A fascinating admission by Republicans in today's NYT. If the Democrats push the SuperCommittee to raise taxes in order to cut the deficit, the Republicans will then demand that the SuperCommittee cut taxes by an even larger amount.
The House will not approve a bill that raises tax revenue unless it also reduces tax rates, the aide said, adding, “We put tax revenues on the table, and Democrats don’t know what to do.”In simpler terms, the GOP is saying that if Democrats want to raise taxes by, let's say, $1.00, then the Republicans will insist that they also cut taxes by $1.01. The result is that we'll be even more in debt once the process is through.
The Republican Study Committee, a group of more than 170 conservative House Republicans, immediately circulated a letter urging the committee not to support any tax increases. “With current levels of taxation already limiting economic growth, we believe that marginal rates must be maintained or lowered and that repeal of any tax credit or deduction be offset with an equal or greater tax cut,” the letter said.
Now, considering how low interest rates are, and how bad the economy still is, the government SHOULD be going more into debt in the near term, borrowing cheap money for infrastructure spending, for example. But the Democrats, sadly, gave up on that battle a long time ago. So now we're simply debating how badly to maim an already injured economy.
