Republicans are going bonkers. They’re trying to portray as a flipflop Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s remarks today that while she leans toward extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class, that she thinks the super wealthy can pay more. The tax code needs more balance, she says. I think a better characterization of her statement today is coming to her senses.
Remember, strictly speaking, that the Bush tax plan provides for tax increases next year. The only way he could make his budget work was to have cuts expire and not show a devastating impact on continuing budget balancing. He actually signed, with Republican majority support and that of some boneheads like Lincoln, a plan that would bring,. among others, a whopping increase in the estate tax, far more than any Democrats want. It was a trick, of course. Now they’re trying to spin it as tax increases, though they enacted them. Lincoln, at least, is ready to step back from that ruinous plan as far as the fat cats are concerned, now enjoying their lowest tax rates in decades and claiming an ever-increasing segment of the economic pie.
I sometimes think the Democrats should just sit back and say, “Let the Bush tax increases take effect as he wanted and as the Republicans voted. But we’d like to add this one little ol’ rider to ease the burden for middle class folks. Call the roll.”
Lincoln, meanwhile, is calling out Boozman for skipping today’s event so he can get ready for a fund-raiser by Sen. John Thune, he who would end Social Security as we know it, support a 30 percent sales tax (the real effect of the 23 percent “fair tax”) and more terrible stuff.