Republicans' 'Achilles heel', how Bill Clinton exploited it BRILLIANTLY, and how President Obama can

ProgressiveEconomist

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Sat Aug-06-11 06:05 PM
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Republicans' 'Achilles heel', how Bill Clinton exploited it BRILLIANTLY, and how President Obama can

and how President Obama can repeat Clinton's success.

Republicans' 'Achilles heel' is TAX CUTS, any kind of tax cuts, including tax cuts that help the poor and stimulate demand in the economy.

In 2009, poor families received up to $5,657 apiece from the IRS as income tax "refunds", and even more in 23 states and DC with their own supplemental EITCs. (See http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2505 ).

On Bill Mahr's show this weekend, Salon editor Joan Walsh talked about how in the mid-90s Bill Clinton almost completely replaced federal welfare benefits for poor kids with a refundable tax credit that "phases out" steeply with income, the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit). This was a BRILLIANT move by Clinton. "Welfare" was the focus of intense Republican RAGE in the '90s. But Bill Clinton managed to REPLACE and even INCREASE welfare with an "under-the-radar" refundable tax credit that has survived and thrived for many years.

Any attempt by Republicans to get rid of the EITC would be attacked vehemently as a TAX INCREASE on the most vulnerable Americans. Most people have no idea the EITC has been in the tax code and has been expanded for almose a decade and a half. Of course, it's no use to the UNEMPLOYED poor, but it still is available to 70 or 80 percent of the poor.

As the quote below (from a recent floor speech) shows, even Orrin Hatch (R-UT), who's swung even further right since being primaried by a TeaPartier, does not DARE insist on higher income taxes for people living in poverty.

The EITC thus is a model for economic stimulus spending cloaked in a Superman's cape of "tax cuts" that Republicans have no kryptonite against. For my ideas about how the WH could propose replacing expiring Bush tax cuts with MORE progressive, job-creating, demand-stimulating tax cuts, see http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1636415&mesg_id=1678270 .

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From http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/07/07/262890/hatch-poor-people-contribute-taxes

"Orrin Hatch Wants The Poor To Shoulder More Responsibility For Deficit Reduction By Travis Waldron on Jul 7, 2011

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) dusted off one of his favorite talking points on the Senate floor today, calling on the poor and the middle class to shoulder more of the pain of deficit reduction because they don't pay enough in taxes. ...

Hatch complained that 51 percent of Americans don't pay income taxes and hinted that what the poor and middle class pay in payroll taxes doesn't count as a contribution since it goes toward Social Security.

HATCH: 'I hear how they're so caring for the poor and so forth. The poor need jobs! And they also need to share some of the responsibility. NOW WE DON'T WANT THE REALLY POOR PEOPLE WHO ARE IN POVERTY TO PAY INCOME TAXES. But 51 percent of all households? And that's going up by the way because of our friend down in the White House and his allies. Watch it!"