You can't take the title of the McCain Rule from me. I sweet talk Arizona conservatives six months every six years. I earned that rule!
Posted on 08/03/2012 9:20:59 AM PDT by SharpRightTurn
The polite word is pivot.
For two years, Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch cozied up to the tea party — scoring perfect ratings from the American Conservative Union — and avoided getting dumped in a primary like former colleague Bob Bennett did in 2010.
But now, after winning his late-June Republican primary, Hatch is pushing a bundle of special-interest tax breaks that hard-core conservatives liken to handcuffs on the free market. He wrote the bill with Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and watched Thursday as five of the 11 Republicans on the panel voted to kill it.
The bill stops the alternative minimum tax from hitting millions of middle-class taxpayers, but it also extends targeted tax breaks for a wide range of businesses and industries, including movie producers and energy companies.
In one way, there’s consistency to Hatch’s position: He has long argued that the special tax breaks should only be scrapped if that decision is made as part of a major reform of the Tax Code. So while letting them go forward isn’t the conservative position, it wouldn’t be a new one for Hatch — except that he says this bill is, in fact, part of tax reform.
He and other supporters — Democrats and Republicans alike — are casting their call to maintain the breaks as a “first step” toward that reform. But for opponents, killing a few tax benefits while keeping the rest of them is akin to a smoker switching to a lighter brand and telling friends he’s quitting. If Congress did nothing, the special carve-outs would die at the end of the year.
Some senators, like Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Va.), praised the bill for its spirit of reform even as they tried to amend it with new tax breaks.
Hatch called it “a first step towards the ultimate goal of comprehensive tax reform.”
But conservatives don’t see it that way and one website is calling Hatch out by name for his role in drafting the package.
“It’s a shame, yet predictable, that Orrin Hatch would eschew his cathartic conversion to conservatism,” Daniel Horowitz wrote on the conservative website redstate.com. “His overarching selling point for giving him one more term was his promise to bring the glory back to conservatives as chairman of the Finance Committee. Well, now we’re getting a taste of what to expect next year.”
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) declined to criticize Hatch, but he articulated his feelings about the policy during debate over a tax benefit for energy-efficient appliances.
“I certainly can’t support borrowing $650 million — because it will be borrowed from our kids and grandkids — and paying it to two or three companies in this country and say we’ve done the right thing,” he said. “It’s the worst form of crony capitalism that I know.”
Overall, the bill would cost $205.1 billion over 10 years with the AMT patch eating up $132.2 billion of that total.
In a new era of political populism — the tea party on the right, the Occupy movement and others on the left — neither party wants to be seen giving special government carve-outs to big business. But they also don’t want to let taxes go up on political patrons during an election year. The answer: Kill a few subsidies to spare the rest and then label the whole package a “reform.”
Hatch saw two potential avenues: work with Baucus and try to prune the package as much as possible or allow Democrats to move forward on their own and load it up with additional costly breaks. Hoping that this type of deal making could lay a foundation for a tax overhaul, he chose the former.
Some of his colleagues question the strategy.
“If it’s a practice round, it certainly doesn’t bode very well for tax reform. Tax reform is going to be extremely tough,” said Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who voted against the measure. “This was easy compared to what tax reform will look like.”
The GOP is badly divided over the question of whether to stop subsidizing big business. Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney recently said he’d end the wind production tax credit that’s now in the bill.
Hatch appears to be sensitive to that split, and he has emphasized the tax breaks that were left out. After agreeing to the larger deal, the focus on the details leaves Hatch in the position of playing both good cop and bad cop.
“The tide is turning. For the first time in my 21 years on the committee, we are moving in the opposite direction,” he said. “Am I satisfied with the number of drops? My answer is emphatically no. I would like to trim more.”
He also tried to stop Democratic efforts to load up the package with more goodies.
“We as a committee have already done a good job of eliminating a lot of the expiring tax credits,” he said. “A lot of us don’t think we should take two steps back.”
Some of Hatch’s colleagues cut him a break for making a deal.
“The truth is if we do tax reform in the first quarter, all of these things are moot,” Burr said. “They’re gone.”
As Hatch lined up with Baucus, it was Coburn who made a stand for conservative orthodoxy. Of the 115 amendments that were offered at Thursday’s committee meeting on the bill, 61 were his — all ending one provision or another.
In an interview after the meeting, Coburn declined to comment on Hatch directly or whether the bill violates conservative principles. Sen. Mike Lee, who defeated Bennett in 2010, declined to comment on Hatch’s role in moving the tax bill forward.
