Recently there’s been renewed debate about whether Republicans will stick by their insistence on holding the middle class tax cuts that are scheduled to expire at the end of the year hostage so that they can continue big tax cuts the wealthiest 2 percent of individuals. The President believes we must end the tax rates for the wealthiest Americans and make them permanent for every family bringing in less than $250,000 a year.
There’s a simple choice to make. We can either make investments in education, transportation, and new sources of energy – the types of investments that have always been essential to America’s businesses and to creating good middle class jobs. Or we can cut taxes even more for wealthy Americans who don’t need them and didn’t ask for them. We tried this in 2001 and 2003, and what we got was the slowest job growth in half a century, and the typical American family actually saw its income fall.
Unfortunately, Republicans in Congress this week continued to use tired, false claims about the President’s approach to distract from their insistence on holding the middle class tax cuts hostage so they can give the very wealthiest individuals a tax cut we can’t afford. Just like they continue to push the same failed policies that got us into this mess into the first place, Republicans in Congress continue to push old, proven-false claims that ending these tax cuts for the wealthiest will hurt our nation’s small businesses and hurt the economy. Just today Speaker Boehner said, “We believe it’s time to extend all of the current tax rates because it really will provide certainty for American job creators.” Well, we’ve heard this before, but let’s debunk these claims once again.
Let’s get at the facts:
Fonte: White House