https://www.facebook.com/notes/congressman-allen-west/we-now-know-what-liberal-progressives-really-believe-about-hardworking-americans/385442901508743We now know what liberal progressives really believe about hardworking Americans. Out of their own mouths this week, they tell us that what small business owners and entrepreneurs have built is not their own. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Senator Patty Murray says in a speech that what hardworking Americans have earned is essentially the government's to selectively take back from you to redistribute to those they deem more deserving. It is not about economic freedom and opportunity creation. It is about wealth redistribution and creating economic dependency. This governing philosophy is appalling and must be defeated.
Read the following two op-eds if you get the chance:
Wall Street Journal Editorial
“Toying With Recession” Patty Murray explains why Democrats want to jump off the tax cliff.
Democrats must feel really good about their election chances, because their latest campaign strategy is to say how willing and eager they are to leap off the January tax cliff. They're all but daring Republicans to make the Democrats' day by refusing to raise taxes before the election.
That was the chest-pounding message Monday from Patty Murray, the Washington Democrat who runs her party's Senate campaign committee. In a speech at the Brookings Institution, she declared that if Republicans won't raise taxes on income above $250,000 before November, Democrats will gladly let all of the Bush tax rates expire at the end of the year—even on the middle class, and no matter the economic consequences.
"If we can't get a good deal—a balanced deal that calls on the wealthy to pay their fair share—then I will absolutely continue this debate into 2013 rather than lock in a long-term deal this year that throws middle-class families under the bus," Mrs. Murray said, in what sounded like an ultimatum.
That bit about throwing middle-class taxpayers "under the bus" is political spin, because Republicans say they're ready to vote to extend for another year the current tax rates on all taxpayers, including everyone who makes less than $250,000. The Murray Democrats are the ones holding the middle-class rates hostage to a GOP vote to raise taxes on the affluent.
Mrs. Murray was more honest in explaining her political calculations. "If the Bush tax cuts expire, every proposal [in 2013] will be a tax cut proposal, and the [GOP's anti-tax increase] pledge will no longer keep Republicans boxed in and unable to compromise," she said.
"If middle-class families start seeing more money coming out of their paychecks next year—are Republicans really going to stand up and fight for new tax cuts for the rich? Are they going to continue opposing the Democrats' middle-class tax cut once the slate has been wiped clean? I think they know this would be an untenable political position."
So there you are. Democrats are delighted to let a giant tax increase whack the economy in January because then Republicans won't be able to stop it and will also find it impossible to cut taxes again on anyone whom Democrats define as "the wealthy."
Mrs. Murray may think she's putting Republicans on the political spot, but her real hostage is the already weak economy. Growth in the first quarter was a mere 1.9%, and economists have steadily downgraded their expectations for the second. As the tax cliff approaches, the policy uncertainty is already causing businesses to hold off on hiring and investment. Even the Keynesians at the Congressional Budget Office say that if all of the Bush tax rates expire, growth will fall close to recession territory.
Perhaps Senator Murray and her fellow Democrats really don't think tax increases will hurt all that much, and it's clear she's clueless about the way expectations influence economic decisions. But at least voters now know that Democrats are willing to toy with recession to win an election.
Look Who's Holding the Economy Hostage Now
Investor's Business Daily
Inequality: Democrats say they'll let all the Bush-era tax cuts expire if they can't raise taxes on the rich. Apparently, economic catastrophe is a reasonable price to pay for class warfare politics.
On Monday, Sen. Patty Murray, who heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said that "unless Republicans end their commitment to protecting the rich above all else, our country is going to have to face the consequences of Republican intransigence."
What she really means is Democratic intransigence.
After all, Republicans have taken the perfectly reasonable position that the last thing you want to do when the economy is barely breathing is raise taxes.
Obama himself once made that argument, at a time when the economy was doing better than it is today. And a few level-headed Senate Democrats agree.
Yet now, faced with a tough re-election and desperate to score political points, Obama says he'll veto any bill that extends all the Bush tax cuts, and Democrats, as evidenced by Murray's comments, are falling in line.
Should Obama make good on this threat, the risks to the economy would be enormous. Tax rates on everyone would climb back to Clinton-era levels, which translates into a tax hike of roughly $150 billion next year alone.
And that, in turn, will cut economic growth by as much as 3% next year, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and quite possibly plunge the country back into another recession.
Democrats claim this threat is worth it to make Republicans toe the line. After all, raising taxes on the rich is all about fairness and fiscal responsibility.
But in reality, it has nothing do with either.
Today, the top 1% of income earners pays 37% of all federal income taxes, far more than their 17% share of the nation's income. The bottom half, meanwhile, pays just 2% of all income taxes, although they account for 13% of the nation's income, according to IRS data.
What's more, the share paid by the rich is higher today than it was when Bush took office, when it was 34%.
How is this not fair?
And while Obama claims that the nation "can't afford" Bush's cuts for the rich, and that these "are a major driver of our deficit," that, too, is poppycock.
The most "expensive" parts of the Bush tax cut — to use the misleading Washington parlance — were those benefitting the middle class, which accounted for the vast bulk of the Bush tax package.
And raising the top two tax brackets to Clinton-era levels — as Obama proposes — will do nothing to ameliorate the nation's ongoing fiscal crisis. At best, it would trim the 10-year deficit by a mere 8%, and that's assuming the rich don't take steps to avoid the higher taxes.
What Obama's tax plan will do — by his own admission — is hit some 900,000 small businesses with a tax hike, cutting their ability to invest, grow and hire.
In other words, Obama and his Democratic allies are pointing a gun at the economy and threatening to pull the trigger unless they get a tax hike that will itself hurt economic growth. All in an attempt to portray Republicans as the party of the rich.
So much for hope and change.
Topic: What libbies think about hard-workers, by AW (Read 654 times)