Posted on 07/01/2008 1:20:26 PM PDT by smithone
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday shot down a Republican attempt to pressure the chamber into supporting a tax package and Alternative Minimum Tax patch this month, saying the provisions must first be funded.
Reid spokesman Jim Manley responded to a letter from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and ranking Finance Committee member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who had written Reid to press for action on those ideas before Congress’s next recess in August.
“Sen. Reid shares the desire to complete work on the tax extender/energy tax incentives bill before the August recess,” Manley said. “However, it is puzzling that Republicans continue to oppose offsets that are noncontroversial.”
Manley accused McConnell and Grassley of voting in June to block the Senate from considering the very House bill they were pressing Reid to take up.
At issue is the idea of offsets — spending cuts or tax increases designed to fund a specific proposal. The House routinely insists on such offsets, and Manley said “a clear majority” in the Senate will also insist any tax package be accompanied by offsets.
For their part, McConnell and Grassley said Democrats “have chosen to politicize what has historically been a very routine and bipartisan exercise of extending traditional expiring tax provisions and patching the Alternative Minimum Tax.”
Specifically, the two Republicans called on Reid to jump-start AMT patch negotiations between Grassley and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) so that the full Senate can vote on the issue before August.
They also cited several recent Senate votes as proof that the chamber has in the past approved measures without requiring offsets.
Manley rejected that, saying Senate negotiations that do not include offsets are pointless if the House sticks to its traditional position.
“A majority of the House has indicated that a bill that is not offset will not receive their support,” Manley said.
Since cutting spending is never an option in D.C., why not raise gas taxes? You can still screw taxpayers and keep the same amount of money for Congress to spend.
Instead of fixing the AMT, why not get rid of it? Oh, because that would limit government.
I would tend to agree. I sincerely hope that one day we will be rid of the income tax and be able to fund the government on excise and duty taxes (and tariffs) as the Constitution (not including the 16th amendment) proscribes. The Founders saw great risk in an income tax and for good reason.
O.K., so eliminate the Department of Education; that should cover it!
Screw it. Don’t pass the patch. Let taxes in high-tax states go through the roof. Blame the Democrats. Later, Rinse, Repeat.
We’ve been hurt by the ATM. My husband is a carpenry contractor and even in a year that he made under $60,000, we were hit with it. We only had to pay a minimun amount but it appears to me that they have never adjusted the AMT for inflation. Heck, one year we had to pay it when he made about $40,000.
It’s a huge source of revenue for the government, it won’t go away or even be changed as long as the dems are in office.
They’re killing small businesses.
The root of the problem is not HOW we collect taxes. The root of the problem is that the tax collection method has been rigged by the politicians to divide the people. This is done by creating an us vs them mentality where taxes that impact “them” are ok to the voter.
In truth, any tax system will work as long as there is no differentiation among the people. To that end I propose the following Constitutional Amendment:
Neither Congress nor any jurisdiction subject to the laws of Congress, shall grant any relief from, or cause greater tax burden, by means testing on income, race, religion, sex, profession, culture, age, location, possessions, dependents, cost of living, or any other test so as to cause differentiation between the People.
why not raise gas taxes? You can still screw taxpayers and keep the same amount of money for Congress to spend.
Reid and the rest of those liberal $astards need to go. I wish his constituents would get a clue.
Double screw it for us and our small business. We live in Wisconin, Doyle is killing the state.
More poor logic from the tax and spend liberal democrats. Everyone agrees that the AMT should not and should never have applied to the middle class people that it is now hitting, and thus the government was never really entitled to revenues from those people from the AMT. Therefore, why do we need to raise taxes (note that the liberal democrats use the word offset) on other taxpayers to replace those tax revenues that the government was never entitled to in the first place? That is the winning argument that was not put forth by the republicans.
Ack, Wisconsin. I’ve never gotten used to spell-check on FR.
How so? We can always borrow more money. Its been borrow and spend since forever.
We need the Balanced Budget Amendment to stop this nonsense.
Harry Reid....what a name.....is as dumb as they come! How did MANLY Nevada elect this WIMPY IDIOT who thinks coal and oil are making us sick???
If there ever was a windfall profit, it is the AMT. It was written to only hit a handful of millionaires, and now it hits millions (including me). We should have a "windfall tax" tax on congress, and return the money to its rightful owners, us.
Just a thought.
Let the Dems propose the “offsets”.
Of course you and I realize this is little more than window dressing.
Tru, I’ll revise. It would be symbolic of limiting government. I agree about the balanced budget amendment with a provision to reduce the national debt. However at our current spending level, a balanced budget would mean increased taxes. We HAVE to draw down spending. Not just earmarks and pork barrel, but everything. We can start with all these socialist welfare programs along with all funding not authorized by the Constitution at the federal level.
Actually, we need a pay down the national debt and THEN balance the budget Amendment to stop this.
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