{"id":241956,"date":"2010-01-28T12:30:21","date_gmt":"2010-01-28T17:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/?p=75041"},"modified":"2010-01-28T12:30:21","modified_gmt":"2010-01-28T17:30:21","slug":"gop-sponsors-of-spending-task-force-didn%e2%80%99t-know-it-allowed-for-tax-hikes-not-likely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/241956","title":{"rendered":"GOP Sponsors of Spending Task Force Didn\u2019t Know It Allowed for Tax Hikes? Not Likely"},"content":{"rendered":"

The official line coming from the six GOP senators<\/a> who sponsored, then voted against, the failed proposal<\/a> to create a deficit commission was that they didn’t realize it would allow the panel to suggest tax hikes as a step toward balancing the federal budget.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), for example, told<\/a> Politico that the senator withdrew his support “over concerns that the commission will be able to raise taxes.” The offices of Sens. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) said exactly the same thing.<\/p>\n

What’s fascinating about that argument is this: Sens. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) and Kent Conrad (RD-N.D), the heads of the Budget Committee, have been pushing their task force idea for years, and a central element of the proposal has always been that everything would be on the table — tax hikes, benefit cuts and everything in between.<\/span> Here’s their statement<\/a> from 2007, which indicates that the commission “will analyze all potential solutions.” And here’s a summary<\/a> of their more recent bill, which clearly states that “all options will be considered by the Task Force.” It’s a concept that practically defines the bill.<\/p>\n

So either (1) the six Republican flip-floppers are lying and voted against the commission solely under pressure from GOP leaders to deny the Obama White House a legislative victory, or (2) they threw their support behind a proposal they knew nothing about. Neither explanation says great things about their leadership skills — and both are indications of why Americans think<\/a> Washington is broken.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The official line coming from the six GOP senators who sponsored, then voted against, the failed proposal to create a deficit commission was that they didn’t realize it would allow the panel to suggest tax hikes as a step toward balancing the federal budget. A spokesman for Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), for example, told Politico […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4315,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4315"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241956\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}