Republicans $300 Billion Tax Increase Proposal Rejected By Dems

Republicans $300 Billion Tax Increase Proposal Rejected By Dems


It’s Tax Increases They Want - Not Tax Reform




By Dell Hill

With the TV re-election campaign ads already “in the can”, it has become more than obvious that President Barack Obama and the entire slate of Democrats running for election or re-election next year plan on portraying their Republican opponents as an “obstructionist, do-nothing” congress.  Any successful Republican effort to reach a compromise on tax and deficit spending would throw a huge monkey-wrench into that plan of attack.

So it was no great surprise when Massachusetts Senator John Kerry announced that the Republican proposal to approve up to $300 billion in tax increases over the next ten years was being rejected out of hand.

“Congressional Republicans have for the first time retreated from their hard-line stance against new taxes, offering to raise federal tax collections by nearly $300 billion over the next decade as part of a plan to tame the national debt.

But Democrats rejected the offer Tuesday — along with the notion that Republicans had made a significant concession that could end the long-standing political impasse — leaving a special debt-reduction committee far from compromise with less than two weeks until its Thanksgiving deadline. …

“They’re anxious to promote a certain concept with all of you,” Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), one of the negotiators, told reporters. “I’ll be very clear that whatever they put there doesn’t get the job done.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) fired back that Republicans are “working diligently to get a solution” and accused Democrats of trying to block a deal. McConnell said he suspected that “the folks down at the White House are pulling for failure because, you see, if the joint committee succeeds, it steps on the story line that they’ve been peddling, which is that you can’t do anything with the Republicans in Congress.”

Clearly, the Dems are showing their hand on what they tout is a drastic need for tax reform because this would certainly open the door for serious dialogue to begin on that issue.  They’re after tax increases, and you don’t need a Juris Doctorate to figure that out.  And, they need this special commission to fail in order for their entire 2012 political campaign theme to avoid the embarrassment of total ridicule.

Their ploy is fooling no one.