Republicans Respond To Obama’s Tax-The Rich-Proposal

The President drew immediate condemnation from congressional Republicans after he unveiled his deficit reduction plan Monday morning in the Rose Garden. The plan calls for $1.5 trillion in new taxes, including an end to Bush-era rates for upper income earners making $250,000 or more and additional taxes on millionaires.

Together with spending cuts enacted last month and projected savings from interest payments, the savings in the president’s plan total more than $3 trillion. The Obama administration is also adding on another $1 trillion in savings over 10 years from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, though that kind of accounting has been dismissed in past debates as a gimmick.

Republicans are calling Obama’s latest scheme a “non-starter”.

From Speaker Boehner’s website:

Speaker Boehner said last week that tax hikes “are not a viable option” because “tax increases destroy jobs.” And the plan put forth today by President Obama is a prime example of what the Speaker meant.

The centerpiece of President Obama’s latest debt plan is a job-crushing tax hike that will hurt small businesses and create an even worse environment for private-sector job growth.  

When the president and his advisors talk about a proposal that would affect “millionaires” or “the rich,” what they’re really talking about is a plan that would:

• PIT WASHINGTON AGAINST SMALL BUSINESS JOB CREATORS: President Obama’s tax hike hits hardest the very people most likely to create new jobs: small business owners. The House Ways & Means Committee cites estimates from the Joint Committee on Taxation that show “small business owners will pay over half of the taxes raised” under the president’s proposal. Economists Kevin Hassett and Alan Viard wrote in the Wall Street Journal that “fully 48% of the net income of sole proprietorships, partnerships, and S corporations” would be subject to the president’s tax hike. President Obama’s plan punishes successful small businesses rather than removing barriers holding them back and creating an environment where they can flourish.

• CREATE AN EVEN WORSE ENVIRONMENT FOR PRIVATE-SECTOR JOB GROWTH: “Pitting one group of Americans against another is not leadership,” Speaker Boehner. That’s because the president decided against bringing both parties together to address the spending binge that’s driving our debt and fueling economic uncertainty. Instead, while he provided few real details, the president proposed a tax hike that would punish innovative American entrepreneurs, and steer private capital away from job-creating investments and into federal coffers for politicians to spend as they see fit. Economists John B. Taylor and Diana Furchtgott-Roth warned the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee that tax hikes are an impediment to job growth.

• IGNORE REFORMS NEEDED TO PREVENT FURTHER DOWNGRADES: Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) said strengthening and preventing our entitlement programs from going bankrupt is the “key to long-term fiscal sustainability.” Moody’s said America’s “status could be threatened if further measures to address the long-term fiscal situation are not adopted.” The president’s proposal ignores the need for reforms, leaving Americans exposed to the possibility of further downgrades that will make job creation more difficult.

While Obama was giving his speech at the White House, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-7th, was about 120 miles south, standing before a high school auditorium full of students giving a talk on how to grow the economy. So he  got to give react to Obama’s speech in front of a roomful of skulls full of mush. What an opportunity, let’s see how he did.

Via The Richmond-Times Dispatch: Cantor, in Chesterfield, decries taxes in jobs plan:

Cantor said small business people often choose to be taxed as individuals rather than as a corporation to pay less taxes, so raising taxes on people making $200,000 or more would make it more difficult for businesses to create jobs.

“That’s the bottom line,” he said. “Bad policy makes for bad politics.”

He emphasized his aversion to tax increases — “The president knows that we’re not passing tax hikes” – but pressed efforts to work on areas where the two sides agree, including tax relief for small businesses, regulatory relief and trade agreements.

***

After the program, during which an arranged slate of students asked questions, one James River senior approached Cantor to follow up on the proposal to increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

“The point is this: it’s about jobs right now. You don’t create jobs by raising taxes. We’ve seen that,” Cantor told him.

“The question is do you want to grow the economy and you lower tax rates or do you want to grow the government in Washington and we all know the government doesn’t spend money as well as you can or your family can or the businesses can. I think this is the real crux of the difference in Washington right now.”

