In a marked shift, Republicans are now willing to close some tax loopholes as part of a final deal to raise the nation’s legal borrowing limit, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Wednesday.Read the rest here.
But Cantor said that raising taxes was still off limits in negotiations to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by the Aug. 2 deadline.
“If the president wants to talk loopholes, we’ll be glad to talk loopholes,” Cantor said at his weekly roundtable with reporters. “We’ve said all along that preferences in the code aren’t something that helps economic growth overall. But listen, we’re not for any proposal that increases taxes, and any type of discussion should be coupled with offsetting tax cuts somewhere else.”
Republicans have rebuffed Democrats’ calls for any comprehensive deficit-reduction package to close tax loopholes such as those for corporate jet owners and oil and gas companies. Such measures, GOP leaders have said, should be considered only as part of a comprehensive tax-reform effort.
This country is in deep trouble. We have one of the most left wing president since LBJ and the Republican Party is increasingly drifting into the political la-la land dominated by birthers, Grover Norquist and people who dream of turning the clock back to 1787 if not the old Articles of Confederation. We urgently needs a credible opposition party with at least one foot planted in the real world. And clearly the GOP is not it.
I really have no idea what one can mean when on calls Pres. Obama "the most left wing president since LBJ," except possibly to indicate that the Democratic party has been rather more center than left ever since the Truman administration. When your signature "left wing" achievement is to enact into law the Senate Republicans' 1993 health-care reform alternative to the Clinton plan, you just are not that far to the left of the political spectrum.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't the Republicans' proposal; it was Chafee's. You're citing the co-sponsor's apple-pie spin.
ReplyDeleteWhat would a "credible" opposition party do in this instance?
ReplyDeleteThe government is proposing spending cuts that aren't really spending cuts, tax hikes that will have no appreciable effect, and raising a "debt ceiling" in order to pay debt.
I'm not sure what one is supposed to credibly support or oppose, at this point.