The Toomey-Hensarling Tax Hikes: The Trust Question & the GOP Going Off a Cliff

A very interesting post from http://www.hughhewitt.com/ about the SuperCommittee and the likelihood that it will raise taxes. This follows this previous post about it! This follows this post about the path that Barack Obama might take to win the 2012 election, despite low popularity! (Think about the 2000 election). . This follows this previous article about encouraging American energy independence. This is a key issue to prevent money from going to hostile countries such as Iran  and Venezuela. For more that you can do to get involved click HERE and you can read a very interesting book HERE!


The Toomey-Hensarling Tax Hikes: The Trust Question

Posted by: Hugh Hewitt


My new Townhall.com column, "Breaking the Back of the GOP Base," addresses why the deductions the Toomey-Hensarling tax hikes attacks are central to the tax code and why cutting them would be an economic, political and social disaster.



The good news is that the Supercommittee appears headed to failure as Democrats attempt to leverage out of the process even more taxes than the GOP already unwisely put on the table and have still refused to release even the outline of fundamental entitlement reform, which is the key to saving the fiscal future of the country.  Politico has the details, but the bottom line is that spending cuts v. taxes hikes as the key to our economic future will be the central debate of the 2012 elections.  The GOP is nuts to muddy up that distinction by putting forward proposals that would raising taxes on millions of Americans by cutting their deductions, and especially to do so without ever vetting such a radical plan with voters.



"Trust us," we are told by many, "the deal is a good one when everything is added in."



But why would you trust a party that campaigns on a Pledge and then negotiates a key deal that is nowhere mentioned in the Pledge, parts of which are antithetical to the Pledge?


The Toomey-Hensarling Tax Hikes: The GOP Heads For The Cliff

Posted by: Hugh Hewitt

Larry Kudlow made the case for avoiding any Supercommittee tax hikes in his Daily Caller column this morning, but because he is such a gentleman, he let Senator Toomey and Representative Hensarling, the GOP voices calling for "increased revenue,"  off the hook by allowing their argument that "tax hikes on some offset by tax cuts for others doesn't equal tax hikes," a specious argument for which the GOP ought to be ashamed and pilloried.  Certainly that argument will fail on the stump when angry voters return to the town halls and demand an explanation why the GOP got the majority they asked for and promptly raised taxes even as NPR, the Departments of Education, Energy and EPA and a thousand other reminders of the vastness of the federal government seem to be as fully funded as ever.



The Toomey-Hensarling plan promises greater revenues by picking a different set of winners and losers, but no Republican ran on such a platform in 2010. Lower marginal rates would be great, but not in a big deal for deduction caps which shatter expectations and years of financial planning, the operational abilities of hundreds of thousands of not-for-profits and the bottom line of every American living in a high tax state.



This is the hard fact of what the Supercommittee's two Republican tax raisers want to do: They want to substitute their vision of the tax-code supported good society for the one built up over years --the one that favors home ownership and not-for-profits-- and to do so without an honest and open debate with the American people.  The plan might be the best in the world, but the GOP didn't run on it and the people didn't ask for it.  They demanded deep spending cuts, not new revenue.



Republicans who embrace the Toomey-Hensarling tax hike proposal --if it ever emerges from the Supercommittee where hopefully it will die unloved and unwanted-- will never be able to explain how they pulled this from the Pledge to America, on which every Representative campaigned. Senator Toomey will also be hard pressed to ever explain from what speech we might have gained a clue that his mission in D.C. would be to cap deductions so that wealthier people paid more taxes even as he further destabilized the housing market and dealt the not-for-profit sector a shattering blow.



My invitation to both the senator and congressman to appear on the show on which they have often appeared in the past remains open, but I sense not only reluctance on their part to defend these proposals outside the Beltway but also growing recognition among the GOP electeds that this political disaster should be avoided, even though it means a long fight over the disastrous Department of Defense sequestration. Every dollar of "new revenue" is a tax hike, and the GOP did not win the 2010 election promising tax hikes, but rather deep spending cuts which they have thus far not been able to deliver.



Now a political note: Redistricting now underway is going to alter the Congressional district boundaries of every incumbent.  How stupid would they have to be to enter new terrain carrying a ripped up Pledge to America and arguing that the bottom line tax hike each of the voters will be paying is actually good news for those taxpayers?