At The House Committee on the Budget website, Paul Ryan issues this press release: Still Waiting for Credible Plan from President Obama:

President Insists on Tax Hikes for Job Creators, No Plan to Lift Crushing Burden of Debt
September 19, 2011

WASHINGTON – In response to the President’s latest proposal to raise taxes on job creators, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan issued the following statement:

“The President’s partisan speech and misguided proposals are disappointing, but not surprising.  Having overseen an unprecedented surge in government spending – from his failed stimulus law, to the creation of new trillion-dollar health entitlements, to double-digit percentage increases in the budgets of many federal agencies – the President has finally admitted that he plans to send the bill for Washington’s reckless spending straight to American businesses and families. A $1.6 trillion tax hike on job creators is never a good idea. But taking more money from private savers and investors, and giving it to the same government bureaucrats who brought us the Solyndra debacle, is an even worse idea – especially in a weak economy.

“Unfortunately, none of the President’s proposals this year – from his February budget to his April budget speech, to his recommendations today – offers a credible plan to lift our crushing burden of debt while restoring economic growth. Instead of renewed prosperity, the President has offered us a plan for shared scarcity. The nation deserves better.”

On a lighter note, Republican Rep. Dennis Ross of Florida  suggested that the president doesn’t quite understand “Talk Like a Pirate Day”:

“Perhaps the Pres misunderstood,” Ross tweeted. “It is TALK like a pirate day…not ACT like one. Watch ye purses & bury yr loot, the taxman cometh.” Then, just to be sure followers knew he meant it good-naturedly, he added the hashtag #humor.

So far, I don’t know of any Republicans mentioning the fact that Obama egregiously misrepresented the Republican position on tax reform during his speech:

In today’s speech unveiling his new tax increase, President Obama said Speaker of the House John Boehner had ruled out “any additional revenues whatsoever.” Yet Mr. Boehner specifically said he was in favor of closing tax loopholes in conjunction with fundamental reform of the tax code, which would result in increased revenues. He is against increasing taxes, but not increasing revenues. They are not the same thing.

Watch the video at Breitbart TV.

Obamanomics Now a World-Wide Laughingstock

Last week, in a post that aggregated reactions to Obama’s jobs speech, I concluded that his plan had become a laughingstock.

This week, the laughter and snorts of derision continue unabated. Is anyone taking Obama’s jobs plan seriously?

Not NBC’s chief White House correspondent, Chuck Todd, who broke out laughing along with the entire “Morning Joe” panel, Monday morning, when asked if the White House believes “tax reform in the context of the Super Committee is a realistic goal”.

TODD: Look, you know, I don’t, you know, nobody there believes, they, this is how they put it when it comes to both their jobs bill and this, right? They will say the following: “Yes, we’re pessimistic that Congress will take this up. We’re pessimistic that we can cut a deal with Republicans, but we think it’s possible.” That, that, that’s their way of saying, “No.”

[Laughter]

JOE SCARBOROUGH, CO-HOST: So it’s like the last thing they put out, you think this is just political window dressing. They’re setting the Republicans up.

TODD: Well, I mean, this is also the President trying to clean up the fact that he didn’t put out a bill before. I mean, let’s not forget, he didn’t put out a debt plan before. He put out guiding principles before.

Oh, so that “grand plan” the media played up during the debt ceiling fight was nothing but “guiding principles”. Thanks for finally reporting the truth about that now that Republicans have once again been labeled the party of “no” for not going along with something that didn’t exist.Why the media continues to run interference for a guy they know is a fraud is beyond me.

More yuks from the LA Times’ Top of the Ticket: Obama’s urgent jobs plan: Right now, ‘right now’ means sometime next month maybe.

The president was in such a hurry to get this new spending going, everyone remembers, that during that address he said the phrase “right now” seven times. He didn’t actually mean right now that night because the NFL season was opening a few minutes after his remarks.

