Mark Shields: Republicans Haven't Raised Taxes in 21 Years 'And That Is Irresponsible'

NewsBusters.org ^ | July 7, 2012 | Noel Sheppard

[Kaslin]

Liberal media's love for higher taxes is a thing of legends.

On Inside Washington Friday, PBS's perpetually pandering pundit Mark Shields told viewers that since 1991, "21 years, Republicans have not voted for a single broad-based tax increase, and that’s become the theology of the party, the ideology of the party, the definition of the party, and that is irresponsible" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Mark Shields: Republicans Haven't Raised Taxes in 21 Years 'And That Is Irresponsible'

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Obama has to defend the policies he’s instituted. Five trillion dollars of debt added leaving us with a 1.7 percent economic expansion. That is a disaster. I think, yes, the Romney argument is not lies. The argument is…

NINA TOTENBERG, NPR: [Laughs]

KRAUTHAMMER: ...you conducted a Keynesian experiment – here’s the argument - and it did not succeed, because it sprinkled all this money on programs, crony capitalism and government jobs, which is not the key to growth, and that’s the major distinction between the policies of the Left and the Right, Democrats and Conservatives.

MARK SHIELDS, PBS: Well we do all of this equal time of who’s at fault, I just point out one thing: George Herbert Walker Bush dared to raise taxes in 1991. Since that action, 21 years, Republicans have not voted for a single broad-based tax increase, and that’s become the theology of the party, the ideology of the party, the definition of the party, and that is irresponsible.

First off, Bush 41 didn't raise taxes in 1991. He did it in 1990.

Liberal media members can't even get their facts straight about their beloved tax hikes.

Not surprisingly, Shields also ignored Bush lost the two years later almost exclusively because he went against his campaign promise to not raise taxes.

Even more disgraceful, media members such as Shields who publicly bludgeoned Bush into raising taxes hammered him the following year for doing so thereby assisting Bill Clinton's effort to unseat him.

Such inconvenient truths always seem to get left out of press discussions concerning the 1991 tax hike.

Also missing was how Walter Mondale in 1984 for all intents and purposes lost the election that year the day he told the nation during a debate with President Reagan that he was going to raise taxes.

The fact of the matter is that only the Left and their media minions want higher taxes; the vast majority of Americans don't.

But that doesn't prevent folks such as Shields from calling it irresponsible.

[LibLieSlayer]

Taxes are too high... spending is too high... cut spending, cut the size of government... increase efficiency and productivity, outlaw public sector unions... quit lying and cut taxes! Do you think that requesting dims to commit suicide would be bad form?

LLS

[reg45]

And the last time the Democrats wanted to raise taxes was 21 half lives of a Higgs Boson ago.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

So, Marky, are tax rates supposed to steadily rise until they reach 100%?

We ought to say "the government may collect X% of the GDP in taxes each year."

It is immoral reason for the government to confiscate an ever-increasing percentage of GDP.

It reduces the feral government to little more than a street mugger.

[elkfersupper]

So, allowing the economy to grow and thus increase revenue to the Treasury is "irresponsible"?

Zowie!

[uncbob]

Even more disgraceful, media members such as Shields who publicly bludgeoned Bush into raising taxes hammered him the following year for doing so thereby assisting Bill Clinton's effort to unseat him.

And Bush let himself be played for a sucker
That was more disgraceful

And even more disgraceful was the "Chip off the Old Block" learning nothing and getting rolled by the democrats

[aruanan]

Mark Shields: Republicans Haven't Raised Taxes in 21 Years 'And That Is Irresponsible'

Mark, you effing a-hole, which is least irresponsible,

a. not raising tax rates to accommodate ever greater government expenditure,
b. increasing government expenditure far, far in excess of existing revenue streams,
c. setting tax rates in such a way as to generate the maximum amount of tax revenue at the lowest possible harm to the private economy,
d. limiting federal expenditure to Constitutionally-allowable spending and then reducing tax rates to reduce revenue to match that level of legitimate spending.

The Republicans have more often been in favor of a, c, and d. The Democrats, at least since the 1960s, have never been in favor of anything but b.

[Secret Agent Man]

Yet Bush 41 had to go for raising taxes. They weren’t saying how responsible Bush was then, they said it was reason enough to be fired.

Bottom line - never listen to libs as to what you need to do, they’ll always find some reason to turn you into that moment’s worst person in the world and demonize you.

[Chode]

listen stooopid... the RATS raise them enough for BOTH parties

[elpadre]

OK - change to “nefarious and sinister.”

[Kaslin]

You said it and the gist of it all is, liberals are evil

[ripley]

“You said it and the gist of it all is, liberals are evil.”

You forgot psychotic and adolescent.

IMHO

[silverleaf]

and no one countered this garrulous fool by pointing out how much tax revenue INCREASED during those 21 years?

Especially how much tax revenue INCREASED after the “Bush tax cuts” of 2001?

[silverleaf]

"By 2003, Mr. Bush grasped this lesson. In that year, he cut the dividend and capital gains rates to 15 percent each, and the economy responded. In two years, stocks rose 20 percent. In three years, $15 trillion of new wealth was created. The U.S. economy added 8 million new jobs from mid-2003 to early 2007, and the median household increased its wealth by $20,000 in real terms.

But the real jolt for tax-cutting opponents was that the 03 Bush tax cuts also generated a massive increase in federal tax receipts. From 2004 to 2007, federal tax revenues increased by $785 billion, the largest four-year increase in American history. According to the Treasury Department, individual and corporate income tax receipts were up 40 percent in the three years following the Bush tax cuts. And (bonus) the rich paid an even higher percentage of the total tax burden than they had at any time in at least the previous 40 years. This was news to theNew York Times, whose astonished editorial board could only describe the gains as a “surprise windfall.”


Unfortunately, Mr. Bush allowed Congress to spend away those additional tax revenues. The fact is that the increase in tax revenues that flowed from the ‘03 tax cuts could have paid for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and then some but for rampant discretionary domestic spending"

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/3/bush-tax-cuts-boosted-federal-revenue/