The Mother of All Tax Fights
By Rep. Eric Cantor Posted in Congress — Comments (8) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I wanted to drop by today to let you know about a critical legislative debate that is brewing in the U.S. House, a debate that will have a dramatic effect on the nation and will directly impact you and your families.
We have long known that Chairman Charlie Rangel, the leading Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, would attempt to raise your taxes this fall. However, we did not know the tax hikes would be so sweeping and expansive.
Mr. Rangel has promised that this fall he will host "the mother of all tax bills." His objectives are clear – a sharp tax increase on American families, small businesses, and investors.
Brushing aside warnings from seasoned economists House Democrats, since taking the reigns of power, have done nothing but play petty politics with America's economy. Their reckless actions have already had a negative effect.
House Democrats have tried to hide their failures behind the tired liberal rhetoric of class warfare; yet, the simple reality is that just nine months into Democrat control, you are more likely to be unemployed in America, you are more likely to lose your home, and rising interest rates have made it harder for you to achieve the American Dream.
We may be in the minority, but conservative Republicans are not going to allow these taxes to go through without a fight. With your help, it is a fight I know we can win.
Rather than raising taxes on hardworking American families, why don't the Democrats cut wasteful spending from the massive federal bureaucracy?
The Department of Treasury internally had over $24.5 billion "unreconciled transactions" in one year alone – these are transactions for which auditors cannot account. The bureaucrats spent $25 billion somewhere on something; they don't know who spent it, where it was spent, or what it was spent on.
Bureaucrats at the Department of Agriculture wasted taxpayer dollars, by making personal purchases with federal credit cards. An internal review that sampled just 300 random employees established a 15% abuse rate among card holders; these are government workers spending your hard-earned money on Ozzy Osbourne tickets, tattoos, lingerie, bartender school tuition, car payments, cash advances, and more. This is just from 300 employees – over 55,000 bureaucrats have government credit cards, including 1,549 cards that are still held by people who no longer work there.
These are just two examples of unacceptable government waste by the federal bureaucracy. Yet, rather than cut this spending, the Democrats want to raise your taxes.
Charlie Rangel promised the "mother of all tax fights." Well, if he tries to raise your taxes, a fight is exactly what we conservatives will give him.
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The Mother of All Tax Fights 8 Comments (0 topical, 8 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
It's a fight the Republicans would have won in years past. But today, Republicans do not come into budget fights with hands clean of excessive pork.
I suspect this is a fight you'll have to go alone in order to regain the trust that Republicans actually intend to spend less than Dems.
I would suggest that forcing Stevens to retire (and a few other fat, corrupt porkers as well) would do more to restore the image--and be quite a bit easier.
It'd be a two-for-one: The press cannot resist reporting that one Republican is attacking another and they cannot bury the lede that the attack is based on excessive spending.
1% of the budget. Anyone who thinks 1% of the budget is important enough to consider it *discrediting* on fiscal matters has skewed priorities.
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Reality: Thompson/Romney Dream: Santorum/Watts.
are expenses that you can't even get a handle on. How do you measure protected sloth and given the generous first budget estimates the cost overruns are just as reprehensible, but still covered under Federal obligations. This kind of horror is an add on to the usual spending and waste scandals.
A tax increase is just feeding the bloated federal gorilla more. But we must remember it doesn't matter how the money is spent, it only matters that the people don't have it.
Fight the good fight Rep. Cantor.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
They want to say what the GWOT cost is - let's let everyone know how much of their tax bill goes to which entitlement program. I'd be interested to see how much of my tax bill goes to health care (for people other than my family), social security, natl debt, food stamps and other personal subsidies, agricultural subsidies, etc.
Many people want to complain about food stamps and things such as that yet if you look at the actual statistics it's a very small percentage of the total tax money. When I was in econ the military got the largest chunk of every tax dollar and that was during a peace time.
All of us social workers are acutely aware of the fact that the Clinton Administration made the largest cuts and strictest regulations for food stamps ever. That hasn't changed so the percentage of tax dollars going to that has to be small.
When I was in econ the military got the largest chunk of every tax dollar and that was during a peace time.
Military Spending is the largest discretionary spending item.
It gets 1/2 or less what Social Security and Medicare get.
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Mandatory spending is mostly SS, Medicare, and Medicaid, and it all added up to $1.553 trillion in 2006. Defense spending amounted $0.520 trillion that year.
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Thank You for representing a district near where I grew up with honor and distinction.
Here is what I want to see you counter Charlie Rangle with. The US Tax Code needs to simplified to the point where you, Cong. Rangel and anyone else without a PhD in Non-Linear Dynamics can actually make an honest forecast of what a change in rates will do to revenues. Every time he suggests a change, ask him to explain the analytical gravaman upon which he rests his forecast of the expected results.
I don't believe a single member of congress can intelligently explain to me what changing the rate of capital gains taxation will do to infrastructure investing 10 years from now. It will do something to it, but the code has become so convuluted that no one in DC honestly knows. This needs to be fixed, or our efforts to tax intelligently and to raise as much revenuee as inobtrusively as possible will be doomed to ineptitude.
Thank you again for championing principled conservatism.
Freedom Fighter in Occupied VA