But Obama did want to show how really urgent he said the situation was, even though it had taken him 961 days as president to say them. And even though from Day #1 of the brief Obama Era polls had shown jobs and the economy were the No. 1 priority among voters but he pursued healthcare and financial reforms first. And even though unemployment had been at or above 9% for 26 of the last 28 months.

So, given the president’s professed urgency, the next day, Sept. 9, everyone asked where was his jobs legislation?

And, well, it seems the urgent jobs bill hadn’t actually been written yet but should be ready in a week or two. When the laughter died, the White House said on second thought the legislation would be ready for a photo op the next Monday.

Well, here we are on the next Monday after that next Monday and we’ve just learned from the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin, that actually it seems that body won’t really be seriously getting into the legislation for a while yet. The Senate has some other more important business to handle. And then there’s this month’s congressional vacation, which in Washington is called “a recess,” like elementary school.

Here’s the revealing exchange with a persistent host Candy Crowley on CNN’s “State of the Union:”

CROWLEY: When is the bill going to get on the floor?

DURBIN: The bill is on the calendar. Majority leader Reid moved it to the calendar. It is ready and poised. There are a couple other items we may get into this week not on the bill and some related issues that may create jobs. But we’re going to move forward on the president’s bill. There will be a healthy debate. I hope the Republicans will come to…

CROWLEY: After the recess, so next month? Or when will it actually begin to act on?

DURBIN: I think that’s more realistic it would be next month.

White House Dossier’s Keith Koffler, (who by the way has added an Attack Watch button to his posts to make reporting easier) reports on Turbo-Tax Timmy Geithner’s visit to Europe to lecture them on how to fix their economies. Advice? From This Guy?:

From the Washington Post article detailing the debacle:

The Europeans did not react favorably to being told what to do by an American.

“I found it peculiar that even though the Americans have significantly worse fundamental data than the euro zone that they tell us what we should do,” Austrian finance minister Maria Fekter told reporters after the meeting.

See, now I’m really worried. I know Obama’s economic advisers were incompetent. But now I’m concerned that they are delusional.

See what I’m saying? No wonder One in four Democrats wants to dump Obama.

I didn’t listen to Obama’s populist tax the rich/class warfare speech, this morning, but Ace did, and he has some reactions:Big Democratic Pollster/Adviser Mark Penn: Obama Is Dooming Himself With His Class Warfare Gambit.

More from Gateway Pundit: Despite the Weak Economy – Obama Unveils $1.5 Trillion Tax Hike on America’s Top Earners

Media Buzz: Chris Christie Mulling a 2012 Run

Republicans are still concerned that the current field is weak, and both Rick Perry and Romney leaves them with  doubts; Romney, because he’s  a technocrat who doesn’t have firm convictions, and Perry, because people are not sure of his ability to articulate his views.

See Breitbart T.V. for a serious discussion of a possible Christie Run on Fox News Sunday, where Wall Street Journal editor, Paul Gigot shares some insider info on the situation. He claims that there have enough people who have gone to him now and said, “look this field is weak, and none of them may be able to beat the president, we need a republican president, we think you can do it. Now is your moment….”

He says he’s thinking about it now, very carefully.

I’ve noted  the fact that Christie has repeatedly and forcefully denied that he has any interest in running in 2012 is a problem. After all, Obama did the very same thing after he was elected to the US Senate in 2004.  In his case it always looked like the White House was the ultimate goal, and the denials were less than sincere. In Christie’s case, I have no doubt that when he was elected Governor of New Jersey, he had no greater aspirations than fixing the financial mess in that state. But now he can say , with the country’s bleak economic forecast,  he’s been pulled into this thing almost against his will. We need someone who can fix the financial mess we’re in, and he’s the man to do it.

