President refuses short term debt limit solution. Demands more taxes and ignores fact the new taxes go into effect in 2013. He continues to refuse spending cuts and said today he wishes he had more time to focus on the National Football League situation.
Senate will resume post-cloture consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 1323, a nonbinding Sense of the Senate resolution offered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). S.1323 says people making over $1 million per year should be required to “sacrifice” in resolving the budget deficit. At 5:30 PM the Senate will vote on adoption of the motion to proceed to S. 1323.
The House is expected to vote around 5:00 p.m. on a bill repealing the intrusive ban on standard incandescent light bulbs. H.R. 2417, Better Use of Light Bulbs (Bulb) Act, introduced by Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) and supported by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), would eliminate the ban scheduled to begin taking effect on January 1, 2012. “The American people have voiced overwhelming opposition to the light bulb ban, and the House of Representatives has started to listen,” said Myron Ebell, Director of Freedom Action. “Freedom Action urges every House Member to vote Yes on Rep. Joe Barton’s bill to overturn the ban enacted in 2007 on standard incandescent bulbs.” Freedom Action earlier this year launched a national grassroots campaign, FreeOurLight.org, to repeal the ban. The ban was again "hidden" by Democrats in the comprehensive anti-energy legislation passed by the Democratic-controlled Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2007. The 2007 law makes the sale of standard incandescent 100-watt bulbs illegal as of January 1, 2012, 75-watt bulbs as of January 1, 2013, and 60- and 40-watt bulbs as of January 1, 2014.
ALG reports today that a new poll Pulse Opinion Research identifies that 58% of respondents oppose banning the incandescent light bulb. The poll question specifically read, “While banning the sale of traditional light bulbs, a new law will allow only more expensive light bulbs that are expected to last longer and be more energy efficient. Should the sale of traditional light bulbs be banned?” Even 44% of Democrats did not favor the phasing out of the incandescent light bulbs. Furthermore, 40% of respondents indicated that they would be less likely to vote for a politician that supported the light bulb ban. However, the progressive Obama White House is calling on Congress to not adopt the BULB Act. Once again, the Federal Government interferes and has and attempted to determine the winners and losers. China is the winner and America is the loser.
Reuters reports today, “After months of effort, President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans are right back where they started as they try to avert a looming debt default: arguing over taxes. . . . Democrats say new tax revenues need to be part of the equation, while Republicans say they won’t back any increase in taxes. . . . ‘It’s baffling that the President and his party continue to insist on massive tax hikes in the middle of a jobs crisis,’ said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. . . . Obama wanted between $1.3 trillion and $1.7 trillion of that total to come from new tax revenue, according to a Republican source.”
So now Democrats are demanding over $1 trillion in new taxes after spending a week saying they wanted $400 billion in tax increases. Of course, as the AP points out today, Democrats want to increase taxes, but they’re going out of their way not to say that: “Call it eliminating an unfair break, or removing an unjust loophole, or even ‘taking a balanced approach.’ Just don’t call it raising taxes. As they work toward a must-do deal with Republicans on paring trillions from the deficit in order to raise the nation’s debt limit, President Barack Obama and Democrats are saying almost anything to avoid the politically toxic pronouncement that they want to increase taxes. . . . Proposals under consideration include raising taxes on small business owners and potentially low- and middle-income families. You won’t hear about that from Obama. Instead the president focuses on the very rich, and speaks euphemistically.”
Despite this, not long ago, President Obama himself seemed to understand that raising taxes in a struggling economy is a bad idea. The Weekly Standard’s Stephen F. Hayes reminds today, “In August 2009, on a visit to Elkhart, Indiana to tout his stimulus plan, Obama sat down for an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd, and was conveyed a simple request from Elkhart resident Scott Ferguson: ‘Explain how raising taxes on anyone during a deep recession is going to help with the economy.’ Obama agreed with Ferguson’s premise – raising taxes in a recession is a bad idea. ‘First of all, he’s right. Normally, you don’t raise taxes in a recession, which is why we haven’t and why we’ve instead cut taxes. So I guess what I’d say to Scott is – his economics are right. You don’t raise taxes in a recession. We haven’t raised taxes in a recession.’” In fact, Obama said, “The last thing you want to do is to raise taxes in the middle of a recession because that would just suck up -- take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.” And when Obama signed an extension of the Bush tax cuts last December, thus preventing a massive tax increase he said that low taxes help “millions of entrepreneurs… hire new workers.”
As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said on Fox News Sunday this week, “[W]e believe the President was right in December when he signed the two-year extension of the current tax rates, that raising taxes in the middle of the economic situation we’re in is a terrible idea. All the arguments the president used in December still work today. . . . We think [raising taxes is] a terrible idea. It’s a job-killer. . . . [H]ow do you get the economy growing, which is the biggest way to increase government revenue? You do not get the economy growing by having a big tax increase. You get the economy growing by incentivizing the private sector.”
The Democrats are avoiding acknowledging the fact that they have hidden in the Federal Healthcare program (ObamaCare) major tax increases which goes into effect in 2013 after the next election.
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