Once again Republicans have shown that their ongoing mantra that Democrats want to raise your taxes, while Republicans want to cut them is a lie. Republicans are all for tax cuts, but only if they go to millionaires, billionaires and corporate criminals, NOT YOU. That’s why, when House Republicans rejected most of Obama’s jobs bill (AJA), one of the parts rejected was the extension of the payroll tax holiday.
In a sudden move, House Republicans rejected President Obama’s week-old jobs plan, including about $240 billion in payroll tax cuts. In a memo to their caucus, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), and other leaders dismissed the bill’s largest spending and tax cutting portions, leaving little of the bill intact…
…As ThinkProgress has noted, Republicans finally found a tax cut they didn’t like in the payroll tax holiday. What’s unusual about the payroll tax, which funds Social Security, is that cutting it almost entirely affects middle- and working- class people. Because the tax only applies to the first roughly $100,000 a person earns someone who makes $200,000 or $300,000 gets the same tax cut as someone making $100,000. Republicans seem to be witholding a tax cut as a bargaining chip, as “Boehner said he is willing to negotiate on extending payroll tax cuts,”
Meanwhile, a payroll tax holiday is one of the few types of tax cuts that do actually stimulate the economy, precisely because they mostly affect working- and middle-class people, who need the money more and thus spend it right away… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Think Progress>
To be honest, there is an effect of the payroll tax holiday that I do not like, namely that it reduces the revenue collected in Social Security and Medicare premiums, leaving them more vulnerable to terrorist attacks by Republicans. But what I want to make clear here is that Republicans want YOUR taxes to go UP. Every tax dollar refunded to a poor or middle class worker is a penny Republicans can’t give to the Koch Brothers.
13 Responses to “House GOP: No tax cut for middle class”
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But it makes the “death of SS” which is one of their mantras, a little closer to reality. They hope the “people” aren’t going to realize this. And, of course….on;y the rich deserve tax cuts.
That depends on the meaning of SS. They are all for the German variety.
If their taxes went up, the billionaires would be in the poor house.
There’s no such thing as a “poor ‘ol billionaire”. I kinda like the idea of trading places with one, though. They might be worried about the poor house, then!
It would be nice to invent some, though.
What amazes me is that they are getting away with it !!
It’s because some fools vote and some fools stay home.
bill Clinton was on Meet The Press this AM and expressed amazement that the Tea-publicans wouldn’t go along with this.
Teabaggers only think what they are told to think.
Trying to figure out why the Repubicans would possibly pass on the opportunity to cut taxes is a bit tough.
Long Answer: Because Bush & Repubicans decided to hand out the Clinton surplus to their rich buddies and corporations in the form of massive unjustified and inequitable tax cuts –> But forced the middle-class to pay for them AND were NOT “fiscally responsible” by cutting spending FIRST –> Which led to our current debt/deficit crisis EXCEPT the Repubicans now mischaracterize it as a “SPENDING” problem rather than the REVENUE problem that THEY created –> which they want to use to try to dismantle Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other necessary societal safety net programs that they hate, but the middle-class cherishes and relies on
Short answer: Because the GOP wants to kill the middle-class and turn us into a nation of third-world indentured servants beholden to Repubican Corporate Masters
Both answers are excellent!
The Republican rabble and the Teabuggers are really ticking me off today, well maybe not just today.
The Republicans seem to have the idea of governing by Divine Right and the view that the uneducated and unwashed masses will remain loyal to them, after all it was these same masses, or at least some of them, that voted them into office. This belief has rendered the Republicans unwilling to allow the progressive reforms that might have alleviated the economic and social malaise of the American people. Even though the Republicans are trying to limit civil rights (right to education, freedom of speech, right to organise trade unions etc) and democratic representation (redistributions, election ‘fixing’), they are working even harder to preserve their power base (tax cuts to the wealthy etc). Dissatisfaction with the Republican economic and social class system will culminated in a huge national upheaval in which hundreds of unarmed protesters will be arrested by the Republican police. The uneducated and unwashed masses will respond to the arrests with a crippling general strike,
Does this sound familiar? If you know history, this is the basis of the Russian Revolution obviously restated in an American context. I am not saying communism is the answer because it absolutely is not. But there has to be social and economic responsibility which the Republicans do not understand because their heads are too far up their country club asses.
I was wandering a bit in some of the other articles in ThinkProgress and saw a picture that looked like possibly a British soldier from 1776 and the word Tea Party. The Boston Tea Party was a result of taxation without representation. The colonists disposed of some of his Magesty’s tea in protest.
Republicans, hold onto your shorts because without some drastic changes to your stance and practices, you are going on the ride of your life.
You’re right, Lynn, but before we get any ideas, we should remember that there were two Russian Revolutions. The first in 1914 was by people a lot like us who tried to institute democratic socialism. The second, in 1917 imposed totalitarian rule.