No New Taxes
No New Taxes.
Let’s see now: Under the current Administration, the country has a $50 trillion imbalance. We are so in hock to foreign governments that interest payments alone will be higher than today’s federal budget. So what do Republican Presidential candidates vow?
No new taxes.
Not even Harry Houdini would attempt such a feat. But among the GOP faithful, that battle-cry of no new taxes never fails to win cheers.
Mitt Romney, who has made flip-flopping an Olympic sport, has put it in writing. He signed Americans for Tax Reform’s pledge against raising taxes. If he should win the Oval Office, a flip-flop on this issue may be our only hope.
Making campaign promises not to raise taxes is the easy part. Governing without new taxes is an act of faith, which seems to come easy for a party where one-third of its Presidential candidates don’t believe in evolution.
I don’t want to believe that Republicans are as callous as we Democrats would have voters believe. Sure, they’re the “party of the rich” in our campaign rhetoric and Bush tax cuts for the wealthy has kept that rhetoric alive.
But do they really care only about those who live in gated communities?
The GOP candidates echo each other with their no new taxes pledge and while the cheering still rings in our ears I often wonder why no one ever asks them the hard question: what programs and services will you cut? Romney, for one, simply beams at the camera, rubs his hands together and declares “I can’t wait to get my hands on the federal budget.” Really?
Voters know the most vulnerable people in this “no new taxes” high-wire act aren’t the candidates. It’s the poor and elderly and disabled whose safety net has been fraying for years. Over the next decade the Bush budget would cut Medicare by $252 billion and Medicaid by $28 billion.
But this nonsensical no new taxes pledge puts all of us, and America’s economic future, at risk. New taxes are a tool for investment and growth. In the Eisenhower Administration, new taxes helped build the Interstate Highway System. Now those highways are falling apart, as are the subways and buses that help ease congestion for people trying to get to and from work. This is a problem that concerns everyone. (Well, maybe not corporate CEOs or top-level government bureaucrats in their chauffeured limousines--this crowd leads the no new taxes cheer since they don’t have a clue about a crumbling infrastructure so important to the rest of us.)
Soaring health care costs are a problem that won’t be solved by politicians chanting no new taxes. David Walker, comptroller of the United States, sees the need for comprehensive health-care reform that provides universal access and protection against financial ruin due to unexpected costs. Some business leaders agree. Safeway Chairman Steve Burd concedes that “by next year the average Fortune 500 firm will have a healthcare bill that exceeds its net income.”
The Government Accountability Office says the nation needs to generate more tax revenues—to raise taxes. But who’s listening?
Certainly not President Bush who wants to make his tax cuts for the rich permanent. Nor his would-be successors who promise no new taxes as the sheriff (he looks Chinese) arrives with the foreclosure papers.
Let’s see now: Under the current Administration, the country has a $50 trillion imbalance. We are so in hock to foreign governments that interest payments alone will be higher than today’s federal budget. So what do Republican Presidential candidates vow?
No new taxes.
Not even Harry Houdini would attempt such a feat. But among the GOP faithful, that battle-cry of no new taxes never fails to win cheers.
Mitt Romney, who has made flip-flopping an Olympic sport, has put it in writing. He signed Americans for Tax Reform’s pledge against raising taxes. If he should win the Oval Office, a flip-flop on this issue may be our only hope.
Making campaign promises not to raise taxes is the easy part. Governing without new taxes is an act of faith, which seems to come easy for a party where one-third of its Presidential candidates don’t believe in evolution.
I don’t want to believe that Republicans are as callous as we Democrats would have voters believe. Sure, they’re the “party of the rich” in our campaign rhetoric and Bush tax cuts for the wealthy has kept that rhetoric alive.
But do they really care only about those who live in gated communities?
The GOP candidates echo each other with their no new taxes pledge and while the cheering still rings in our ears I often wonder why no one ever asks them the hard question: what programs and services will you cut? Romney, for one, simply beams at the camera, rubs his hands together and declares “I can’t wait to get my hands on the federal budget.” Really?
Voters know the most vulnerable people in this “no new taxes” high-wire act aren’t the candidates. It’s the poor and elderly and disabled whose safety net has been fraying for years. Over the next decade the Bush budget would cut Medicare by $252 billion and Medicaid by $28 billion.
But this nonsensical no new taxes pledge puts all of us, and America’s economic future, at risk. New taxes are a tool for investment and growth. In the Eisenhower Administration, new taxes helped build the Interstate Highway System. Now those highways are falling apart, as are the subways and buses that help ease congestion for people trying to get to and from work. This is a problem that concerns everyone. (Well, maybe not corporate CEOs or top-level government bureaucrats in their chauffeured limousines--this crowd leads the no new taxes cheer since they don’t have a clue about a crumbling infrastructure so important to the rest of us.)
Soaring health care costs are a problem that won’t be solved by politicians chanting no new taxes. David Walker, comptroller of the United States, sees the need for comprehensive health-care reform that provides universal access and protection against financial ruin due to unexpected costs. Some business leaders agree. Safeway Chairman Steve Burd concedes that “by next year the average Fortune 500 firm will have a healthcare bill that exceeds its net income.”
The Government Accountability Office says the nation needs to generate more tax revenues—to raise taxes. But who’s listening?
Certainly not President Bush who wants to make his tax cuts for the rich permanent. Nor his would-be successors who promise no new taxes as the sheriff (he looks Chinese) arrives with the foreclosure papers.
posted by Victor Kamber | 10:09 AM
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