GOP Hypocrites Busted For Trying to Add $310 Billion to the Deficit Via Tax Breaks

Dance Now At Every Chance
Dance Now At Every Chance

Tax breaks are sacrosanct, responsible budgets be damned…

The next time a Republican even comes near climbing aboard the deficit cross, you have permission to laugh in their face. The party of paying for things has proposed $310 billion in permanent, unpaid for tax provisions today.

The party of austerity for children, veterans, the elderly, and the sick claimed they were only cutting people off in order to be “Responsible with the Deficit”. This is the same deficit that they told us didn’t matter when they were in charge, but after they fled responsibility in the wake of the 2008 crash as a Democratic President took office to clean up their mess, suddenly the deficit was all Republicans could think about. So sorry about your starving baby, but the DEFICIT.

The DEFICIT is the number one priority, they somberly and relentlessly intoned any time they got near a microphone.

And yet today, Republicans proposed tax provisions without offsets that Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI) points out would add “a combined $310 billion to the deficit,” which “represents more than half of the entire federal deficit this year.”

(click here to continue reading GOP Hypocrites Busted For Trying to Add $310 Billion to the Deficit Via Tax Breaks.)

watch the statement yourself…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBeN3RkaFVk

Facts Not Necessary When Discussing Economics

The Wall Street Journal attempts to smear Democratic governance by using the example of Illinois:

A favorite conceit of Democrats is that the U.S. budget and economy would be A-okay if congressional Republicans weren’t able to obstruct President Obama’s agenda. One counter-argument would be the state of Illinois, where one-party Democratic rule has led to a fiscal crisis that’s culminating in political paralysis.

(click here to continue reading Political Diary: Stand-Off in Springfield – WSJ.com.)

…except California is also governed by the Democratic Party, and they seem to be doing ok:

After years of grueling battles over state budget deficits and spending cuts, California has a new challenge on its hands: too much money. An unexpected surplus is fueling an argument over how the state should respond to its turn of good fortune.

(click here to continue reading California’s New Problem – Too Much Money – NYTimes.com.)

Party is less important than the actual politicians making policy, but that doesn’t play to the base, however, so don’t expect Rupert Murdoch’s press to report it. Or this, or this, or this.

If party is important, what about a little historical perspective?

Deficit Chart
Deficit Chart

Bush vs Obama spending
Bush vs Obama spending

Alan Simpson Slams GOP For Refusing To Compromise On Taxes

Rino Bar
Rino Bar

Remarkable that our country still exists, despite the America-hating morons who worship at the altar of Grover Norquist…

Alan Simpson, of the infamous Simpson-Bowles plan, aka the Cat Food Commission, a Republican in the Ronald Reagan mold, doesn’t mince words:

In remarkably colorful terms, former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) on Sunday lashed out at members of his party for their unyielding opposition to new tax revenues, whom he described as stymieing a debt reduction agreement.

“I guess I’m known as a RINO now, which means a Republican in name only, because, I guess, of social views, perhaps, or common sense would be another one, which seems to escape members of our party,” said Simpson, a co-chair of President Obama’s fiscal commission, on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”

“For heaven’s sake, you have Grover Norquist wandering the earth in his white robes saying that if you raise taxes one penny, he’ll defeat you,” he added. “He can’t murder you. He can’t burn your house. The only thing he can do to you, as an elected official, is defeat you for reelection. And if that means more to you than your country when we need patriots to come out in a situation when we’re in extremity, you shouldn’t even be in Congress.”

The failure on Capitol Hill to agree on the parameters of a sustainable fiscal vision has been the topic of lots of finger-pointing. As the conventional wisdom goes, Republicans refuse to budge on taxes and Democrats refuse to budge on safety-net programs. Democrats, however, speak often about the need to cut entitlement spending as part of a balanced deal, while Republicans maintain that new taxes are unacceptable.

“You can’t cut spending your way out of this hole. You can’t grow your way out of this hole. And you can’t tax your way out of this hole. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, we tell these people. This is madness,” Simpson said. “If you want to be a purist, go somewhere on a mountaintop and praise the East or something. But if you want to be in politics, you learn to compromise. And you learn to compromise on the issue without compromising yourself. Show me a guy who won’t compromise and I’ll show you a guy with rock for brains.”

(click here to continue reading Former GOP Senator Slams Republicans For Refusing To Compromise On Taxes | TPMDC.)

Two Ships Passing
Two Ships Passing

Of course, the new kind of GOP Senator is Tea Party mouth-breathers like Richard Mourdock who recently defeated Dick Lugar, and who said this about partisanship:

Appearing on MSNBC following his primary victory, Mourdock offered his own unique take on how bipartisanship should work in Washington DC, telling Chuck Todd, “I certainly think bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view.” In other words, the solution for Washington’s ills is not less partisanship and polarization, but more. Dick Lugar had earned a reputation for finding some areas of bipartisan consensus with Democrats, particularly on foreign policy. That is a reputation that Mourdock appears unlikely to uphold.

(click here to continue reading Top 5 Things You Need To Know About Richard Mourdock.)