06.20.07
Republicans/”Conservatives” Still Lying To Themselves About Taxes
The reason this is brought up is because of a wire article in the HCrhon today and a comment made about Democrats at the bottom of the article. The headline is what was attention grabbing at first, Democrats battle for party’s left wing. It’s nothing special just the normal blather about how if Democrats are for “broad health care reform” and for bringing the troops home, as are a vast majorities of Americans, then they’re playing to the left wing of the party.
But a comment about how these issues are essentially a fight about who will raise taxes higher, Democrat A or Democrat B, made me laugh. Immediately memories of the 2003 budget fight in Texas came to mind. When our newly GOP dominated state government didn’t raise taxes but, instead, raised every damn fee in the state, or so it seemed, to make up for the budget shortfall. They also deregulated college tuition, and cut CHIP funding. What it did was raise the tax burden enormously on the poor, especially, and the middle class too. Now even the right-wing TPPF is taking Republicans to task for keeping an obsolete tax on the books - thanks to FeetToTheFire for the link.
The budget shortfalls, of course, were brought about by most state’s tax cut fever in the 1990’s and “no tax pledges” which caused fiscal problems once the economy took a downturn. The Republicans having to make up that money decided instead for huge fee increases and not tax increases. That allowed them to say that they hadn’t raised taxes and it also allowed them the ability to fool most Republican voters into believing that their taxes weren’t raised. It’s fine if Republicans and “conservatives” want to keep believing that lowering taxes on the rich and jacking up user fees for everyone really is a tax cut, just don’t expect anyone else to keep believing it.