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), a leading voice among freshman conservatives in the Senate, said he hadn’t yet studied up on the overall package. But he was certain of how he feels about special tax breaks.
“I am not in favor of using the Tax Code to subsidize business activities,” he said.
I know Liljenquist wasn't a particularly good candidate, but why do we have to put up with these same fossils decade after decade?
**** the gop/ep... **** hatch!
Every time he makes a bad vote, just for the hell of it, send him a rock or a brick, something to let him know that, though he’s immune again, we’re still watching.
Hey, thanks, Sarah !
Indiana and Texas Republicans are so much more intelligent than those in Utah.
They could smell the RINO BS and eliminated Lugar and Dewhurst in short order. Too bad voters in other states aren’t that astute.
Is any conservative really surpised that Hatch would go back to his RINO ways once winning the primary? It’s the RINO M.O.
At least we bagged Lugar.
Hatch didn’t like what happened to Lugar in Indiana.
These old poops that control the GOPe are so totally disgusting and are an embarassement for us conservatives.
Stupid GOP voters - just plain stupid. I for one am sick of the Boehners and McCains, Hatches, of the party. They thumb their noses at us and laugh.
If a GOP politician doesn't have a conservative record starts cozying up to the tea party, you can be sure he'll veer back left as soon as he is out of danger of losing his seat.
Might as well call it The Hatch Rule.
Another example of why I am supposed to trust Romney to keep his word, who is also a politician changing his positions just to win election.
This is Politico sowing division among us.
“Is any conservative really surpised that Hatch would go back to his RINO ways once winning the primary? It’s the RINO M.O. At least we bagged Lugar.”
It is tough to knock off these entrenched, established party hacks.
McCain beat Hayworth by pounding him mercilessly even before Hayworth entered the race and used money people had donated to McCain to defeat Obama in his Senate campaign, giving him an overwhelming money advantage. Hatch took note of that, and what happened to Bennett, and moved to the right ahead of the election to make it look as though he had gotten relition, and worked on building up his campaign warchest. Also, Liljenquist is not Mourdock or Cruz. But if I were in Utah, I would have backed Liljenquist. There is no excuse for sending a guy like Hatch back for another term after—what?—30 years already.
You can't take the title of the McCain Rule from me. I sweet talk Arizona conservatives six months every six years. I earned that rule!
“These old poops that control the GOPe are so totally disgusting and are an embarassement for us conservatives. Stupid GOP voters - just plain stupid. I for one am sick of the Boehners and McCains, Hatches, of the party. They thumb their noses at us and laugh.”
I am sick of them too. And we only get to thumb our noses at them and laugh when we are able to knock them off.
Wednesday Glenn Beck warned of Hatch and how we cannot trust him... Turns out he was spot on.
“If a GOP politician doesn’t have a conservative record starts cozying up to the tea party, you can be sure he’ll veer back left as soon as he is out of danger of losing his seat. Might as well call it The Hatch Rule.”
“The Hatch Rule.” Very appropriate. I like it.
“Another example of why I am supposed to trust Romney to keep his word, who is also a politician changing his positions just to win election.”
Their positions are always written on Etch-a-Sketch, particulary during election season.
[ It is tough to knock off these entrenched, established party hacks.
McCain beat Hayworth by pounding him mercilessly even before Hayworth entered the race and used money people had donated to McCain to defeat Obama in his Senate campaign, giving him an overwhelming money advantage. Hatch took note of that, and what happened to Bennett, and moved to the right ahead of the election to make it look as though he had gotten relition, and worked on building up his campaign warchest. Also, Liljenquist is not Mourdock or Cruz. But if I were in Utah, I would have backed Liljenquist. There is no excuse for sending a guy like Hatch back for another term after—what?—30 years already. ]
We could vote the Dim in and then defeat him next term, better to have the enemy you know than the firend you cannot trust.
Unfourtunately we NEED a majority in the senate so we HAVE to hold our noses and vote this POS Hatch back in....
I am so glad I don’t live in Utah so i would have to pull the lever for this damned weasel.
“This is Politico sowing division among us.”
Hatch and his ilk are sowing division.
“Wednesday Glenn Beck warned of Hatch and how we cannot trust him... Turns out he was spot on.”
He sure was. I also believe Beck was one of the few conservative hosts with a national audience who plugged Liljenquist. Good for Beck.
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