Obama and the Democrats' preposterous argument is that we are just one more big tax increase away from solving our economic problems. The inescapable conclusion, however, is that the primary driver of the short-term deficit is not tax cuts but the lack of any meaningful economic growth over the last half decade.
Democrats in Washington predicted that tax cuts would not create jobs, would not increase wages, and would cause the federal deficit to explode. Well, the facts are in. The tax cuts have led to a strong economy. Real wages were on the rise, and deficit has been cut in half three years ahead of schedule.
The data does not support that high-income tax cuts are the main drivers of growth, so I don't think that uncertainty over what the tax rate will be for someone that makes a million dollars a year has that big an impact on the economic growth rate in the country.
We have to have structural entitlement reform, major spending cuts and not tax increase-retardants on economic growth to reverse our current course toward national bankruptcy, but Obama steadfastly remains on the wrong side of all these solutions.
It was absolutely critical to renew the Bush tax cuts. Letting them expire would result in a massive tax increase that would retard economic growth.
We need to have the growth. If we simply look at this as being deficit-neutral, you're never going to get the type of tax reform and tax reductions that you need to get to sustain 3 percent economic growth. We really do believe that the tax code is what's holding back the American economy.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Reagan tax cuts turned the deepest recession since the Great Depression into the largest 20-year economic boom in American history. The Reagan tax cuts of 1981 and '86. And the same thing can happen here again. Democrats just cannot let it.
Every tax cut I call for is targeted, it's responsible and it is paid for within my balanced budget plan. My tax cuts will not undermine our economy. They will speed economic growth.
Liberal Democrats are inexorably opposed to tax cuts, because tax cuts give people more power, and take away from the role of government.
Conservatives in Government must make the case that lowering the tax burden boosts economic growth and leads to an increase in tax revenues.
Growth works. What we're doing in the administration to spur growth in terms of regulatory form work. And what we're working is to make sure that those tax cuts add to that. We do believe that sustained 3 percent economic growth is possible and that that is the way you can balance the budget long-term.
Well, I think the reality is that as you study - when President Kennedy cut marginal tax rates, when Ronald Reagan cut marginal tax rates, when President Bush imposed those tax cuts, they actually generated economic growth. They expanded the economy. They expand tax revenues.
Budget deficits are not caused by wild-eyed spenders, but by slow economic growth and periodic recessions. And any new recession would break all deficit records. In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low, and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.
We can have tax cuts, but when we have tax cuts and do not have a surplus, the amount of the tax cut goes straight to the bottom line, adds to the deficit, and the deficit adds to the national debt, and sooner or later, the debt has to be paid.
What Democrats haven't focused on are the kind of policies that would promote economic growth - such as making permanent the 2001/2003 tax cuts, opening up federal lands to more energy production, and reforming government to reduce its burden on business.
Well, certainly the Democrats have been arguing to raise the capital gains tax on all Americans. Obama says he wants to do that. That would slow down economic growth. It's not necessarily helpful to the economy. Every time we've cut the capital gains tax, the economy has grown. Whenever we raise the capital gains tax, it's been damaged.
Let's take the nine states that have no income tax and compare them with the nine states with the highest income tax rates in the nation. If you look at the economic metrics over the last decade for both groups, the zero-income-tax-rate states outperform the highest-income-tax-rate states by a fairly sizable amount.