Old Deck Hand, you are most disingenuous and naive if you don’t think its better to vote for keeping some taxes instead of keeping none.
If you want to argue that Paul voted for a TAX INCREASE because this bill only kept tax cuts for the middle class,
then are you willing to argue with a straight face that the Republicans who voted AGAINST this bill don’t really favor the TAX CUTS for the Middle Class?
From the American Spectator (hardly Paul fans):
“But if you also favor retaining the tax cuts for upper-income taxpayers, are you supporting tax hikes if you vote first for the stand-alone middle-class tax cut bill? Especially when the Democratic majority leader publicly admits the partial tax cut has no chance of becoming law and all three Republicans voted for the original full tax cuts and say they favor their retention? Paul in particular has defended the tax cuts for the wealthy for some time:
I’m in favor of cutting everybody’s taxes - rich, poor, and otherwise. Whether a tax cut reduces a single mother’s payroll taxes by forty dollars a month, or allows a wealthy business owner to save millions in capital gains, the net effect is beneficial. Both either spend, save, or invest the extra dollars, which helps all of us infinitely more than if those dollars were sent to the black hole known as the federal Treasury. The single mother desperately needs those extra dollars, and that’s why we should reduce or eliminate her payroll taxes. As for the wealthy business owner and whether he “needs” the extra dollars, I’ll simply relate the old adage of the man who said “I’ve never had my paycheck signed by a poor man.”
The most problematic provision of the bill Paul and company voted for is Section 102, which explicitly excludes “high income individuals” from the tax cuts and defines who doesn’t qualify. Left alone, that would be a tax increase on those individuals come January. But the legislation also explicitly continues the tax cuts for everyone else. Could you argue with a straight face that the Republicans who voted against this bill don’t really favor the tax cuts for the middle class?
Also, Ryan Ellis of the anti-tax increase Americans for Tax Reform comments below:
“In our opinion, Cong. Paul did not vote for a tax hike. The bill Congress voted on yesterday is a tax cut relative to 2011 law, which assumes everyone’s taxes go up. By preventing some people’s taxes from going up, this would score out as a tax cut.”
Or, I'm not an idiot and understand that if you vote to raise taxes on anyone YOU'RE VOTING TO RAISE TAXES.
The only way Republicans are going to get things done, is to stand as a united front against the Dems. They did that, except for a few idiots, like Ron Paul.
Increased taxes on the job creators will mean increased unemployment. We can't handle more unemployment. Republican leadership understands this, but "rogue contrarian" Ron Paul doesn't
And I'm the "naive" one?