On Sunday, the two most powerful Republicans in Congress offered the party’s response to recent economic gains: only the rich are benefiting in President Barack Obama’s economy while middle income Americans are worse off.
In a joint appearance on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) were asked if they congratulate Obama for falling unemployment, dropping gas prices and a booming stock market.
Both sought to refashion the GOP as the party of mitigating income inequality.
“Look, things are getting better. But the point is, who is benefiting from this? This has been a top of the income recovery. The so-called 1 percent that the president is always talking about have done quite well,” McConnell said. “But middle and lower income Americans are about $3,000-a-year worse off than they were when he came into office.”
Boehner said income inequality — an issue that progressive advocates, Democratic lawmakers and Obama have increasingly highlighted recent years — is something Republicans want to tackle.
“And frankly, the president’s policies have made income inequality worse,” Boehner said. “All the regulations that are coming out of Washington make it more difficult for employers to hire more people. Chief amongst those, I would argue, is Obamacare.”
(A brief fact-check: research by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center indicates that Obamacare is reducing income inequality by imposing a slew of tax increases on upper earners to pay for billions of dollars in health insurance subsidies to low- and middle-income Americans.)
Boehner flatly ruled out Obama’s call for raising taxes on the wealthy, calling the idea “dead — real dead.” He also batted away a potential gas tax hike to fund an infrastructure bill.
The Speaker wouldn’t embrace or dismiss Obama’s plan to triple the child tax credit, saying that’s “something that can be looked at in the overall context of simplifying our tax code and bringing rates down for everyone.” That’s Washington-speak for tax reform, which is highly unlikely given the breadth of disagreements between Obama and the Republican-led Congress.
McConnell ruled out Obama’s proposal for two years of free community college as “something we can’t afford.”
He praised Obama’s call for new trade deals in the State of the Union speech.
…which means that the KochBoys can afford to buy politicians like Boehner and Turtle.
These two blaming Obama for income inequality is a textbook example of projection. They are the chief proponents of the failed trickle-down voodoo economics that got us to where we are today. They own it and that’s the way their base wants it. Until Americans demand a different business model, as it were, nothing is really going to change.
What a waste of time. Just put the Twilight Zone theme on a perpetual loop and let them talk over it.
Shameless.
God Damn these fools. To block the president at every step and then falsely blame the democrats
for things the republicans have done just infuriates me. WHAT THEY DON’T KNOW IS THAT WHEN
THEIR MISERABLE, MISBEGOTTEN LIVES ARE OVER, THERE WILL BE THOUSANDS OF
US WAITING TO TORTURE THEM THROUGHOUT ALL ETERNITY.