Sessions Predicts Bush-Era Tax-Cut Extensions Will Pass After Elections - Bloomberg

 

Sessions Predicts Bush-Era Tax-Cut Extensions Will Pass After Elections - Bloomberg

Playing politics with your pocketbook.  Democrats don’t seem willing to let a vote come to either floor of the Congress before the November elections, but Pete Sessions says they may have little choice in the lame duck session:

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The head of the Republican effort to gain a U.S. House majority predicts that, after the November elections, Democrats will have to accept an extension of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans as well as the middle class.

Representative Pete Sessions said Republicans won’t settle for allowing the Bush-era tax cuts to continue for only middle- class Americans, as President Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders want.

“I cannot vote for and should not vote for a tax increase,” Sessions, of Texas, said on “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend on Bloomberg Television. “If you leave out the investor and the person who brings capital to the table, you cannot grow the economy and we will continue to have joblessness.”

Sessions outlined a scenario of a lame-duck session, after the Nov. 2 elections and before he believes a Republican House majority will be sworn into office in January, as the venue for settling the question of 2001 and 2003 tax cuts set to expire Dec. 31.

Democrats are pushing Obama’s plan to let tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans expire and permanently extend lower rates on individuals with incomes up to $200,000 and for couples with incomes up to $250,000.

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Two things to keep in mind, here.  It was the Democrats’ goal all along to push for splitting the tax cut extension into measures for the “middle class” and “wealthy,” knowing full well that Republicans would demand the whole loaf.  This would let Democrats act like they were trying to extend tax cuts for the middle class and blame Republicans for holding them hostage by sticking to demands for across-the-board extensions.  This would give them something to campaign on:  “Look at those evil Republicans, they’re trying to cut taxes for the richest Americans again, and holding middle-class tax cuts hostage!”

That hasn’t worked, and Americans are smarter than that.

But the other side of the coin is that Democrats can’t let the whole loaf of tax cuts get on the floor out of fear of alienating the liberal wing, a group that’s already a bit discouraged about the upcoming elections. 

And last of all, who knows what a spiteful Democratic leadership might try tying the tax cut extension to during the lame duck.  Name any of the policy goals they failed to get accomplished since gaining super-majority status in January 2009, and watch.

Mullen: “National Debt is a Security Threat”

  Mullen: National Debt is a Security Threat

He’s right on one point, wrong on the other. 

Yes, the national debt is a serious national security threat.  But no, cutting Pentagon spending is not the answer. 

Cutting domestic spending—especially on entitlements and other social programs—is where the opportunity lies for cutting the deficit and in turn, the level of national debt.  According to the executive.gov article: 

 

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The national debt is the single biggest threat to national security, according to Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Tax payers will be paying around $600 billion in interest on the national debt by 2012, the chairman told students and local leaders in Detroit.

“That’s one year’s worth of defense budget,” he said, adding that the Pentagon needs to cut back on spending.

“We’re going to have to do that if it’s going to survive at all,” Mullen said, “and do it in a way that is predictable.”

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Arbitrarily cutting back on defense spending is not the way to control the deficit or reduce the national debt.  As of FY 2010, the Pentagon had asked for a mere $533.8 billion in regular funding, or about 3.6 percent of an estimated GDP of $14.6 trillion.  As we know, GDP is not going to get anywhere close to $14.6 trillion in FY 2010.  That accounting period ends on September 30, 2010, and at the current rate of 1.6% of growth, we can expect to see GDP at no more than $13.5 trillion, at best.  So it’s true that defense spending will increase as a percentage of GDP for this fiscal year.

Defense spending is not the problem, even with two wars and the effects of replacing aging or destroyed equipment.  No, the problem is the off-budget spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlement programs.  Those programs grow as fast as the population of entitled recipients grow.  Until real entitlement program reform occurs, the programs will continue to eat an ever larger portion of federal receipts, crowding out critical expenditures for defense, transportation infrastructure, education, promotion of interstate commerce and a host of other activities that are the constitutional responsibilities of government.

When it comes to budget-cutting, the first targets of liberals are defense-related expenditures.  According to their logic, making America weaker and less able to defend herself means that our enemies are less likely to go on the aggressive.  Do you think Russia, China and Iran believe that cutting defense spending to balance the budget is a good idea?

SRSLY?

Gimme some feedback in the comments.