Posted on 11/17/2011 6:05:11 AM PST by IbJensen
It is one of the quintessential pillars of the Republican Party — no new taxes. George H. W. Bush got thrown out of office for violating that pledge. But Pat Toomey, Senator of Pennsylvania, is proposing new taxes. He’s proposing $300 billion in new taxes, largely through restructuring and simplifying the tax code. But they are new taxes.
So we have the GOP willing to surrender a key plank and the Democrats are unhappy. They want more. They want the GOP to go even higher. Toomey says no dice. I’m starting to think he’s outfoxed all of us by throwing down his first proposal and making it also his final proposal and in the process showing us two things.
First, he is showing us just how irresponsible the House Republicans are. Toomey drew a firm line in the sand and the House GOP seems willing to up the ante. It’s no wonder John Boehner, our Republican Speaker, has presided over the largest spending binge we’ve ever seen from Congress. House Republicans are not only willing to raise taxes, potentially more than Toomey, but are daring to call it a tax cut.
Pat Toomey is also showing the country something else — something more important. The Democrats seem to genuinely not care one whit about American national security and now the American public can see this.
Consider yesterday Democratic House Whip Steny Hoyer said at a press conference that our national debt is our greatest national security threat. He wants the Super Committee to go big and go bold.
The Republicans on the Super Committee are willing to sacrifice a key plank of the GOP and raise taxes. Even the mainstream media is aghast at the GOP willing to raise taxes. The press cannot believe what they are seeing.
But what are the Democrats willing to do? Thus far it seems nothing. They will not cut spending. They will not offer up serious reforms on entitlements. Nothing. They just want more taxes. In fact, the Democrats are screaming at Pat Toomey for offering up his first plan at $300 billion and then saying that’s it.
That’s not how you negotiate in Washington. It’s how I’ve been saying the GOP should negotiate, but that’s not how Washington does it.
And the Democrats are mad as hell at Pat Toomey for cutting to the chase and giving his final offer as his only offer.
What are the Democrats countering with? Nothing but more taxes. They are saying publicly they won’t even come up with serious offers until the GOP offers even more tax increases. In other words, the Democrats are offering up nothing serious.
We know that if the Super Committee fails, the Defense budget gets severely cut.
So the Democrats are not willing to offer up any spending cuts to help solve our greatest national security crisis, i.e. our national debt. And because they will not help fix our national debt, they will see the American defense budget drastically cut.
We see now just how little the Democrats care about our national security.
Thanks Pat Toomey. But you still shouldn’t have offered tax increases.
Obama is running against his imaginary do nothing congress. Reid won’t let anything that originates in the house pass in the senate. Make use of the deadlock and pass conservative legislation that forces Obama to define himself as the do nothing president.
Or they could continue with their use of bold pastels and hope the margins break in their favor on election day. After all, who can resist a party whose core message is,”We’re too weak to do anything”?
The democrat plan is to make more white flags.
I’m not too impressed with the republicans either who supported this deal that put most of the consequences of super committee failure on the military.
I accuse them of knowing exactly what they were doing - giving republicans cover to allow them to support tax increases. “Hey I really really hate to vote for a tax increase but what can I do? The democrats want to gut your defense.” As if you couldn’t have seen this coming when you agreed with this travesty this summer.
Here's the problem, Republicans both houses including Paul Ryan voted for this bill (and praised) that calls for the defense trigger cuts. Boehner said in an interview he got 95% of what he wanted. Predictably they want to point fingers at the Democrats they made that deal with. That is like McCain complaining about TARP two weeks after voting for it.
The author needs to spell out the exact scenario where these 2013 trigger cuts would actually take effect. Seems the bigger likely-hood is few budget cuts with a new spending bill and the Bush tax cuts expire, taxes go up, after the election.
Don’t forget they also need to teach everyone to say “I SURRENDER” in French.
I surrender just sounds better when you say it in French.
It’s, how do I say this, just natural to say I surrender in French.
” Seems the bigger likely-hood is few budget cuts with a new spending bill and the Bush tax cuts expire, taxes go up, after the election. “
Yeah..
"Cuts" based on planned spending increases, that is.
Pat Toomey, Club for Growth leader who used that as a stepping stone for Senator, is now putting forth tax increases? Is there no one in DC who will stand up for DECREASES in federal spending and department eliminations? What happens to these people? I’m so disgusted I can’t stand myself.
Thanks sickoflibs.
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