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Dems Reveal Their Priority: Tax Hikes; Will Obama Propose Anything Other Than Tax Increases? | Missouri Political News Service

Dems Reveal Their Priority: Tax Hikes; Will Obama Propose Anything Other Than Tax Increases?

June 24th, 2011 by mopns · No Comments

 

Yesterday, the AP reported, “Republicans pulled out of debt-reduction talks led by Vice President Joe Biden with a flourish on Thursday, blaming Democrats for demanding tax increases as part of a deal rather than accepting more than $1 trillion in cuts to Medicare and other government programs. ‘Let me be clear: Tax hikes are off the table,’ said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. Boehner spoke shortly after the House GOP second-in-command, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, announced he would not attend a planned negotiating session and said it is ‘time for President Obama to speak clearly and resolve the tax issue.’” And an AP story today adds, “The other Republican in the negotiations, Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, also exited the talks. . . . ‘President Obama needs to decide between his goal of higher taxes or a bipartisan plan to address our deficit,’ said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. ‘He can’t have both.’”

And in fact, Democrats have revealed that their overriding priority is tax hikes, as opposed to the necessary spending cuts to begin to put our fiscal house in order. According to liberal news outlet Talking Points Memo, “[Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max] Baucus [D-MT] made clear that the talks frayed over Democrats’ insistence that tax increases of some sort be part of the final deal.” Politico noted Vice President Joe Biden saying earlier, “If we could agree on the pieces most important to us Democrats, revenue, we’re prepared to agree on some of the things that you (Republicans) want in discretionary spending.” Last week Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said on PBS’ NewsHour that “it can’t be done without revenue enhancement” and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has said, “[M]ore importantly, there have to be revenues.”

Today, after both Leader McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner called on President Obama to finally show some leadership on the debt reduction talks, USA Today reports, “President Obama is getting directly involved in bipartisan talks about increasing the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, agreeing to meet next week with Senate Democratic and Republican leaders. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden meet Monday with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.”

In a statement, Leader McConnell explained what the emphasis in the meeting needs to be: “It is my hope that the President requested this meeting in order to finally explain what it is that he’s prepared to do to solve our nation’s fiscal crisis. He’s requested an increase in the debt ceiling, but hasn’t yet explained to the American people what, other than tax hikes, he’s prepared to do about the massive deficits we’ve seen during his administration. The President needs to decide between his goal of massive tax hikes, and a bipartisan plan to address our deficit. But he can’t have both. What Republicans want is simple: We want to cut spending now, we want to cap runaway spending in the future and we want to save our entitlements and our country from bankruptcy. We want to finally get our economy growing again. Sadly, the Democrats’ response has been a mystifying call for more stimulus spending and huge tax hikes on American job creators. That’s not serious, and it is my hope that the President will take those off the table on Monday so that we can have a serious discussion about our country’s economic future.”

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