As members of Congress return to Washington from yet another break, and set about finding a way to tackle the looming "fiscal cliff," the big question that's waiting for an answer is whether, or not, Republicans will ultimately cave to Democrats' demands to raise taxes. And, as usual, it looks like they probably will. And as is always the case, the slimy Democrats will resist making any spending cuts of the size that are actually needed. It's the same old story over and over again, with Democrats the blame for no forward progress ever being made is always placed on the Republicans for their stubborn refusal to raise taxes. Meanwhile we just keep spending more and more money that we don't have and that we could never hope to recoup from tax hikes no matter how massive Democrats would like to make them.
And so it would appear that we will once again be going down that very same road, because the accusations from Democrats have already started flying. Recently we heard from senile old Carl Levin, who said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, "The key here is whether or not the Republicans will move away from the ideologically rigid position, which has been the Grover Norquist pledge, which most of them signed, that they will not go for additional revenue (higher taxes)." He went on to say, "When they move away from that pledge -- and they must, as, by the way, all the presidents that I have ever served with, including Reagan, Clinton, and the first George Bush, moved away from a position, no additional taxes. They all added revenues to deficit reduction -- a significant amount of revenues." These guys love throwing Reagan around.
But there is quite a bit about what this lying turd says that just doesn't quite ring true and that doesn't jive with actual history. Because when you look back at the past it takes very little effort to see that it has always been dishonest Democrats like this creep Levin who have been the rigid ideologues. How many times have taxes been raised with there never having been any corresponding spending cuts made at the same time. Ah, that would be NEVER!. This doof Levin insisted that Congress must raise additional revenues by boosting tax rates for the wealthy: "They have to go up -- either real tax rates of effective tax rates," he said. "There's ways of doing that," he added, including closing "significant loopholes." But you'll notice, as usual, Levin makes no mention, nor any commitment to the making, of any spending cuts. Just raise taxes!
And something else that I suppose should come as no surprise to anyone is something that at least appears to be a potential harbinger of things to come. And that's the fact that we already have some Republicans who are willing to abandon the no-tax pledge promoted by fiscal conservative Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform. Sen. Saxby Chambliss said just last week that the no-tax pledge he signed 20 years ago "was valid then" and is "valid now," but he added, "times have changed significantly, and I care more about this country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge." I'd say, and of course this is just between you and me, that Sen. Chambliss is another one of our Republicans badly in need of being sent packing. It would seem to me that the first thing he should be doing would be to demand from Democrats that realistic spending cuts be made
And then we have Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), who I'm usually a pretty big fan of. He told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, "I agree entirely with Saxby Chambliss. A pledge you signed 20 years ago, 18 years ago, is for that Congress. For instance, if I were in Congress in 1941 I would have signed the -- I was for the Declaration of War against Japan. I'm not going to attack Japan today. The world has changed, and the economic situation is different." While what he says is true, what got us into our present fix was not tax cuts, what it was massive amounts of spending. And even a guy like me realizes, and pretty quickly, is that you can't hike taxes high enough to get us out of this mess. And as has been said many times and in many ways, what we have here is not a revenue problem, what we continue to have is a spending problem.
Although King said he is personally opposed to tax increases, "I think everything should be on the table," he told NBC's David Gregory. "The fact is, the speaker (Republican Rep.. John Boehner) and the majority leader (Democratic Sen. Harry Reid) and the president are going to be in a room trying to find the best package. I'm not going to prejudge it, and I'm just saying we should not be taking iron-clad positions. I have faith that John Boehner can put together a good package. I think, so far, he's been pretty conciliatory in his language." And being conciliatory is somehow seen as being a good thing? Sorry, but as far as I'm concerned the only thing that that does is to give the appearance of weakness, and weakness is the absolute last thing that we need right now. What we need to be is resolute, and force spending cuts before any concessions on taxes is made.
Sounding much more confident than I feel, King said he believes Boehner will do all he can to avoid an increase in tax rates. "But as Senator Levin said, you can get the same results by changing deductions, changing exemptions, and that would put more of a tax burden on the rich, but it would not affect marginal tax rates." The bottom line, King said, is to prevent the nation from going over the fiscal cliff. "We have to show the world we're adults, the election is over. We have a speaker, the Democrats have -- oh, they have the president, but the president is the one speaking for the Democratic Party. The Democrats have Harry Reid, we have Mitch McConnell. Get them in the room, and that's what representative government should be about. No one gets all they want." Republicans always come out on the short end. ALWAYS!
King said both tax hikes and spending cuts have to "be on the table." Sounding somewhat idiotic King then proceeded to say, "President Obama won, he won fair and square. We won the House, we won it fair and square. The Democrats will control the Senate, a slight edge to the Democrats. Bottom line is that it's over with. Let's find a way to get it resolved as much as possible between now and the end of the year so both the new Congress and the president in his second term can start off with a clean slate." So Mr. King sees Barry as having won fair and square? Sure thing! Anyway, King added, "We have so many issues around the world, let's resolve what we can here and stop jockeying for position. He concluded by saying, "I have a lot of faith in John Boehner. I'll leave it at that." Well, that makes one of us!
And then on Fox News Sunday, we heard Sen. John 'The Maverick' McCain say that he would "be very much opposed" to raising tax rates, "but I do believe we can close a lot of loopholes." He specifically mentioned limiting the deductions for charitable giving and home mortgages. He also said, "And obviously we are going to have to look at entitlement reform. Entitlement reform is the only way we are going to really get the debt and deficit under control. And we've got to take it on." Now I'm sure everyone is now very familiar with our looming fiscal cliff. To not know that, I think, would require that you have been living under a rock for quite some time now having only recently crawled out to find two competing factions advocating wildly different methods for preventing something described as being a fiscal Armageddon.
To the rational person, or to someone who has been living under that rock, this would be one of those problems that one requires a little commonsense to solve. But, as we all know, in the world of poltics there is no such thing as commonsense. Because whenever you have one side that is never willing to make any concessions whatsoever, while at the same time demanding that it must the other side that's made to essentially surrender its priorities, there is never any forward progress achieved. And that's where we're at right now. You hear one side screaming how it is that tax increases, and only tax increases, on the 'rich' will fix the problem while the other side makes the case that the problem can be fixed through serious spending cuts as well as tax reforms that will result in more revenue without shoving our economy further into the ditch.
No comments:
Post a Comment