How will they choose to campaign among home owners whose investment was just further impaired by a Republican Congress in love with an idea that home-ownership ought not to be subsidized when generation after generation of American applauded home ownership and still does.



How are they going to run in a district where the soup kitchen, the college and every church and synagogue got hammered by the Toomey-Hensarling tax hike?



The GOP had better be praying the Democrats are stupid enough to say no to the tax hikes on the table thus giving the GOP a chance to walk away and never, ever agree again to a committee where the enthusiasms of one or two Republicans can carry the entire party far from its core beliefs.

The Toomey-Hensarling Tax Hikes: Fighting the GOP's Big Government Accomodationists

A very interesting post from http://www.hughhewitt.com/ about the SuperCommittee and the likelihood that it will raise taxes. This follows this previous post about it! This follows this post about the path that Barack Obama might take to win the 2012 election, despite low popularity! (Think about the 2000 election). . This follows this previous article about encouraging American energy independence. This is a key issue to prevent money from going to hostile countries such as Iran  and Venezuela. For more that you can do to get involved click HERE and you can read a very interesting book HERE!


The Toomey-Hensarling Tax Hikes: Fighting the GOP's Big Government Accomodationists

Posted by: Hugh Hewitt


Politico updates the closing days of the Supercommittee and the growing stakes for the GOP.  For the first time the Beltway MSM is beginning to figure out that any tax hikes via deduction caps is an enormous blow to GOP unity, and have found Republicans like Senators Sessions and Inhofe willing to speak on the record about opposing such a disastrous set of tax hikes.




Defeating any such package would have to come from in the House, where an alliance of conservatives and liberals could beat the big government accomodationists which is what the Toomey-Hensarling tax hike plan is --an accommodation to big, indeed enormous government. If the GOP leadership embraces this "Pledge to America" destroying approach, it will never get its momentum back with the grassroots. Until now the tactical losses on every spending battle could be explained away with the canard of "one-half of one third of the government," but that "one-half of one third" was at least useful to block tax hikes. If, as one report put it, Congressman Hensarling made the argument that this is the best we can get and Obama may be re-elected, he ought to not bother running for re-election again because he's got defeat in his heart and on his brain. The GOP has to act like it will win. It cannot set sail to its fears.



The GOP should abandon the secret process.  Fight the Defense Department sequestration now and through next year.  Focus on the Democrats' willingness to cut defense but not NPR, the Marine Corps but not high speed rail and "green jobs."  Focus on the feckless, incompetent president's unwillingness to put any plan on any table.  Go the people on spending v. taxes, led by a nominee certain to share those views.  Ask for a mandate.



Don't cripple the campaign before it begins.



While Speaker Boehner has made statements that can only be understood as clearing the way for tax hikes, Eric Cantor has not, though the Majority Leader hasn't joined the opposition yet. Even Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan was reserved in his criticism of the Toomey-Hensarling tax hikes in an appearance on yesterday's show, which suggests the support for the idea is falling and it won't be necessary to publicly split with the tax-hikers, or that no one ever expected it to pass the Supercommittee's Dems in the first place, in which case the GOP has once again talked themselves into a PR strategy from hell, one that wins no friends in the Beltway and antagonizes their supporters across the country.



The last call of the day yesterday came from a retired sheriff in Palos Verdes who sent money to Pat Toomey last year after hearing him repeatedly on my show.  I'll keep and play the call for the senator when he returns to the program, hopefully today.  It is the perfect summation of why the GOP has been on an incredibly self-destructive course.  As Rick Santorum said two days ago on my show "It is 'Read My Lips' again."



The Congressional switchboard is 202-225-3121. The Twitter account of Senator Toomey is @SenToomey and for Jeb Hensarling it is @RepHensarling. Other key Twitter accounts: @JohnBoehner, @GOPLeader, @EricCantor, @KevinOMcCarthy and @Senate_GOPs.


The Coming GOP Crack-Up Over the Toomey-Hensarling Tax Hikes

Posted by: Hugh Hewitt


Mike Allen's Tuesday "Playbook" is full of Supercommittee tidbits --bike rides between John Kerry, Rob Portman, and Mark Warner.  Showy displays by 45 senators here and 100 representatives there.  All the stuff of a Beltway culture telling itself they can persuade the public of seriousness by shows of affection.



