Pence promises full-fledged GOP campaign to keep Bush tax cuts

Republicans Saturday promised
a full-fledged campaign to make permanent a suite of expiring Bush-era tax cuts
and accused President Obama and other Democratic leaders of not taking steps
yet to prevent their sunset.

As part of a broader attack
on Obama’s economic agenda, House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence of
Indiana accused Democrats in the weekly GOP radio address of wanting to embrace
an unprecedented tax hike.

{mosads}”After 18 months of
runaway spending, bailouts and takeovers, Washington Democrats are poised to
allow the largest tax increase in American history to take effect next year,”
said Pence, the third-highest-ranking House Republican. “The American people
know we can’t tax and spend and bail our way back to a growing economy.”

Pence promised that “House
Republicans will oppose this tax increase with everything we’ve got.”

He is referring to tax cuts
established in 2001 under the George W. Bush administration and GOP
congressional rule that are set to expire at the end of the year. Obama and
Democratic leaders have long said they intend to extend tax cuts affecting
middle-class taxpayers who individually make less than $200,000 annually or
couples who make less than $250,000.

Democrats have been looking,
though, to delay extending tax cuts for wealthier individuals and couples.

Some Democrats are now
considering a plan to delay tax hikes on the wealthy for two years because the
economic recovery is slow and they fear getting hurt in November’s election.

But in a speech Friday, House
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) reiterated his party’s call to extend the
middle-class tax cuts and deemed GOP calls to extend breaks for the wealthy a
“mistake [that] would be putting ourselves even deeper into debt.”

Hoyer argued that the tax
cuts — which were enacted within a few months after Bush took office — did not
create as many jobs as his predecessor, President Clinton.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben
Bernanke this week said extending the tax cuts could provide an economic boost.
“In the short term, I would believe that we ought to maintain a reasonable
degree of fiscal support, stimulus for the economy,” Bernanke told the House
Financial Services Committee on Thursday. “There are many ways to do that. This
is one way.”

Pence also more generally
went after the Obama economic agenda.

“The economic policies of
this administration have failed,” he said. 

He said last year’s economic
stimulus plan has yet to lower a steadily high national unemployment rate of
about 10 percent.

No Republicans in the House
and only three in the Senate voted for Obama’s stimulus plan. One of those
three Senate Republicans — Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter — subsequently switched
parties and became a Democrat.

Pence also notes House GOP opposition to Democratic-led
healthcare reform and an economy-wide climate change plan this Congress, which
Republicans have dubbed a “national energy tax.”