Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna

Bucco, that's the second time in this thread that you've accused me of finding fault with only one party and favoring the other guys. In fact, in an earlier post in this thread, you accused me of saying something that supported the growth and re-energization of unions. How you somehow morphed unions into this discussion of tax policy is beyond me. Perhaps you were comiserating on Saul Alinsky and his favorite student Barack Obama again.

Yes, I have accused the Republicans of droning on and on about further reducing the taxes on the richest individuals and businesses because such action would hamper job growth. I'm critical because I believe it's baloney! If they want to argue that they don't want to increase taxes because the oft-agreed upon matching spending cuts never happen, then they should do so. Or if they wish to argue the details of a broad-based reform of tax policy including the elimination of benefits and loopholes placed in the IRS Code by special interests, they'd get a big hurrah from me.

The problem with their arguments and accusations of the Democrats is that they demonstrate that they're not only bad negotiators and drafters of legislation, but probably are in favor of maintaining the spending at current levels or even greater for personal political purposes, just like their bitter enemies, the Dems. Are you telling me that 535 people, a majority of whom are lawyers, can't draft legislation that documents the agreements they reach with their political opponents in the smoke-filled rooms of the Congress? If they can't do that, they're a whole lot more incompetent than I've given them credit for.

If the GOP wants to argue that they believe that the taxation of companies that actually increase the employment of Americans should be reduced, that's fine. But somewhere along the line, they need to explain how such proposals are either "revenue neutral" or actually begin to cut into the deficit. If the taxes are cut for one group of taxpayers, what spending cuts will occur or what other groups will have their taxes increased or loopholes eliminated? But do they ever say those things in a serious way? No. They never get beyond the "don't tax the job creators" soundbite, even though the aritmetic of our fiscal problem is compelling.

I know you're going to say that the Republicans put forth the Ryan budget proposal. The problem with that proposal is that politically it's DOA in the Congress because it attacks all the things dear to the Democrats and none important to the Republicans. Sooner or later, if there is to be bi-partisan support for any fiscal legislation, both parties will have to agree that their oxen will be gored, just like the other guy's.

If not in this thread, in many others, I've been critical of both parties and all their elected members in Congress as being ineffective and self-serving. I've said that I won't vote for any of them. I haven't taken sides except to discuss specific issues.

So just read what I write and try not to read hidden meanings into it. I say what I think and argue the points I think are important to the country, trying to keep the politics out of the discussion. I sure wish everyone would do the same.