Democrats "Frustrated" They Can't Raise Taxes

I kid you not...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Cracks are emerging in congressional Democrats' solidarity, as frustrated lawmakers concede their majority status is not enough to overcome Republican resistance on taxes, spending, Iraq and a host of other issues.

The fissures, which became obvious this week, are undermining Democrats' hopes for several key achievements this year. They also point to a bruising 2008 election in which Democrats will say Republicans blocked prudent tax and spending plans to score political points on immigration and other hot-button issues.

Republicans say they simply want to prevent higher taxes of any kind, even if the targets are not-so-sympathetic groups such as oil companies and hedge fund managers.

Let's see if I can't help the Party of the Donkey script those ads. How about, "We wanted to take more money from you, Mr. and Mrs. America, but the Republicans wouldn't work with us. Please vote for more tax-raising Democrats in the upcoming election."

Anyone else got any ideas?

Giuliani's Crime Record

Giuliani's latest TV ad is drawing criticism from the good--and truly non-partisan--folks at FactCheck.org:

Rudy Giuliani's latest TV ad falsely claims New York City experienced "record crime ... until Rudy." In fact, the city recorded its highest rates of both violent crime and property crime years before he took office. The downward trend was well established before he was sworn in.

The ad also claims New York is "America's most liberal city," but his campaign offers no evidence showing that the city is more liberal than, say, San Francisco; Berkeley; Washington, D.C.; or Detroit, all of which rank as more liberal in a study of voting behavior in the 2004 elections. In that study, New York ranked 21st among cities with populations of more than 100,000.

Giuliani's ad also repeats some boasts we've found to be misleading in the past. It claims he cut taxes by $9 billion but counts several tax cuts that he didn't initiate or sign, and one that he lobbied against before changing course. It also boasts that he cut welfare rolls by 60 percent but fails to note that the reduction in New York was a bit less than it was for the nation as a whole.

Read the whole thing (link in the title of this post). And while you're at it, check some of their other articles... you'll see that they skewer distortions by both Democrats and Republicans... now that's what I call fair.

Transportation Budget and Congressional Pork

Many headlines proclaimed Senate adds one billion dollars for bridges to Transportation bill. Only a few short weeks after the Minneapolis I-35 bridge collapse, sounds reasonable, especially with the reports of so many bridges in the United States in poor repair.

With a Transportation-HUD spending bill in excess of one hundred billion dollars, why would the committee need to add one billion dollars for bridge repair?

Possibly because of the eight billion dollars in pork stuffed in the spending.

Six weeks after a fatal Minneapolis bridge collapse prompted criticism of federal spending priorities, the Senate approved a transportation and housing bill Wednesday containing at least $2 billion for pet projects that include a North Dakota peace garden, a Montana baseball stadium and a Las Vegas history museum.

You might think after the catastrophe of the bridge collapse, our Congressmen would abandon their frivolity and focus on the real needs of our nation's infrastructure. You'd be wrong of course.

Total spending on transportation "earmarks" next year is likely to be about $8 billion, when legislative projects from a previously approved, five-year highway bill are factored in. A newly released report by the Department of Transportation's inspector general identified 8,056 earmarks totaling $8.5 billion in the fiscal year that ended in October, or 13.5% of the Transportation Department's $63 billion spending plan.

With so many needs for repairs to our nation's highways and bridges, with all the pork that needs to be handed out, how will we ever come up with enough money to do the real work needed? Raise taxes, of course.

Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has proposed a temporary 5-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase that he said would raise $25 billion over three years to help reduce the backlog of critical bridge repairs. Among Oberstar's earmarks in the House transportation bill is $250,000 for a bike trail in his district, which he has defended as legitimate. He did not respond to a request for comment.

I like that. A temporary tax. I'm here to say there is no such animal. Once Congress starts getting your money to spend, they are going to do everything they can to keep getting it. The only temporary thing related to taxes is temporary tax cuts. The Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 are due to expire in a couple of years and we can't get them extended or made permanent. Tax cuts are temporary. Tax increases are not.

One would think that a Representative from Minnesota, who chairs the committee that sets the spending for transportation needs for the country, would be more serious than to allow billions of dollars of pork to take precedence over highways and bridges. You would think wrong, of course.

Last, we hear from the stalwart Senator Tom Coburn.

