Chatting With Grijalva
by digby
Blue America chat with congressman Raul Grijalva over at C&L at 10:30 pst.
Today a bunch of Blue Dogs signed a letter demanding that the American people continue to subsidize the wealthy upper one percent — the only people who are currently thriving in this dead economy — by extending their criminally low tax rates beyond their expiration date. The reasons for this are obscure — one can only assume some rich donors are putting pressure on them because no other reason makes any logical sense for people who call themselves “fiscally responsible.” Luckily there is some strong pushback on this from the Progressive leaders in the House, led by Grijalva, Grayson and Kilroy, who sent this letter to Speaker Pelosi:
Dear Madam Speaker:
Last decade, President Bush rammed through Congress a multi-billion dollar give-away for the wealthiest Americans on the backs of our nation’s middle-class. In the process, the aforementioned Bush tax cuts eviscerated an unprecedented budget surplus and weakened our nation’s fiscal health. As the Bush tax cuts are set to expire, we respectfully urge you to bring to the floor, before Congress adjourns in October, a vote on President Obama’s recently proposed tax plan: permanent tax cuts for the middle-class while allowing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Americans to expire, using any additional revenue to close our budget deficit.
We must show the American people that our Democratic Majority stands for them– people who have worked hard, played by the rules and depend on these tax breaks to make ends meet. We also need to get serious about cutting our budget deficit by allowing the Bush tax cuts for the rich to expire.
Some have argued that the Bush tax cuts help to stimulate the economy, or that allowing these cuts to expire would hurt our nation’s small businesses. This is flat out wrong. According to a recent report by the Center for American Progress, the economy boasted 132 million jobs in June 2001, the month that the first of the Bush tax cuts was signed into law. By June 2004, there were just 131.4 million jobs– a decrease of 600,000 jobs. Furthermore, a recent report from the Tax Policy Center states that, “Roughly 97 percent of small businesses would not be affected at all by increases in the top two tax rates.”
Rather, extending the Bush tax cuts will result in an $830 billion give-away for the nation’s wealthiest Americans, significantly increasing government debt, the interest on which will be paid by our nation’s middle-class for years to come. This astronomical sum could instead be used to close our budget deficit.
It is critical that we pass the Obama middle-class tax cuts– not providing an even greater lift for the wealthiest Americans who don’t need it.
I don’t know how anyone can call him or herself a Democrat and not agree with that letter. But there are at least 30 of them in the House, many of whom are being given large sums of money by the Democratic Party to keep working against its own — and the country’s — interest.
Thank goodness for leaders like Grijalva or I’d start to get depressed. Please come over to C&L at 10:30 pst to chat with him about this and anything else that’s on your mind.
Update: Chat postponed. Congressman Grijalva called to the floor for a vote.
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