A local Pennsylvania newspaper has more details on the Toomey-Hensarling tax hike, though, and it isn't pretty.  Perhaps the report is wrong, but here's what it says about Senator Toomey's Supercommittee plan:





At the proposal's core is Toomey's economic belief that simplifying and lowering taxes will grow the economy, and in turn, a growing economy will produce more revenue. It would cut the deficit by a bit more than the $1.2 trillion required of the supercommittee, with about $700 billion coming from spending cuts. It would lower the top tax rate for individuals from 35 percent to 28 percent, and generate around $500 billion in new revenue from closing unspecified tax loopholes and reducing tax deductions....



Toomey, whose plan was presented verbally to his colleagues and not in written bill form, did not specify which spending or tax deductions to cut. In a phone interview Friday, he said his preference would be across the board reductions in deductions as opposed to eliminating any entirely.

His plan equates to $1.50 of cuts for every $1 of new revenue, he said. It's a huge concession for Republicans, he said, considering the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform had recommended $3 in cuts for each $1 of new revenue.





Though this article is based on an interview with Senator Toomey, perhaps it is wrong, and perhaps this truly horrific idea of a compromise is just a trial balloon designed to demonstrate one GOP senator's commitment to tax reform.



What is crucial is that this approach be loudly and quickly rejected by the House GOP and key GOP senators as any such plan is an enormous breach of faith with the voters who sent back a new GOP majority and who will be asked in less than a year to do so again and to add enough GOP senators to make a working majority for a new Republican president. Any deal like Toomey's would greatly injure the chances of gathering the sort of energy necessary to recreate the 2010, 1994 or 1980 sweep because it would be an obvious indictment of the credibility of the House and Senate GOP, not one member of which ran on such a platform last year.



Jeb Hensarling and Pat Toomey have been frequent guests on my radio show over the past couple of years, and both are sound conservatives. Neither of them ever appealed for support or votes or campaign contributions so they could go to D.C. and cripple the housing market and everyone's home value by limiting the mortgage interest deduction on so-called high-end homes. Neither of them urged capping the charitable deduction so that churches, synagogues, hospitals and tens of thousands of other non-governmental agencies would see contributions decline. Neither of them urged that state and local taxes be made non-deductible so that those Americans already bearing the highest costs of government would bear even more. They didn't do so. No one did. And that's the biggest problem.





Both men seem to have forgotten that they were not sent back to D.C. to re-engineer the government or "reform" the tax code so that millions would pay more and millions would pay less and more total revenue would flow into it, but so that spending would be drastically cut.



They were not sent there to be part of the all-knowing, all seeing Committee of Oz.



The looming sequestration would be a disaster for the military --if it was allowed to happen. But it won't be. If the GOP goes to the country next November demanding a majority that will reform entitlements, cut spending but restore military strength and spending levels to what they need to be, it will win the House again and regain control of the Senate. Harry Reid's temper-tantrum has already shattered the possibility of a blockade of serious reform by effectively ending the filibuster, and reconciliation exists to accomplish a great deal even if the Senate GOP chooses to not take up the cudgel on procedural blockades that Reid embraced and used earlier this year.



But as Rick Santorum said on yesterday's show, the path the Supercommittee's Republicans are said to be on is a disastrous one:





[T]his is "Read My Lips" again. We had George Bush, who said read my lips, no new taxes, and then we passed a tax increase, they passed, I wasn’t around, but they passed a tax increase. I think it was back in 1989. And it was disastrous for us, and obviously, disastrous for President Bush. I think it will be disastrous for members of Congress, because there is an element out there that you’re right, doesn’t believe either side. And when strong conservatives like Jeb Hensarling and Pat Toomey are making the case for this, then it does raise doubts about whether we can hold this strong, conservative majority together into the next election.



Santorum is absolutely right because it will be impossible to put people like Virginia's George Allen, Ohio's Josh Mandel, Florida's Adam Hasner, Texas' Ted Cruz and other great conservative candidates for the Senate on the air and have them be believed when great conservative candidates like Pat Toomey did the same thing a year ago when running for office and then promptly get to D.C. and vote for massive tax hikes on millions of Americans and then tell them to applaud because its "tax reform, don't you know?"



