Tax Cut it Out, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #94

September 21, 2010 Arthur Tebbel 1 Comment

Dear Art,
With the legislative season winding down it seems that one of the big issues remaining is what should be done with the Bush tax cuts that are set to expire.  President Obama wants to extend the tax cuts for the middle class while allowing those for the wealthiest Americans to expire.  The latter point has proven quite controversial with members of my caucus.  We have said that there will be no tax cut extension for one group without one for the other.  This has led some one the left to accuse us of holding the middle class tax cuts hostage.  Is this an accurate portrayal?  What can we do about it?
-Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), Minority Whip

Eric,
I mean I guess it’s an inaccurate portrayal.  You guys haven’t put ski masks on and pushed middle class tax cuts into a white van and then made a phone call to Speaker Pelosi with one of those voice scramblers.  Nor were those tax cuts in a bank that you were robbing when the teller tripped a silent alarm.  You didn’t even hijack the plane the tax cuts were on and demand the release of your tax cuts as political prisoners.  You did none of those things.  You’re still being assholes.

You know that you, and by you I mean your colleagues in the Senate, have enough power to block an attempt to pass middle class tax cuts.  You know that you can do the legislative equivalent of holding your breath until you turn blue.  Democrats, in this analogy playing stupid parents (not a bad way to think of them in general), will give in and give you what you want.  Then you can play this card every x number of years whenever it comes up.  Tax cuts for millionaires can forever go hand in hand with those for the middle class.  Shit, I wouldn’t put it past you to eventually just renew the cuts for the rich.  Maybe not you but definitely the Republicans of the future who will, at this rate, be evil nuclear powered cyborgs who answer directly to big business through chips in their brains.

As for what you can do about it I think the news wing of your party has that pretty well handled.  It seems I can’t turn on financial news these days without hearing how raising taxes for the rich or the capital gains tax will sink the economy in a flash.  This is despite the fact that under the rates we would return to we had the huge prosperity of the 90s.  It also completely ignores the precedent of the 1950s-80s which featured dizzying tax rates compared to what we have now.  It also featured a generally up trending line of GDP.  It seems that no one aware of these statistics is allowed on CNBC, Fox News, or Fox Business.  Turn up the volume on your sound machine and watch this issue fall into place like every other the last 18 months.  I mean who cares if the government remains solvent?  There’s money to be made here.