Lamborn tells town hall he has steps to make economy ‘explode’

Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) told town hall participants at the Fremont County Administration Building on Thursday that the economy would “explode” if Congress followed his lead on bringing demand back to the marketplace.

“If we did these three things, our economy would explode,” he said, as reported by the Canon City Daily Record.

{mosads}His plan includes boosting oil and gas, coal and nuclear production, killing onerous regulations and making permanent tax cuts enacted by President George W. Bush.

“Dividends, capital gains, income tax, all of those are going to go up January 1 right now as it is scheduled,” he said, adding, “I want to make those permanent — and I’d even like to make them higher than what the tax cuts are so that we have more money left in our pockets to invest.”

Making the Bush tax cuts permanent would remove one variable taxpayers face when making investment decisions. But continuing them will also help to explode the deficit.

“If all tax provisions that are scheduled to expire in the coming decade were extended and the [alternative minimum tax] were indexed for inflation, deficits over the 2011-2020 period would be more than $7 trillion higher,” states the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The country is already facing a $1.3 trillion deficit for fiscal year 2010, the CBO states.

Ending the Bush tax cuts would reduce the deficit and help to pay down the debt. The CBO predicts the move would cut about $2 trillion from the debt by 2018.

Still, Republican calls to extend the Bush tax cuts can be heard beyond Lamborn’s district. Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) used his Saturday address to blast President Obama and congressional Democrats for wrecking the economy and urged the extension of these tax breaks.

“[We] should make the current tax rates permanent instead of raising them at the end of the year,” he said. “And we should cut capital gains taxes to encourage business investment.”

In nearly the same breath, Toomey blasted Democrats for increasing the debt.

“This Democratic administration is projected to create more debt than all the debt we accumulated in the entire history of our country from George Washington all the way through 2008, combined,” he said, adding, “You know, there’s an old saying, ‘When you’re in a hole, stop digging.’”