April 18, 2010

REMAKING AMERICA IN EUROPEAN IMAGE

Americans struggled past the dreaded Income Tax deadline last Thursday.

Congressional House Republican “whip”- Representative Eric Cantor - charged that President Barack Obama has signed into law 25 tax increases since taking office in an attempt “to remake America in the image of Europe.”

Cantor asserted the Democrats’ approach to fiscal issues would “make future Tax Days much, much worse – particularly on capital gains and dividends!”

He cited an unnamed study that found the nation’s rising budget would require lawmakers to raise more than half a trillion dollars a year in new revenue.

UNCONTROLLED

The uncontrolled spending would cause tax rates on those making more than $200,000 to “skyrocket well over 70 percent” - according to Cantor. “Thus, Obama has broken his campaign promise not to raise taxes on those making less than $200,000 a year.”

Cantor asserts:

“The Democrats control every lever of power in Washington, D.C. – and they’ve never met a tax they didn’t like – or found a dollar they couldn’t spend.

“Their economic plan is you pay, they spend, your children owe.  You deserve better.”

VALUE-ADDED TAX

Paul Volcker, chairman of the President’s Economic Recovery Board, laid groundwork for refuting Cantor.

At a speech before the New York Historical Society a week earlier, Volcker proposed a national “value-added” tax (VAT.)  This supposedly would enable Congress to raise enough revenue to cap the nation’s growing budget deficit without cutting entitlement spending.

“If - at the end of the day - we need to raise taxes, we should raise taxes,” Volcker said.

WHITE HOUSE TIZZY

The comment sent the White House crowd into a tizzy.  They declared they were not exploring a VAT – and Volcker was only speaking for himself.

Infuriated Republicans asserted it was wrong for the White House to even consider a tax increase during a recession.

Quickly, Sen.  John McCain (R-Ariz.)  organized a “Sense of the Senate” resolution that condemned the introduction of a VAT.  Not one Senator of President Obama’s debt-reduction task force voted against McCain’s proposal.

Cantor derided Volcker’s proposal as “European, and voters would soon begin paying more and more.”  Cantor urged voters to vote against a Value Added Tax when proposed.

A lie stands on one leg, truth on two.

-- Benjamin Franklin

No person is a complete failure.  He serves as a bad example.

Americans either get the kind of leaders they deserve – or deserve the kind they get.

Character is what you are.  Reputation is what people think you are.

By Lindsey Wilger Williams, retired newspaper publisher and syndicated columnist