bound to achieve each year. My main concern was the possibility that such a constitutional requirements COULD harm our country's ability to quickly raise money in times of national emergency (such as attacks by foreign powers).

However, “Steny” has convinced me that a balanced budget amendment would be a GREAT idea...

[Da Coyote]

And the problem with that is?

[Sir Napsalot]

>>> .... and make it virtually impossible to raise revenue,” Hoyer said.

Also a lie. The CCB bill makes it much harder to raise taxes unless you cut spending first, yes. But ‘virtually impossilbe to raise revenue’ is an out right lie.

It depends on his listeners not pay attention, ‘closer enough is good enough’. Let’s see how the gubmint can not raise any revenue for a change.

[jpsb]

"...and thats bad because???

It would mean the end of Marxism in the USA. No more redistripution of wealth. If you are a Marxist this plan (CC&B) scares the heck out of you.

[bkopto]

"Hoyer also said that the House Republicans were using the proposal to appeal to an “extreme fringe” "

Mr. Hoyer, have you been talking to Chuckles Schumer and the DNC?

[FroggyTheGremlim]

Who in the hell names a kid “Steny?”

[Dawgreg]

Hey Stenchy! Ya think????

[Repeal 16-17]

make it virtually impossible to raise revenue,” Hoyer said.

At least the man is honest.

I do have one concern with a Balanced Budget Amendment. How would it be enforced? Would people go to federal court claiming a federal budget is Unconstitutional? Who would have standing to sue?

[aruanan]

Hoyer: Balanced Budget Amendment Would ‘Make it Virtually Impossible to Raise’ Taxes

Oh, Steny, you poor dolt. The only reason the government has grown so disproportionally large compared to its constitutional role is because, starting with the income tax and Social Security taxes, capital gains, and many, many others, people like you have found it far too easy to create and raise taxes and fund your silly, but dangerous, statist dreams. It has grown like a frigging fiscal tumor ever since, to the point now of almost destroying the host's body.

We're ready to excise you and yours, buddy. Get ready for the political incinerator.

[lionheart 247365]

Maryland's State Legislature is loaded with these liberal brainiacs .

[arthurus]

enshrine their partisan budget priorities in law and make it virtually impossible to raise revenue,” Hoyer said.

Actually it would be petty easy to raise revenue. Along with the amendment, cut income taxes to 9% across the board with no deductions or exemptions of any sort and eliminate corporate and dividend taxation and most business regulation. Revenues, money coming in, will rise explosively. That is only "impossible" because it is impossible for liberals to even consider. They are short term greedy and want their hands in every pocket NOW. If that all did come to pass it would present its own problem and it would be severe i.e. too much revenue to the government and too much funding of Sky Pie in Utopia.

[kcvl]

December 10, 2007

Even as House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer has joined in steps to clean up pork-barrel spending, the Maryland congressman has tucked $96 million worth of pet projects into next year’s federal budget, including $450,000 for a campaign donor’s foundation.

Hoyer (D) is one of the top 10 earmarkers in the House for 2008, based on budget requests in bills so far, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, an independent watchdog group.

Consider the $450,000 that Hoyer inserted into a 2008 education spending bill for the California-based InTune Foundation Group, whose Web site describes it as a music-education nonprofit group.

In 2005, InTune got a previous earmark for nearly $500,000 to develop lesson plans on funk music and Nobel Peace laureates. Asked recently how effective that program had been, Education Department officials said they didn’t know. InTune hadn’t turned in a report on what it did, officials said.

Maillard, his current and past In Tune associates and their families contributed at least $31,000 to Hoyer’s political action committee from 2004 to 2006, Federal Election Commission records show.

Maillard isn’t the only Hoyer contributor who stands to benefit from 2008 earmarks.

In the defense spending bill recently signed into law, the congressman won $2 million for a project begun in 2002 at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station. “The entity to receive funding for this project is ManTech Systems Engineering Corp.,” Hoyer wrote to the House Appropriations Committee.

That company is a subsidiary of ManTech International, whose executives and employees gave $12,100 to Hoyer’s 2005-06 congressional campaign, making them one of his top contributors that cycle, according to OpenSecrets.org, a nonpartisan Web site for campaign finance information.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/09/AR2007120901640.html

[arthurus]

I suspect hat increasing revenue, defined in constant dollars, is actually not possible in the present configuration of the economy. Rates can be raised but revenue, the income produced by those rates, will decrease faster than it is decreasing with the rates we have.
The exception to that would be a massive wealth tax, the confiscation by government of a portion of every person’s assets or just every defined rich person’s assets, as revenue to the government. Unfortunately that is an extremely short term “solution” as it drastically reduces the future base for taxation and would be a powerful negative incentive for producers to produce beyond bare subsistence.

[kcvl]

Hoyer: ‘Pork’ doesn’t fatten budget
Too much attention on triviality distracts us from critical decisions.

by Steny H. Hoyer

March 11, 2009

Getting our fiscal house in order is much more difficult and more essential than arguing over earmarks.

http://odwweb.house.gov/media/articles.cfm?pressReleaseID=2877

[kcvl]

Hoyer-linked firm wins $18M Recovery.gov contract

According to FEC records, Smartronix president, Mohammed Javaid, vice president Alan Parris, and partner John Parris have together given $19,000 to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D) since 1999.

[Fledermaus]

He’s wrong, but not for why he thinks so. In the states that have balanced budget amendments the cowards in the legislature usually “budget” spending first and then say “well, we have to balance the budget so obviously we’ll need new revenues”.

Never, never, never have they ever cut spending first to match “predicted” revenues for the next budget cycle (and I mean real cuts as in less than last year and not cuts that take the projected increase of 15% and make it only 7%). If the voters say “no” to taxes then they attack by saying “okay, then we’ll have to cut police, fire fighters, close state parks, etc.” to scare them (sound familiar?).

Why the state can’t just use last years taxes as a start and spend accordingly is beyond me.

Oh wait, that would make too much sense.

[Brett66]

Requiring a 2/3 majority to raise taxes is good law, they could also pair it with a 1/3 minority required to lower taxes.
Set government reduction on auto pilot....

[fightinJAG]

Duh, is right!

The question is NOT raising taxes. It is having sufficient revenue, which depends on the size of the economy, not the rate of taxation.

In fact, there is an inverse relationship between tax rates and the tax base: raise taxes, shrink the tax base.

That is all.

[Myrddin]

I suspect an attempt at a wealth tax might spill lots of blood.