House Republicans haven’t had much success this Congress passing actual legislation into law, but they’ve nevertheless invested quite a bit of time focusing on one of their favorite pastimes: cutting taxes without paying for it. The Democratic-run Senate has largely ignored the bills from the lower chamber, but in recent weeks, House Republicans and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) have been negotiating a deal on tax breaks set to expire at the end of 2014, and yesterday, a deal took shape. Before we get to the substantive details, it’s important to note how GOP lawmakers approached the talks: Left off were the two tax breaks valued most by liberal Democrats: a permanently expanded earned-income credit and a child tax credit for the working poor. Friday night, Republican negotiators announced they would exclude those measures as payback for the president’s executive order on immigration, saying a surge of newly legalized workers would claim the credit, tax aides from both parties said. We really have reached a farcical level of policymaking. Republicans aren’t just obsessed with tax cuts, they’re deliberately scrapping breaks that go to working families. Why? Largely because GOP officials aren’t done with their tantrum over immigration policy – right-wing hissy fits rarely produce sound public policy – and Republicans feel as if they’re entitled to a pound of flesh because the Big Bad President hurt their feelings. The result is a tax deal that treats the working poor as collateral damage in a political war. Sorry, struggling families, Americans elected a far-right Congress, and your loss is their “payback.” msnbc/rachel-maddow-show/gop-demands-pound-flesh-tax-deal?cid=eml_mra_20141126
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 00:10:38 +0000
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