Jennifer Rubin also making the case for Christie, points to a recent speech he made at the American Enterprise Institute where he made the case for entitlement reform:

And here’s the thing about that speech at AEI: He didn’t use a teleprompter. Sitting in the audience about five or six rows back, I didn’t see a written speech. On either side of me were mainstream reporters who were entirely transfixed. His humor is dry, he treats the audience like adults and he’s refusing to parrot the usual blather that pols dole out to a cynical press corps. That room had wonks and Tea Party advocates. It had conservative and mainstream media. And to a person, the reaction to that performance was “Wow.”

Let’s consider for a moment Christie in the GOP debate. Can you imagine what he’d say about Perry’s backpedaling on Social Security? Could you imagine him letting Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) get away with nonsense about America bringing 9/11 on itself? Ooof. I imagine he’d brush off Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) with a shake of the head and a sly remark. (“Michele, that’s cuckoo land stuff. Mental retardation isn’t caused by a vaccination.”) And as for Romney, Christie would have a solid case to make that you really can govern as a full-throated conservative in a blue state.

***

Perhaps the best aspect to a Christie governance is his inclination to challenge conservatives, to aspire beyond rhetoric. At AEI he concluded:

[S]ome people say I’m too combative, some people say I’m too much of a fighter. Well, I’ll tell you, I’m fighting now because now is the time that matters most for New Jersey’s future and in America’s future. We are teetering on the edge of disaster. And I love when people talk about American exceptionalism but American exceptionalism has to include the courage to do the right thing. It cannot just be a belief that because we are exceptional, everything will work okay. Part of truly being exceptional is being willing to do the difficult things, is to stop playing the political games , stop looking at the bumper pool of politics and to step up and start doing the right thing. . . . See it seems to me, that what America is really all about is about a group of people who came from every corner of this earth because they wanted a chance for greatness. That’s what has made us the greatest country on Earth. Our calling for greatness at this time is to confront these issues, to say them out loud, and to stop playing around and to not waste another minute. . . .

Rubin includes more of the text from Christie’s speech in her post, which you should read to understand why people are so impressed.

One of the reasons why I was so behind a Paul Ryan run, is because people who have the gift of being able to speak brilliantly extemporaneously, are  a rare commodity. We need such a person to run against Obama to clean his clock in a debate. Obama’s slick propaganda would be reduced to the weak pablum that it is, matched against the superior rhetorical skills of a Paul Ryan or Chris Christie.

Do we really need another affable Texan stammering into the microphone about “compassionate conservatism” or some such.?

The buzz has finally reached New Media Animation. Stand by for some seriously silly speculations:

NMA touches on some of the issues in which Chris Christie differs from the base, not including his recent, almost disqualifying comments on global warming. Hopefully, he’ll look further into the issue and his position will “evolve”….

You can check his positions on major issues, here.

It appears that he is extremely weak on environmental issues:

• Jersey shore for tourism instead of offshore drilling. (Aug 2011)
• $157 million for Green Acres open-space acquisition. (Aug 2011)

Linked by Ace of Spades HQ, thanks!

Monday Morning Blog-War!

The one on the bottom is Tucker.

News you may have missed over the weekend:

Another right-wing blogosphere civil war has broken out over The Daily Caller’s gratuitous coverage of Mike Tysen’s exceedingly vile remarks about Sarah Palin which amounted to defending “rape talk by a rapist” as “news”, according to Tammy Bruce.

News flash: It isn’t front page news when a Democrat says something vile about Sarah Palin. It really isn’t.  I think I speak for most Republicans when I say that nobody but the most anti-Palin cretins among us really need to hear another scumbag drag her though the mud with vile sexual slurs. Yes, I understand a majority of Republicans polled say that they don’t want her to run for President, and I’m guessing one of the reasons for that is because they don’t want to continue to see her dragged through the mud  by anti-Palin cretins.

So,  the DC Caller ran this nasty story,  and the blowback in the right-wing blogosphere has been fierce.

The Other McCain sums it up nicely with: HOLY. FREAKING. CRAP.

I just logged on and saw this by Ladd Ehlinger and this by Dan Riehl. Both Dan and Ladd called me yesterday while I was driving to Ohio, but the cell-phone reception on the road was sufficiently crappy that I was unable to understand what they were talking about. And then I caught this link via Dan’s blog and . . .

