In Obama's weekly address today he addresses the election outcome, saying that he's as tired of the "partisanship" as all Americans are. That comment right there indicates that Obama really has no clue as to what Tuesday's elections were all about. They weren't about "partisanship." They were about his policies, how those policies have failed and how most Americans don't like them.
But he said something else interesting too about the Bush tax cuts: "I believe we can't afford to borrow and spend another $700 billion on permanent tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires."
Here's the video:
The pertinent excerpt:
But at a time when we are going to ask folks across the board to make such difficult sacrifices, I don't see how we can afford to borrow an additional $700 billion from other countries to make all the Bush tax cuts permanent, even for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. We'd be digging ourselves into an even deeper fiscal hole and passing the burden on to our children.
I recognize that both parties are going to have to work together and compromise to get something done here. But I want to make my priorities clear from the start. One: middle class families need permanent tax relief. And two: I believe we can't afford to borrow and spend another $700 billion on permanent tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.
Of course, borrowing $787 billion to blow on "stimulus" spending is ok. We have plenty of money to give union/government owned General Motors a $48 billion tax break to offset the $50 billion they owe the taxpayers.
But allowing all Americans to keep the tax relief they got during the Bush administration? Oh we can't afford that.
This is the problem, though: Obama talks about tax relief as though it were spending. It's not. Tax relief means money stays in our pockets. The problem isn't that the government doesn't take enough from us. The problem is that the government spends more than it has. If Obama is worried about borrowing money to finance our government (something I'm certainly worried about as well) we should cut spending.
We have a government that spends too much, not a government that taxes too little.
And by the way, this class warfare stuff on taxes is phony. We all live and work in the same society. It doesn't matter which segment of society the government takes from, it hurts us all. We're supposed to hate the rich because they get tax relief, but it's the rich who invest and own businesses and employ the most people. Taking from them hurts us all.
Again, taxes aren't the problem. It's the size of the government our society is expected to support.
Sent from my iPad
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