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Politico...
Debt ceiling debate
turns to yacht class
By Scott Wong
7/6/11
Democrats turned to a tried-and-true strategy this week in the fight
over the debt ceiling, casting Republicans as the guardians of yacht
owners, hedge fund managers and Big Oil.
And there are signs Republicans are feeling the heat.
After a week of speeches laced with populist rhetoric and shortly after
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced a vote on a resolution
written as a lose-lose for Republicans, House Majority Leader Eric
Cantor conceded that his party is open to talking about loopholes, a
shift from his previous hard line.
“Voters don’t have a favorable view of millionaires. This is something
the president and other Democrats are using to project a populist
tone,” said Tom Jensen, director for the Democratic Public Policy
Polling. “It’s something that cuts across the party lines, especially
in an economic climate like this.”
Republicans are calling the assault a class war, but Democrats say
they’re simply pointing out the difference in the two party’s take on
who should get perks in the tax code — with their party siding with the
middle class.
President Barack Obama has been the driving force, repeatedly laying
out the case that corporations and wealthy Americans should contribute
more as part of a debt ceiling agreement.
“The debt ceiling should not be something that is used as a gun against
the heads of the American people to extract tax breaks for corporate
jet owners, or oil and gas companies that are making billions of
dollars because the price of gasoline has gone up so high,” Obama said
during a Twitter town hall on Wednesday.
In the Senate, Reid has even set up a vote — a rarity in the chamber
these days — calling on millionaires to pay more taxes, a maneuver that
will let Democrats tell voters to look whose side Republicans are on,
when the GOP sticks to its guns against raising taxes and votes no.
“We should all be able to agree that millionaires, billionaires, oil
companies and the owners of yachts and jets don’t need special tax
breaks the rest of Americans don’t get,” Reid said on the floor
Wednesday. “Yet Republicans have defended those tax breaks again and
again. These breaks are available for multimillion-dollar toys only a
handful of Americans can afford.”
New York’s Chuck Schumer, Senate Democrat’s top messaging man, followed
suit: “What it comes down to is this: Would Republicans rather end
Medicare than end tax breaks for billionaires? It’s a simple choice.”
And Sen. Frank Lautenberg, one of six Democrats who spoke at a news
conference Wednesday, minced no words: “Pay up. Don’t let the fat cats
sit there purring nicely while they watch events unfold. … The
Republicans think that millionaires need protection. We don’t think so.
Our country needs protection.”
Republicans, who launched their own favorite kind of war — a culture
war that threatened to defund NPR and Planned Parenthood — during the
budget debate this spring, are now crying foul.
“It’s the usual class warfare the Democrats always wage,” longtime Utah
Sen. Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, told
POLITICO on Wednesday.
Read the rest of the story at Politico
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