House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) submits his weekly view from Capitol Hill. In his words:
"On Wednesday, President Obama gave a much-anticipated speech to the nation on deficit reduction. In an attempt to provide an alternative to Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s widely acclaimed budget, the
President attempted to repackage his first budget as a successful sequel. It flopped. The President once again called to raise taxes on hard-working Americans by trillions of dollars. With tax day approaching, I know many of you are contemplating your tax burden. This year, the average American will work 102 days out of the year just to pay taxes before you start taking money home. Now President Obama wants you to pay more.
"Washington does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. Over the past two years, President Obama and the Democrat majority added more than $3.5 trillion to the national debt. Our national debt now stands at over $14 trillion; the Treasury Department just reported that the U.S. deficit increased 15.7 percent in the first half of this fiscal year; and our critical health and retirement security programs are going broke. This cannot continue. Instead of working with House Republicans to tighten Washington’s belt just like every family and business has been forced to do, the President is asking us to give up more of our hard-earned paycheck.
"As a former small business owner, I know firsthand that the higher the taxes, the less money there is to hire more employees and invest in our economy. The best way to grow our economy is to let people keep
more of their money. Higher taxes serve only to discourage entrepreneurship, innovation and investment. That is why my colleagues and I this week passed a responsible, fact-based budget, The Path to Prosperity. Our budget, introduced by Chairman Ryan last week, would lower the tax burden to encourage entrepreneurship and create new jobs. In fact, the House Budget Committee projects that the Path to Prosperity would create one million private sector jobs over the next year, increase economic output and average family income, as well as decrease the unemployment rate to 4 percent by 2015.
"The Path to Prosperity puts the budget on the path to balance and pays off the debt. In fact, our budget cuts $6.2 trillion in government spending and reduces deficits by $4.4 trillion over the next decade
compared to the President’s budget. Getting our nation’s fiscal house in order means less of a threat of new taxes on your family and businesses now and in the future.
"Also this week, we funded government through the end of the fiscal year, cutting nearly $40 billion this year and $315 billion over the next decade, but that’s just the beginning. With The Path to Prosperity, we’re taking the conversation from billions of dollars in spending cuts to trillions, and tackling the big issues that will
fundamentally move our nation toward a balanced budget.
3 comments:
"This year, the average American will work 102 days out of the year just to pay taxes before you start taking money home. Now President Obama wants you to pay more."
Assuming 260 working days a year (52*5) that means the effective tax rate on the "average" American is 39.2% (102/260), above the top marginal rate of 39% paid by only the highest earners. Mr. McCarthy, your math makes zero sense.
He didn't say we'd work 102 out of 260 working days. He said we'd work 102 days of the year, which, as you know, is usually 365 days. (102/365) = 28%.
For some reason I suspect the uber-rich, who Obama seeks a little more from, really don't work that hard when compared with the middle-class - a class McCarthy obviously abhors.
Post a Comment