inconvenient truths

Crooks and Liars: …. House Republicans swaggered into the White House Wednesday for the latest negotiation to end their economic hostage taking. One, Rep. Jeff Landry of Louisiana, refused to attend and be “lectured to by a president whose failed policies have put our children and grandchildren in a huge burden of debt.”

Sadly for Rep. Landry, the nation’s mounting debt is largely attributable to wars, a recession and tax policies President Obama inherited from his predecessor. Worse still, the Ryan 2012 budget proposal backed by almost every Republican in both houses of Congress would not only drain another $4 trillion in tax revenue from the Treasury, but fail all of the spending and balanced budget targets they themselves propose. Nevertheless, Republicans who voted seven times to double the debt ceiling under George W. Bush would risk the national economic suicide they admit would come to pass if their demands are not met.

Here, then, are 10 Inconvenient Truths About the Debt Ceiling:

1. Republican Leaders Agree U.S. Default Would Be a “Financial Disaster”
2. Ronald Reagan Tripled the National Debt
3. George W. Bush Doubled the National Debt
4. Republicans Voted Seven Times to Raise Debt Ceiling for President Bush
5. Federal Taxes Are Now at a 60 Year Low
6. Bush Tax Cuts Didn’t Pay for Themselves or Spur “Job Creators”
7. Ryan Budget Delivers Another Tax Cut Windfall for Wealthy
8. Ryan Budget Will Require Raising Debt Ceiling – Repeatedly
9. Tax Cuts Drive the Next Decade of Debt
10. $3 Trillion Tab for Unfunded Wars Remains Unpaid

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an inconvenient truth…

Really?

Politicususa: Beneath all of the Republican and Tea Party grumbling about taxes, one key fact continues to be ignored:

According to the Tax Policy Center, Federal taxes are lower than at any time since 1955. Obama has now reduced taxes by more than any president since Dwight D. Eisenhower.

According to the Orange County Register, “For the past two years, a family of four earning the median income has paid less in federal income taxes than at any time since at least 1955, according to the Tax Policy Center. All federal, state and local taxes combined are a lower percentage of per-capita income than at any time since the 1960s, according to the Tax Foundation. The highest income-tax bracket is its lowest since 1992. At 35 percent, it’s well below the 50 percent mark of much of the 1980s and the 70 percent bracket of the 1970s.”

The problem is that the tax cuts have not promoted economic growth and have caused the federal deficit to explode … The answer to America’s revenue shortfall is to raise taxes. The US revenue gap could be closed immediately with a tax increase, but Republicans and tea partiers go insane as soon as the prospect is mentioned…The Tea Party set believes to their core that they are being overtaxed, but reality doesn’t match their perception.

In fact, most Americans have no idea that Barack Obama has lowered taxes. According to a 2010 CBS News/New York Times Poll, only 12% of Americans knew that Obama has lowered taxes. 53% thought that he kept taxes the same, and 24% believed that Obama has raised taxes. Not surprisingly, only 2% of Tea Party supporters knew that Obama had lowered taxes. 44% of them thought that the President has raised their taxes.

The right believes this because they got the idea from Fox News and talk radio…..While the Tea Party takes to the streets to keep tax rates low for billionaires, Barack Obama has lowered their taxes to historically low levels.

The bottom line is that beneath all the GOP spin the fact remains. Barack Obama, not Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, is the greatest tax cutter in American history.

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