The issue of credibility and integrity has hung over the new House GOP majority from day one.  They all ran on a Pledge to America that is still online and available for everyone to read.  There isn't a word devoted to ending key existing deductions, only promises of more tax relief for small businesses.





There isn't a line about the need to increase tax revenues because such a position would be absurd. The government's spending is crazy, far beyond any reasonable limit. It doesn't need new revenues. It needs to be drastically cut.



This is what drove the political tide of 2010, and the GOP --or rather a handful of GOP electeds and their staffs-- are about to give it all away because they fear a fight with Democrats over the ill-conceived sequestration which came out of the ill-conceived debt deal which flowed out of the ill-conceived punt on the first CR and which is leading to a series of ill-conceived new continuing resolutions which is the result of a refusal of the GOP to have the fight with Democrats they were sent there to have.



Some Republicans hoped that the Democrats might have seen the trials of Europe and acted responsibly to reform at least Social Security and Medicaid, but they haven't. That result was ordained when Harry Reid put Patty Murray and John Kerry on the Supercommittee.



It was worth a hope but it isn't worth collapse and retreat which is the Toomey-Hensarling tax hike plan, a "deal" on new revenues or any other maneuver. If the GOP blinks again, it will be 2006 all over again, and with good reason. If the Congress is going to spend like Democrats, let Democrats run it.



The Congressional switchboard is 202-225-3121. The Twitter account of Senator Toomey is @SenToomey and for Jeb Hensarling it is @RepHensarling. Other key Twitter accounts: @JohnBoehner, @GOPLeader, @EricCantor, @KevinOMcCarthy and @Senate_GOPs. Weigh in.

Tweet "No New Taxes" to the Supercommittee and the Emerging Secret Deal

A very interesting post from http://www.hughhewitt.com/ about the SuperCommittee and the likelihood that it will raise taxes. This follows this post about the GOP debates and the consequences of letting the Mainstream Media decide the candidate. This follows this post about the path that Barack Obama might take to win the 2012 election, despite low popularity! (Think about the 2000 election). . This follows this previous article about encouraging American energy independence. This is a key issue to prevent money from going to hostile countries such as Iran  and Venezuela. For more that you can do to get involved click HERE and you can read a very interesting book HERE!

Tweet "No New Taxes" to the Supercommittee and the Emerging Secret Deal


Posted by: Hugh Hewitt
 
The GOP members of the Supercommittee made a terrible mistake when they floated tax hikes in the form of limits on the deductability of home mortgage interest, charitable contributions and state and local taxes.




When the story broke and anger began to build among the voters that gave the GOP the House in 2010, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor quickly tweeted that the House GOP would not support the tax hikes. (@EricCantor and @HouseLeader are his Twitter addresses.)



Good for him, but the MSM, the president and Congressional Dems have not given up trying to force through tax hikes, including this terrible trio of enormous hits on the middle class.  The president is threatening to allow the national security-gutting defense budget sequestration to proceed if he doesn't get his way.



At this point the GOPers on the Supercommittee should give up trying to bring reason to their Democratic colleagues and announce failure. The House can pass a Defense budget that reverses the DoD sequestration and dare the president to veto it. As anti-Defense as this president is, he just might but in an election year, and on top of the massive cuts he has already imposed on the nation's military?



What the GOP cannot do is fold and accept tax hikes, especially on the fragile housing market and the reeling not-for-profit sector. Limiting the mortgage interest deduction is the worst of many bad economic ideas bandied about by the Beltway wizards who first brought us Fannie and Freddie, and the canard that people don't give to charity because of the deduction marks anyone who utters it as simply ignorant of how the world of churches, universities, hospitals and the hundreds of thousands of crucial not-for-profits from homeless shelters to disease prevention and research groups all operate.



Neither should the Supercommittee set up some lame duck Supercommittee as the Los Angeles Times reports is being considered.  If the Congress is broken because Democrats won't reduce federal spending to 20% of GDP, then declare the impasse and let the people decide what to do, but don't do so by empowering the departing Democratic Senate majority the power to jam through tax hikes.



