Obama and the GOP: United Against the Working Poor

[daa]

<snip>

Who says bipartisanship is dead?

On Capitol Hill, the Democrats and Republicans may no longer play cards and drink together, but that does not seem to stop them from working together to shift tax burdens down the income ladder even when it violates their promises on the campaign trail.

Grover Norquist calls bipartisanship the political equivalent of date rape. But there is one group that President Obama, many congressional Democrats, and all congressional Republicans ganged up on in December -- the working poor.

The tax compromise passed in December has been hailed everywhere as a payroll tax cut combined with an extension of the Bush tax cuts, despite the fact that it raised taxes on a third of Americans. The killing of Obama's Making Work Pay tax credit, which the White House called the biggest middle-income tax cut ever, and the replacement of it with the Republicans' payroll tax cut raised taxes on single workers whose wages come to $20,000 or less and married couples with less than $40,000 in wages.

That's 51 million taxpayers, the Tax Policy Center estimated.

Amazingly, the people who raised taxes and supported raising taxes on the poor insist they are universal tax cutters.

Last September, Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona said his party's senators had gathered to discuss taxes and that "every Republican was absolutely supportive of the idea that there shouldn't be any increases in taxes."

A week later Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said, "No one should pay higher income taxes next year."

McConnell spoke as he introduced a bill that extended the Bush tax cuts, but not Obama's. Yet not one reporter asked McConnell about why he was seeking to raise taxes on the working poor. Of course, if the working poor are considered "no one," then what McConnell said makes sense, especially for a man who inherited his wealth, which his disclosure statements put at between $7.1 million and $32.8 million.





http://tax.com/taxcom/taxblog.nsf/Permalink/UBEN-8E3J74?OpenDocument

[Vinca]

1. I didn't realize McConnell had that kind of loot. He should buy himself a chin.

[indepat]

2. Can we all agree that quintessentially this is the stuff from which banana republics

are born and flourish? :patriot:

[ProSense]

3. The irony of this article

"The killing of Obama's Making Work Pay tax credit, which the White House called the biggest middle-income tax cut ever"

First, how is he united against the poor when he created the Making Work Pay credit for two years?

Also, is this article in a time warp?

[montanacowboy]

4. Because that tax credit is no more

and people like me making little money are now paying more in income tax.