HOLY. FREAKING. CRAP.

Riehl says:

Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller and staff writer Jeff Poor are desperately trying to backtrack from a vile and pathetic smear of a Mother to several young children and the nation’s most prominent Republican woman, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Poor, now aided by Caller staffer Matt Lewis have also issued a foolish threat of a lawsuit to this blog for bringing broader attention to the smear.

The Caller found it appropriate to focus humorous attention on these comments from washed up boxer Mike Tyson discussing the former Republican Governor. They also displayed no concern as to how their reporting of the ugliness, including with audio and video, might easily be read by the children of Palin, Mother to several young children.

“Glen Rice is a nice, mellow, docile man, non-threatening guy,” he said. “You want someone like Rodman — yeah baby! Let’s get that donkey in here now. [laughter] Just imagine Palin with a big old black stallion ripping. Yeehaw!”

While the Caller item now comes with this disclaimer, obviously meant only as cover for their disgusting editorial judgment, it is only a late addition to the post after receiving more attention and increasingly broad condemnation.

Other  blogs weighing in on this:

Sissy Willis:Greta Van Susteren takes Tucker Carlson to the woodshed:

“The public shaming of Tucker Carlson. Cybervillage disapprobation of “elders” like @gretawire [Greta Van Susteren's twitter handle] shape moral behavior,” we twittered as the smoke began to settle this morning in the aftermath of a fiery flame war that had erupted in the blogosphere and twitterspere in response to “Mike Tyson: Sarah Palin met ‘the wombshifter,’” a gratuitously coarse Jeff Poor journalistic effort published by Carlson’s The Daily Caller Friday evening.

Da TechGuy jumped in, too: Tucker Carlson vs Dan Riehl? No contest

Alas poor Tucker, he hasn’t apparently been paying attention. McGinnis’ book has so little credibility and is so discredited even Keith Olbermann and the NYT are dissing it.

That misjudgment is bad enough but the decision to try to go after Dan Riehl, for pointing out this tactic was not so bright:

What is it with these sad little Beltway bois? Are they simply misogynistic and unable to pass up an opportunity to attempt to humiliate a successful woman with more clout and influence than the petulant little bow-tie boy, Carlson, has or will ever have? Or is it their inadequacy in the face of an attractive, accomplished woman like Palin that causes them to lash out so despicably?

Riehl’s base post contained, shall we say, more colorful language. Well Carlson and company took exception and led to a wholeseries of furtherposts by Riehl demonstrating several things:

1..Tucker Carlson and the Daily Caller have much too thin a skin for this business

2..Sarah Palin is a lot tougher than anyone at the Daily Caller

3..The people at the Caller have no idea of how new media works.

Simple suggestion if you are a million dollar site trying to impress investors you don’t go after individual bloggers who hurt your feelings, particularly not Dan Riehl.

“One man media organization and attack machine”, @Keder, on Twitter took The daily Caller’s side and spent much of the  the day battling Palinistas, (and watching followers disappear). Hornets nest!

Lisa Graas says: Y’all Settle Down Over There!

Apparently there is some Palin-smearing going on from “conservatives”. It’s very low-blow, gossipy, obviously not true stuff. What I have seen of it is not what this post is about. What this post is about is accusations about Palin-smearing that I’m not really familiar with and don’t want to bother to go looking for. It’s also about peripheral things that appear to be floating around that.

First, I “heart” Sarah Palin. I’m voting for Rick Santorum, but I still “heart” her and want y’all to lay off smearing her. It just ain’t Christian.

I “heart” Dan Riehl. He’s grumpy and not exactly the St. Paul of the blogosphere, but I “heart” him anyway.

Click on the link to find out who else she *hearts*.

One thing is for sure. Whenever there’s a blog-war, we’re sure to find grumpy old Dan Riehl smack dab in the middle of it. I think I often agree with him, too!