Democrats Fall Back To Their Default Position During Debt Fight

Said default position is to raise taxes

As the clock ticks on raising the nation’s debt ceiling to avoid a catastrophic default, Vice President Biden met with Republican negotiators on Thursday in another closed-door meeting that only showed how far apart both sides remained.

In the 2 1/2-hour meeting, the sixth one between the administration and a handful of top lawmakers, Biden and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner made a pitch for more revenue, but Republicans resolutely oppose anything that could be called a tax hike.

With the talks moving slowly, negotiators agreed to pick up the pace, scheduling three meetings for next week. Taxes remain the biggest sticking point.

“Any balanced packaged has to end big loopholes, like subsidies for the oil and gas industry,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who’s one of two House Democrats participating in the talks. But asked whether Republicans are showing any willingness to consider tax increases, Van Hollen said, “I can’t say that would be true, no.”

Last month, Biden told reporters: “I’ve made it clear … revenues have to be in the deal.”

The White House push for revenues is noteworthy because Democrats will have to provide votes to get the final measure passed, since many Tea Party-backed House Republicans are likely to oppose any measure to increase the debt limit. The vote is already so unpalatable for Republicans that it’s difficult to imagine GOP negotiators going along with new taxes and risk the wrath of the Tea Party and anti-tax activists, like Grover Norquist — even Democrats offer up larger spending cuts.

So, raising revenues, er, expenditures in the tax code, sorry, increased taxation is the only thing on Democrats’ tiny minds. They just can’t envision reducing the federal government’s spending. And, of course, they want to go after the tax breaks that oil companies receive, which would simply be passed on to consumers, who Dems can then demonize, and call for more “green” energy subsidies. No matter that increasing gas prices would destroy the fragile economy, which Democrats own. That’s not their concern.

If they want to remove the tax breaks for oil companies (which would mostly affect American companies, not ones like British Petroleum and Citgo), let’s remove the direct subisidies and tax breaks from the other energy sectors. Let’s remove all loopholes, which benefit rich people like Van Hollen, Obama, Geithner (though, we will give him a small grant every year so that someone can work Turbo Tax for him) and Democrat donors. Heck, let’s go all the way, and enact the Fair Tax!

Democrats truly live in some sort of economic fantasy world.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach

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