And mislead is just what McConnell attempted to do on "Meet the Press" yesterday. You see, despite all their tough talk on debt and deficit the Republicans cannot tell you that they really do not care about how much debt is run up, just who it goes to. To do this takes little tact. It just takes a few lies spewed through the teeth of the Republican "leader" like gospel.
Take first the lie that McConnell argues that Americans simply do not want the rich to pay their fair share:
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL: The president's been ignoring public opinion all year long on a variety of things. People were not in favor of the stimulus bill, they were not in favor of the health care bill, they're certainly not in favor of the spending, the debt, the Washington takeovers, and they're not in favor of the tax increases that they have in mind in September. [Meet The Press, 8/22/10]
http://politicalcorrection.org/...
Which just goes to show what Americans Mitch McConnell and his Republican cohorts are listening to. Not average working Americans, but their wealthy base. The folks I like to call the greediest and least patriotic among us who call for us all to sacrifice for their exploding incomes and no-risk investments. Real Americans support asking the wealthy to sacrifice for a change by a whopping number. That number is almost 70% as shown in a recent CNN/Opinion Research poll:
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/...
Not only is McConnell forced to mislead about the will of the American people on whether the rich should pay their fair share or not, but he is also forced to lie about who these tax cuts really help. You see, McConnell is forced to use Republican code words for Corporate America and billionaires known in Republican circles as "small businesses":
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL: What the administration is proposing, and the majorities in the House and Senate, is to raise taxes on the top two brackets, which will affect 50 percent of small business income... [Meet The Press, 8/22/10]
http://politicalcorrection.org/...
Fifty percent?? Really?? According to the Center for Budget and policy priorities less than 2% of American small businesses fall within the top two tax brackets:
CBPP: "98.1% Of Small-Business Filers Have Income Too Low To Be Subject To Either Of The Top Two Tax Brackets." According to Center for Budget and Policy Priorities: "First, critics charge that allowing the 2001 tax cut's reduction in the top two marginal income tax rates for individual taxpayers to expire as scheduled would affect a large proportion of small-business owners. In fact, only 1.9 percent of filers with any small-business income are projected to face either of the top two income tax rates in 2009... In other words, 98.1 percent of small-business filers have income too low to be subject to either of the top two tax rates. By contrast, a substantial percentage of filers with small business income are in the lowesttax brackets. According to Tax Policy Center data, 34 percent of filers with small-business income either are in the 10 percent bracket or are not subject to income taxes because their incomes are too low."
http://www.cbpp.org/...
And not only is McConnell forced to lie and try to mislead the American public on whether they want the rich to pay their fair share and on who these tax cuts really help, but McConnell is also forced to lie about who is raising the taxes and why they are being raised:
DAVID GREGORY (HOST): Senator, my question is how do you pay for an extension of tax cuts? Because if you're concerned, as Republicans say they are, about cutting spending and the deficit, you have to acknowledge that tax cuts are not paid for.
SEN. MCCONNELL: Well, what, what, what are you talking about, "paid for"? This is existing tax policy. It's been in place for ten years. What they're talking about is raising taxes, impacting 50 percent of small business income, in the middle of what most Americans think is a recession. That is not a responsible thing to do. [Meet The Press, 8/22/10]
You see, the bill that was passed that included the provision that the cuts expire was passed by a REPUBLICAN Congress. The reason they did it that way was to of course, lie and mask just how much these cuts would add to the deficit:
Topping the list of odd features is the "sunset" provision that repeals the entire bill at the end of 2010. Budget rules require Congress to include a sunset clause in all major tax legislation, but this sunset arrives a year early--after 10 years instead of the 11 years covered by the current budget resolution. That year was shaved off to keep the total cost of the bill under $1.35 trillion. By repealing the legislation in the 10th year, Congress saved billions of dollars. Without the repeal and a few other tricks, the cost of the full 11-year plan would balloon to more than $1.8 trillion by the end of 2011, far exceeding anything the Democrats would vote for. And the cost in the second decade would reach as much as $4 trillion. Even some conservatives on Capitol Hill are dismayed by the apparent dishonesty of the early sunset. After both parties agreed to a smaller tax cut, the conference committee pulled a fast one.
http://www.time.com/...
But of course they wanted that all along because then they could do exactly what they are doing now, lie and mislead:
But the plan was never to have the tax cuts expire. Instead, the idea was that people would get used to the new tax rates, and no future Congress would want to allow a big tax increase, so when the time came, either Republicans in office would extend the cuts or Republicans in the minority would hammer Democrats until they extended them. And that's where we are now: Democrats control the government, so Republicans are screaming about tax increases as a way to get Democrats to extend tax cuts.
It's really hard to know where to start with this one. It's not a tax increase passed into law by Democrats. It's a reversion to old tax rates passed into law by Republicans. It's not how law is supposed to work. It's the result of twisting a budget process meant to reduce the deficit so you could use it to massively increase the deficit.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/...
Which brings us to yet another lie to mislead from McConnell. That tax cuts are not responsible for deficits:
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL: We're going to have the third year in a row under this administration of an annual deficit of more than a trillion dollars. That is not because we're taxing too little, David, it is because we're spending too much. [Meet The Press, 8/22/10]
Spending too much to clean up the mess passed by McConnell. Tax Cuts, costly wars, deregulation, a crashed economy, and the bailout of the bankers. In fact, anyone who doubts that need merely look at this chart:
So there you have it. If you notice, any reference to Republican culpability in enabling and causing much of the debt we have now incurred is missing from McConnell's suggestions. Missing also is the culpability of the Corporations and the rich in helping cause it too. To address our country's problems McConnell and the Republicans just push the same old "Back to Bush" ideas that caused them to begin with. The really insulting part is they will lie to mislead and try to convince you that is what you went.
For them to suck this country dry once more, only this time we may never recover.
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