The Other McCain

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Renee Ellmers vs. Tim Geithner

Posted on | June 24, 2011 | 9 Comments

Rep. Renee Ellmers of North Carolina was one of the Tea Party’s favorite candidates from last year’s mid-term campaign:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who has his own issues with paying taxes, explained to Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) why taxes must be raised on small businesses to keep the federal government from shrinking. So what if spending went up by about a trillion bucks a year since President Obama took office.

When Ellmers finally told Geithner that “the point is we need jobs,” he responded that the administration felt it had “no alternative” but to raise taxes on small businesses because otherwise “you have to shrink the overall size of government programs” — including federal education spending.
“We’re not doing it because we want to do it, we’re doing it because we see no alternative to a balanced approach to reduce our fiscal deficits,” said Geithner.

“Balanced approach” has become a talking point for Democrats, obviously having been focus-grouped as a politically acceptable synonym for higher taxes:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi isn’t impressed with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s decision to suddenly bail on the White House deficit talks this morning, citing his disagreement with Democrats’ positions.
“Yes, we do want to remove tax subsidies for big oil, we want to remove tax breaks for corporations that send jobs overseas, that list goes on,” she told reporters in the Capitol on Thursday. “I don’t know that’s a reason to walk away from the table when we’re trying to find a balanced approach.”

Notice that Pelosi isn’t engaged in a serious policy discussion, but is merely recycling DCCC campaign rhetoric about “tax breaks for corporations that send jobs overseas.” It didn’t work in 2010, but Democrats are going to keep repeating it — and reporters will keep quoting it – until people start believing it.

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Category: Budget, Renee Ellmers, Taxes, Timothy Geithner

Comments

  • DaveO

    What is not mentioned is the new spending that will come from these tax hikes and new taxes. First one must pay for the programs – then one pays for the bureaucracy to ensure said programs slide into mediocrity. Geithner is only discussing saving the bureaucracy.

    If you have a bureaucracy without any programs, what do you have? The job description of the USSR’s Politburo circa 1988.

    Me, I’m investing in tar and chickens.

  • http://2011.ak4mc.us/ McGehee

    Of all people, Tim Geithner has ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT to talk about taxes.

  • Anonymous

    Make mud bricks.

  • Anonymous

    I’m very disappointed in Rep. Ellmers not only for her votes on the CRs (she voted with McClellan down the line) but she makes the same mistakes as most of the republicans. When Geithner or any other administration figures states that radical spending cuts will hurt the economy they are never forced to explain why in any specific way. They need to be forced to admit that the same failed Keynesian theories that led to the bailouts and stimulus are what they are still relying on. The thorough discrediting of Keynes’s’ ideas is crucial to educating the public in advance of 2012.

  • DaveO

    They’re not called on to explain because they can’t. It’s like facing a charging rhino. Just shoot it. Don’t ask why. The rhino doesn’t know, and causal factors are a nuisance once it’s committed to the charge.

    Ellmers could just as easily taken charge of this by asking Geithner how the IRS is doing pursuing tax cheats, and how much money is being brought into the treasury in that manner. Ellmers is too nice.

  • Anonymous

    Most of them are too nice. The lack of killer instinct is truly disturbing.

  • http://pumping-irony.livejournal.com/ Wilbur Post

    Turbo Tax Timmy also said “We have a big hole to dig out of”, proving that he, like the rest of this misbegotten administration, is a moron.  Why don’t we simply put him in a deep hole and give him a shovel and let him try and dig himself out.  Tell him that if we ever see him again, we’ll agree to any other stupid advice he has to give. 

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