Bush Tax Rates: Democrats were against it before they were for it

Townhall.com ^ | December 29, 2012 | Bob Beauprez

[Kaslin]

One of the more hysterical components of the fiscal cliff saga is watching the Democrats falling all over themselves to champion the importance of preserving the existing tax rates – the George W. Bush Tax Rates – for nearly every American taxpayer.  The President last offer to Speaker Boehner would preserve the Bush Tax Rates for at least 99.5% of all taxpayers according to IRS data (all but individuals above $400,000 annual income).

To be clear, there's nothing funny about the fiscal mess that our nation is in.  It's real.  It's serious.  And, if Washington fails to get its act together for the long-term, it will eventually prove fatal. 

But, it is impossible not see the humor in watching Barack Obama and the Democrats now embracing the very policies they spent the last decade demonizing as the reason for deficits, unemployment, the downturn of the economy, male-pattern baldness, PMS, and the Cubs not winning the World Series.   Regardless of the problem, it was always George Bush's fault.

Referring to the Bush Tax Cuts and economic policies during the Bush years, on October 16, 2012 during the second Presidential debate, Obama said, "That's what took us from surplus to deficits."

Less than a year ago, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said, "the Republican failed economic policies of President George Bush took us to a financial meltdown, took us into near depression, took us into deep deficits that we still have to deal with!"

But, now the Democrats are signing a very different tune; preserving that which they spent the last decade damning has suddenly become the President's and Democrat leadership's raison d'être.  

The White House has dedicated a web site to pitching the extension of the Bush Tax Rates with the headline banner proclaiming, "IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO."

When asked on December 18 by MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell if House Democrats would support the President's plan to extend the existing Bush Tax Rates to virtually every American, Pelosi answered with an emphatic, "I do."  Later in the interview she again affirmed that "the Democrats will stick with the President." 

So, which is it? Did they know what President Kennedy understood and proved to be true in the 1960s, but opposed and demonized the Bush Tax Cuts for purely political reasons?  Have they seen the error of their ways, and become Supply-Side Converts?  Or, was their opposition genuine liberal extreme Keynesian ideology and their new found conviction to "defend the middle class" less than genuine?

It doesn't really matter.  Whatever the reason, the unprincipled, blow-in-the-wind, say-anything-to-get-elected nature of the Democrats is exceedingly transparent.   

All this posturing is purely political.  It has nothing to do with good government, or what really is best for the country.  The objective is to maximize the ability to "blame the Republicans."  The 2014 election cycle has already begun.

[Defiant]

If Republicans weren’t lead by incompetents, people would know this stuff.

[yldstrk]

the Democrats are “signing” a different tune?????????

[BobL]

And this is EXACTLY the reason that the Republicans need to let the tax cuts expire - to EDUCATE the voters, the INGRATES, as to who kept their tax rates down.

The Dems know that, and, in the end, they will agree to ANYTHING that the Republicans put forward - otherwise the mime that the Bush tax cuts were for the rich would be blown away.

The problem is that the Republicans likely have NO CLUE just how strong their hand is. Note that it is the Democrats, in a near-panic mode, screaming about all of the higher taxes next year - they know what’s coming and what it means to them as a party. They MUST prevent it, at all costs, and they likely will - with help from the Republicans bailing them out again.

[Kaslin]

Thinking about it, you could be correct

[I cannot think of a name]

This entire mess is just another example of how the Republican party has NOBODY that can think strategically.

There should have NEVER, NEVER, NEVER been a Bush tax cut. There should have been a REPEAL of the Clinton tax INCREASES of 1994. Now we would be arguing about RAISING taxes back to the clintoon level.

By following this stupid plan, we allow the idiots on the left to position things as though there is some ‘proper’ level for taxes, and we have ‘cut’ them from that level. If the Republicans had managed this properly, they could have tied the Clinton tax INCREASES like a tin can around the democraps tail.

And a lot of this took place while Bush was being advised by someone referred to as “the brain.”

Brain my a$$!!

[EQAndyBuzz]

The Republicans should of put a single bill in to make the Bush tax cuts for EVERYONE permenant.

Then they should have left for Chriatmas.

Every staffer at the RNC should be fired along with whoever they use for PR.

[Arm_Bears]

The DemocRATS have been saying that the Bush tax cuts only benefited “the rich” for the past 10-years; so I don’t understand why they are suddenly so keen on preserving them.

(This isn’t the first time, either.)

[blueunicorn6]

Sometimes, doing nothing is a real cool move.

[4Liberty]

Rats settle for govt cheese when they could have liberty.

[Intolerant in NJ]

The really funny thing about the Bush tax cuts is that the “rich” were actually paying a smaller percentage of all taxes collected before they were passed - if they all remain in place except for increases to those making more than $400k per year, there will probably be little if any difference between the percentages of the total paid by those evil rich people before the cuts were first passed and after the adjustments.....