MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

In case you didn’t notice, your taxes may be increasing (thanks, Democrats!)

• Posted by Beth on May 21st, 2007 filed in General, Journalism, Moonbats, Politics, WTF    

Tags: Congress, taxes, Democrats

While you’ve been distracted with the Immigration Bill, the Democrats in Congress are trying to pull a fast one on you.

With all the other news this week, the media barely noticed that Congressional Democrats passed a budget outline that envisions more than $200 billion in tax increases over five years. Seems worth reporting to us.

It would seem worth reporting, but there’s precious little outside of the expected budget hawk circles being said about it. Robert Novak:

Under the Democratic budget, the Bush administration’s tax cuts are permitted to expire at the end of 2010. That means higher taxes if Congress does nothing.

[Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee] Conrad has defended his no-tax-increase claim on grounds that the Democratic budget’s five-year revenues total $14.827 trillion, compared with a “virtually identical” $14.826 trillion in President Bush’s budget. But he is comparing apples and oranges — calculations by the Congressional Budget Office and by the Office of Management and Budget using varying techniques and economic assumptions. That they are so close to each other was an accident.

After months of Conrad’s assurances that his budget contained no tax increases, the Senate adopted, 97 to one, an amendment by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus that decreased estimated revenues by $195 billion. It would save the child tax credit, marriage penalty relief, estate tax decreases and other expiring tax proposals. If the budget “does not raise taxes,” asked Rep. Paul Ryan, ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, on May 10, “why has there been a discussion about whether or not to adopt the Baucus amendment?” It survived in the final version of the resolution.

Conrad’s insistence has affected the way the budget resolution has been reported. The Associated Press account never mentions tax increases. The Wall Street Journal’s headline cautiously refers to a “partial lapse of tax cuts.”

Yes, and it’s also been overlooked by the American public as much as it has been overlooked in the mainstream media, while everyone’s focus is on the immigration bill. The Club for Growth hasn’t let it go unnoticed:

[The] Democratic Congress, save 13 Democratic representatives, passed a $2.9 trillion budget, along with the largest tax hike in U.S. history. Once a tax-and-spender, always a tax-and-spender.

The Democratic leadership claims it is not raising taxes, but it might want to explain to American taxpayers why the budget contains a minimum of $217 billion in tax increases. While the leadership is at it, it might also want to explain why the Democratic budget increases spending by a whopping $23 billion over the President’s request.

Thought it “couldn’t get any worse” than the Republicans, did you? Utter folly. Investor’s Business Daily:

Congress’ nonbinding budget plan narrowly passed the House, with 13 Democrats voting against it. In the Senate, two wayward lawmakers represented the only Republican support. The measure increases deficits the next two years above Congressional Budget Office projections, with $23 billion more in nondefense spending than President Bush’s $933 billion request. The White House has threatened to veto the actual spending bills later in the year.

The Democratic budget magically achieves a $41 billion surplus in 2012, even as Congress lets the Bush tax cuts expire in 2010. The private economy, presumably, will just ignore that immense automatic tax increase and keep chugging along.

Democrats have also been touting the plan’s “allowance” for $180 billion in middle-class tax cuts — but that assumes both a waiving of the pay-go rules and the materialization of the promised budget surpluses. So don’t hold your breath.

The budget did succeed in kicking the alternative minimum tax can down the road for another year. But the fact that “tax on the rich” has mutated into a huge middle-class burden should be a warning to those at every income level.

So maybe while you’re on the phone or sending email to your Senators, you might want to let them know you ARE paying attention. To be honest, a lot of the people so angry about the immigration bill really won’t feel the impact one way or another, at least in the short term, whether the bill is passed or not. But you can bank on feeling the pinch in your wallet, because the pickpockets are busy while you’re busy looking away.

STOP THE TAX INCREASE. STOP THE SPENDING INCREASE. It’s been passed in both the House and Senate, and the only thing standing between your wallet and the Congressional pickpockets is President Bush. Are you going to make him a sacrificial lamb, unable to even exercise his veto power in the meantime? This is not to say you have to support the immigration bill (I have no intention of conflating the two issues); I’m just saying he’s going to need our support to veto this money-grubbing assault on working Americans’ well-being.
This MUST be met with a veto.