Coburn's staff identified 500 earmarks in the bill, totaling $2 billion, that were publicly disclosed under new rules designed to shed some light on the practice.

"No one in America seriously believes that bike paths, peace gardens and baseball stadiums are more important national priorities than bridge and road repairs," Coburn said.

Coburn and a handful of other lawmakers routinely try to strip bills of earmarks, only to see colleagues crush them with bipartisan efficiency.

On Tuesday, Coburn offered an amendment prohibiting spending on earmarks until every structurally deficient bridge was fixed. It lost, 82 to 14.

Obviously, at least to Congress, it's not a matter of spending priorities. It's that we aren't paying enough gas taxes. As is so often the case in DC, the solution to a problem is not to solve the problem with prudent policy and focused spending priorities, it's to raise taxes.

It's very easy to lay the blame at the feet of Congress for this ongoing diversion of our tax money to feather the nests of elected Representatives and Senators by earmarking money for special pet projects in their districts and states. However, we should look at ourselves just as critically. Every time Congressman Porky Pig is at a ribbon cutting for some new project in your district and you think "Ah, good ole Porky Pig got us that bike trail" and you go and vote for him in the next election, you're encouraging him to use our tax dollars to perpetuate his incumbency.

Example of a transportation money used for pork: Sparta Teapot Museum

h/t: Mark Levin Show

Tax Hike Mike (Huckabee)

I've been reading, with some skepticism, GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee's rising prospects, as noted in some polls. Some of this increasing popularity is based on his solid showing in the Ames GOP Straw Poll last month and his solid performances in GOP debates.

I'll admit, Huck is an attractive candidate. He's a former governor, he is well spoken, he's humorous, he's solid on family and values and has a good grasp on the issues. Nevertheless, Huck worries me. I think he's a populist and bit of a nanny-stater.

When I first heard Huckabee's name circulating as a prospective GOP presidential hopeful over a year ago, I did a little research and wasn't impressed with what I read. Yes, Huck can claim a record of accomplishment as Arkansas Governor, that doesn't mean it's a record he should run on as a conservative GOP presidential hopeful.

In recent weeks Huckabee has said as President he would sign legislation for a nationwide smoking ban and he has endorsed the DC Voting Rights Act.

Those two things alone give me pause. But it goes beyond that. In one of the early debates, Huckabee tried to shoulder the mantle of fiscal conservative and tax cutter. He claimed to have cut taxes ninety four times, then went on to say, as governor, he had turned a deficit into a one billion dollar surplus.

My first reaction was to wonder how Arkansas wound up with a billion dollar surplus if he had cut so many taxes.

Well, Club for Growth isn't very impressed with Huckabee's tax cutting resume either. Look what they have to say on Huck at Tax Hike Mike.

Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has taken to calling himself a “fiscal conservative,” but who ever heard of a fiscal conservative who raised taxes and spending through the roof while governor of Arkansas? Mike Huckabee is also calling himself “a different kind of Republican,” but that’s just a codeword for a big-government Republican who wants to cover up his tax-and-spend record with folksy talking points and one-liners. Sorry Tax Hike Mike. No dice.

(much more at the link)

h/t: Real Clear Politics

Fred on Taxes

If you want to see what Fred Thompson thinks about tax hikes and cuts, see the article linked above (the title is the link). Here's a quick excerpt:

President John F. Kennedy was an astute proponent of tax cuts and the proposition that lower tax rates produce economic growth. Calvin Coolidge and Ronald Reagan also understood the power of lower tax rates and managed to put through cuts that grew the U.S. economy like Kansas corn. Sadly, we just don't seem able to keep that lesson learned.

Now, as before, politicians are itching to fund their pet projects with the short-term revenue increases that come from tax hikes, ignoring the long-term pain they always cause. Unfortunately, the tax cuts that have produced our record-breaking government revenues and personal incomes will expire soon. Because Congress has failed to make them permanent, we are facing the worst tax hike in our history. Already, worried investors are trying to figure out what the financial landscape will look like in 2011 and beyond.

This issue is particularly important now because massive, unfunded entitlements are coming due as the baby-boom generation retires. We simply cannot afford higher taxes if we want an economy able to bear up under the strain of those obligations. And beyond the issue of our annual federal budget is the nearly $9 trillion national debt that we have not even begun to pay off.

If he's not running, I'll eat my blogging hat.