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In reply to the discussion: Tax The Poor- More! (Hefty) US Gasoline Tax Increase Urged by Bipartisan Pair of Senators [View all]starroute
(12,977 posts)The article quoted in the OP just says "Murphy and Corker called for raising the taxes by 6 cents a year over the next two years, while offsetting the increased federal revenue with other tax cuts."
Another article on this specified that they were suggesting renewing the expired Bush tax cuts for the wealthy as the offset.
But either way, it just shifts the money from one pocket to the other. What would suffer if more tax revenue went into the highway fund? Education? The environment?
And any attempt to provide an offset plays into the Norquistian starve-the-beast paradigm. At a time when true economic recovery is still a distant hope -- and when state revenues and expenditures continue to drop radically -- the Republicans are determined to prevent any kind of federal spending that might get things going again.
That any Democrat would sign on to this vicious and short-sighted scheme is even more distressing.
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