The 2010 election was about reducing spending. If the Supercommittee cannot reduce spending because the Democrats refuse to then it is time to call the game over and go to the people in the 2012 elections, and not with some backup plan to let the Supercommittee spring back into life to ignore the results of the election ahead. Let the Dems campaign next year on the tax hikes they are demadning on home owners and laying off the staffs of the not-for-profits while crippling the high tax states. The GOP needs to insist on entitlement reform and only entitlement reform, not tax hikes dressed up in the language of "tax reform" which tricks no one into not noticing the massive tax hikes they are paying except the Beltway sharpies who thought it up.



A handful of House members on important committees should not push the GOP into abandoning its core views, and lobbyists ought not to set up all next year as a bacchanalia of secret deals and celebratory toasts to their shrewd manipulation of the Beltway processes. If there is a deal to make a deal during the lame duck session next year it will be obvious to the conservative base, the Tea party and anyone who isn't drunk that the fix is in to raise taxes and the Congressional GOP is a part of it.



Don't do it. Don't split the party and the base. Declare impasse and begin a ten month campaign to win the argument and the majorities necessary to fix the spending problems, and do so without a deal in place to ignore the results of that vote.



Tweet your opposition to @JohnBoehner @MajorityLeader @GOPWhip @KevinOMcCarthy @Senate_GOPs @robportman

Call The Supercommittee Republicans

A very interesting post from http://www.hughhewitt.com/ about the SuperCommittee which is to work on the U.S. Budget. This follows this post about the constitutional election in Texas.  This follows this previous article about encouraging American energy independence. This is a key issue to prevent money from going to hostile countries such as Iran  and Venezuela. For more that you can do to get involved click HERE and you can read a very interesting book  HERE!

Call The Supercommittee Republicans


Posted by: Hugh Hewitt
 
There are six Republicans on the Supercommittee: Congressmen David Camp of Michigan, Jeb Henserling of Texas, and Fred Upton of Michigan and Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona, Rob Portman of Ohio and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.




They can all be reached via the Congressional switchboard: 202-225-3121.



Together with the House and Senate GOP Leadership these six Republicans are on the brink of a disastrous "deal" with Democrats that will reduce or eliminate the individual tax deductions for home mortgage interest, for state and local taxes and possible for charitable contributions as well.



These changes would hammer an already extremely weak housing sector, and immediately reduce the value of every home in America because the home mortgage interest deduction is part of the value of every house, whether or not its owners use the deduction at all. Proponents of this tax hike urge that it will fall only on the wealthy or the most expensive homes or just second homes, and this is nonsense, reflecting a basic ignorance of how the housing market actually works. Reduce the value of houses on the high end and you reduce the value of houses everywhere on the housing ladder. Reduce the value of second homes and you reduce the demand for homes, period.



Not only would every homeowner's wealth instantly decline upon such an agreement, the banks and other financial institutions would also be obliged to recalculate the value of their holdings connected to home mortgages.



Any limit on the deductibility of state and local taxes punishes every citizen of high tax states severely. Capping the charitable deduction in any way would be a hammer blow on tens of thousands of not-for-profits, and if anyone tries to argue that people don't give because of the tax deduction, they have never, ever been involved in fund raising, period.



So it is a terrible deal, and one that could only be cooked up by consultants inside the Beltway who haven't lived outside of the City for decades, and who wrongly think they can disguise a massive tax hike on millions of Americans by calling it "tax reform." This "deal" would shatter support for the House GOP especially as that new majority was sent back in 2010 to control spending, not reduce the budget deficit via massive tax hikes and new revenue streams. Focus-group tested rhetoric about "tax reform" and "growing the economy" works for focus groups, but not for voters who paid very close attention in 2010 and didn't hear a single GOP candidate campaign on a platform of slashing the mortgage interest deduction, the deduction for state and local taxes and the charitable deduction.



If the Supercommittee proposes anything remotely like this disaster, expect a full court press to push the GOP Freshmen in the House to oppose the bill, and watch as the Democrats on the ropes in Senate race after Senate race regain their footing as the GOP base concludes that it just doesn't matter who they send back to D.C. or what they are promised, they will always end up with the short end of the stick and a growing federal government fueled by even more of their accumulated savings.



Call the Supercommittee and tweet to @JohnBoehner, @MajorityLeader @GOPWhip and @KevinOMcCarthy plus @robportman and @Seante_GOPs to communicate opposition, early and often, to this the worst trial balloon of decades of trial balloons.