Rand Paul Joins the Let Democrats Raise Taxes and Own It Crowd

Rush Limbaugh.com ^ | December 7, 2012 | Rush Limbaugh

[Kaslin]

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

Rand Paul on the Kudlow Report, CNBC, last night. "What do you think of Boehner's idea, cap deductions, get $800 billion in revenues. Make any sense to you?"

PAUL: Why don't we let the Democrats pass whatever they want. If they are the party of higher taxes, all the Republicans in the House vote present and let the Democrats raise taxes as high as they want to raise 'em. Let Democrats in the Senate raise taxes. Let the president sign it, and then they can own a tax increase, and when the economy stalls, when the economy sputters, when people lose their jobs, they know which party to blame, the party of high taxes.

RUSH: Here we go again, except the problem is the economy has stalled, it is sputtering, and Obama was reelected. People have lost their jobs in record numbers, and Obama was reelected. And who says the Republicans are not gonna get the blame? Who says people, low-information voters are gonna be blaming the Democrats for this? January 1st, Obama's New Year's message to the country is, "Hey, your tax increases are the Republicans' fault. I tried." Here's where you remember Rand Paul.

PAUL: Yes, I don't think we have to in the Senate. In the House they have to because the Democrats don't have a majority. In the Senate, I'm happy not to filibuster it, and I will announce tonight on your show that I will work with Harry Reid to let him pass his big old tax hike with a simple majority, if that's what Harry Reid wants because then they will be the party of high taxes, and they can own it.

RUSH: That's the question. If these rates go up on January 1st, if there's not a single Republican vote for it, will the Democrats get blamed? Would somebody explain to me how that's gonna work? When Obama has escaped blame for everything up 'til now? How's it automatically gonna be that he's gonna get blamed for it? It's not likely, I don't think.

END TRANSCRIPT

[Drew68]

Put up a bill that repeals all the Bush Tax Cuts. Have all the Republicans vote against it.

The Bush tax cuts are set to expire automatically. No bill is needed to do this. Doing nothing can backfire against the Republicans badly.

Once these cuts expire, Americans will discover almost instantly that they missed them. And when their once $1000 Child Tax Credit (welfare check) turns in to a $500 Child Tax Deduction (no welfare check) among other losses, many Americans are going to be outraged. Then the House Democrats can ride to the rescue with a tax plan of their own, one that looks awfully like the Bush tax cuts only the top 2% are not affected. This would be very popular with a majority of Americans who favor tax increases on the wealthy. The Democrats saved the day.

How could House Republicans possibly vote against this? They'd get hammered in 2014. Yet they'd still look foolish for being forced to support something at a later date that they were so opposed to now.

There really is no way to win this one.

[mo]

The only way they should is for each to vote “present”;

[Drew68]

The public WANTS to like Obama. That is the real problem.

As far as I can tell, the American public want two things: First, they want massive, European-style social welfare and second, they want to keep their Bush-era tax cuts (just not for the rich). I believe Americans would be willing to compromise on some measure of deficit-reduction as long as those cuts are made to programs that they themselves individually do not benefit from.

[Gilbo_3]

PAUL: Why don't we let the Democrats pass whatever they want. If they are the party of higher taxes, all the Republicans in the House vote present and let the Democrats raise taxes as high as they want to raise 'em. Let Democrats in the Senate raise taxes. Let the president sign it, and then they can own a tax increase, and when the economy stalls, when the economy sputters, when people lose their jobs, they know which party to blame, the party of high taxes.

Rand Paul is sick of libs ???

[sickoflibs]

PAUL: “Why don't we let the Democrats pass whatever they want. If they are the party of higher taxes, all the Republicans in the House vote present and let the Democrats raise taxes as high as they want to raise ‘em. Let Democrats in the Senate raise taxes. Let the president sign it, and then they can own a tax increase, and when the economy stalls, when the economy sputters, when people lose their jobs, they know which party to blame, the party of high taxes.
....
Rand Paul is sick of libs ???”

A while back I proposed a very similar cynical idea.

I said that at least in the Senate the Republicans should attach to every lib bill a poison pill amendment like this and then vote against it. Just add all kinds of crazy extremist stuff like reparations and force Dems to vote on it, and then vote against it..

Sound crazy?

Well Dems did similar to the R majority in the House in 2006 on immigration.

Dems know how to win. Rs know how to whine.

[Lancey Howard]

Dems know how to win. Rs know how to whine.

Yep, you got that right.

[sickoflibs]

I also had another cynical idea to pass the extension for only <$100K to see what Dems would do. Then blame O for the taxes going up above that, If taxes have to go up it would be best if they appear to hurt rather than help the economy, but that only works if Rs don’t get blamed for it.
(OH, and if you have an R POTUS and he cuts taxes then you need the economy to improve not crash, to make the case)

But the suicide wing of the R party seems to want to do nothing (no extension), let them ALL go up so the economy crashes because they are sure that Obama will get blamed instead of them, unlike all the other times he didnnt get blamed.