Fox News yesterday (one of the news shows, of course, not an opinion program) exposed me to one of the far-right talking points on taxes. The anchor was convinced that "no one is talking about lowering taxes for the rich." Instead, Republicans just want to "maintain the current tax rate" by extending the temporary Bush tax cuts. In contrast, President Obama wants to "raise taxes" by letting those tax cuts expire.
This is the kind of rhetoric that anyone even vaguely interested in truthful public discourse should be willing to come together to publicly condemn. Temporary tax cuts, like those that Bush instituted, are sold to the public based on the fact that they're temporary. That is, the "baseline" (against which we measure future 'increases' or 'cuts') after passing a temporary cut is the lower rate for X years, and then the original rate after that.
For the conservative establishment to turn around and now suggest that temporary tax cuts should be the permanent baseline and that simply letting temporary cuts expire constitutes a tax increase is an insult to reason, logic, and the American people. And to see it on a show that bills itself as journalism...
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