Look. We are not the mouthpiece for the Democratic Party of the United States. But that party is so crackhead-incompetent at selling its own program, we thought it was important that someone point out to the public one of the party’s accomplishments. There’s a lot riding on this midterm election, and the party seems determined to lose crucial seats to certifiable lunatics rather than blow its own horn.
Here it is:
The current Congress, with its Democratic majority and with Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada at the helm in the Senate, approved the biggest tax cut in United States history.
And the Republicans voted against it. As Nobel economist Paul Krugman recently put it, “If he [Obama] came out for motherhood, the G.O.P. would declare motherhood un-American.”
Keep that in mind: The Republicans wanted your taxes to be higher than they are. A lot higher.
Have you heard one Democrat brag about this accomplishment or find fault with the Republican stance?
The bill was H.R. 1. Its public relations name was the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and it kept intact the Democrats’ unbroken record of writing ineffective political messages. If Republicans had sponsored the bill, it would have been called something like the Biggest Tax Cut Act or Currency for American Seniors and Hardworkers (CASH).
Washington Monthly described the bill this way: “BIGGEST. TAX CUT. EVER.” You may remember the surprise when folks did their income taxes this year and paid significantly less than they expected.
When H.R. 1 was enacted, one D.C. columnist observed that “every single Republican member of congress can now be accused of ‘Voting against the biggest tax cut in history’ come next election.” Well, this is the next election campaign. Ever heard a Democrat use that line of argument? Of course not. That would have shown political acumen. A flagpole would know how to market this achievement. Democrats are not flagpoles. They’re humans. Brain-dead ones.
Political analyst Steve Benen wrote, “Obama’s tax-cut plan in the recovery package is not only arguably bigger than any previous plan, but it’s also better targeted.” H.R. 1 is a graduated tax cut. The beneficiaries are the middle class and working poor, not rich guys. It put money back into the pockets of people who build and fuel the economy—working people whose spending makes the economy turn. This massive tax cut went hand in hand with job creation in the same measure.
Why aren’t the Democrats trumpeting this tax cut as the centerpiece of their campaign? Robert Schlesinger of U.S. News & World Report has written one possible explanation: “Democrats don’t point this out very much, I suspect, because they are so busy arguing that spending will do more than tax cuts to stimulate the economy.”
Maybe. It would be the kind of thing Democrats do, as with their elevating procedural gimmicks over the interests of the working poor (think the 60-vote faux filibuster threshold in the Senate).
But Schlesinger probably gives the Democrats too much credit. They’re just incompetent in campaigns.
All we can say is that voters should keep their eyes on the ball even if the Democrats don’t. Remember:
Largest tax cut in history.
Democrats enacted it.
Republicans opposed it.