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Redstate
Taxes, Guns, and Chuck Schumer as
GOP Leader
By
Daniel Horowitz
April
10th, 2013
Until
recently, taxes and guns were the two issues that served as
the glue to bind together Republicans of all stripes.
They were the two issues that even
feckless
elected-Republicans could be counted on to hold the line and stand with
conservatives. But
over the past few
years, Obama and the Democrats have gotten Republicans to break their
impervious opposition to tax increases by supporting “increased
revenue” and
closing “loopholes.” Now
they are doing
the same thing with guns.
Democrats
know that they have lost the policy debate on these two
issues over the past two decades.
That’s
why they will never directly push for sweeping tax hikes on everyone
(at least
not in a way people will notice) or for complete confiscation of guns. Instead they are trying to
cut around the
edges in order to get Republicans on record as supporting some new
“revenue
increase” or a new gun law, in the hopes of reopening the door on those
two
issues for future concessions.
On
the tax front, they have gotten many prominent Republicans to
agree to the premise of closing “loopholes” for those who already pay
40% of
the income tax (even after those
so-called loopholes are factored in).
They also got them to sign onto the
Biden/McConnell tax increases. The
irony about these tax hikes is that in
order to win the messaging war with Republicans, they must target only
the very
rich. However, by
only targeting the
rich, the amount of revenue they raise is so insignificant that it
defeats the
original purpose of the tax hikes.
Or
does it?
In
fact, the real purpose of “closing loopholes” has nothing to do
with raising revenue. Democrats
couldn’t
care less about the budget. The
purpose
is to get Republicans on record as supporting some form of a tax
increase – as
infinitesimal as that tax increase might be...
Read
the rest of the article at Redstate
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