Texas Republicans say Obama playing class warfare with corporate jets

[w8liftinglady]

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/nation-world/nation/20110629-texas-republicans-say-obama-playing-class-warfare-with-corporate-jets.ece

WASHINGTON — Texas Republican leaders pushed back hard Wednesday after President Barack Obama scolded their side for defending tax breaks for corporate jets and highly profitable oil companies.

Obama, at his first news conference since March, argued that Republicans’ refusal to boost taxes even on “millionaires and billionaires” puts deficit talks in peril ahead of the Aug. 2 deadline to keep the federal government’s line of credit open.

The argument didn’t sway key Texas lawmakers.

“I’m not sure there’s one American who believes that if you increase taxes on their boss, that their boss is going to turn around and hire their unemployed brother-in-law,” said Dallas Rep. Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the House Republican Conference. “If President Obama’s stimulus, tax increases and class warfare rhetoric created jobs, we would be the most highly employed nation in the history of civilization.”

[w8liftinglady]

1. addendum- Henderson County- who Hensarling represents

Has a 50 % uninsured rate.His constituents work...at minimum wage jobs, taking care of those with summer homes at Cedar Creek Lake.We see an occassional jet there...It is class separation to rival Bombay.

[aquart]

2. Tell Mr. Hensarling I would just as soon shoot them down...

But the pilots work for a living and America needs people who actually work.

[Wilms]

3. One of HenSnarling's biggest donors is Cash America International.

Gotta love THAT name.

They do payday/pawn loans and the like. In other words, they profit off people financially distressed.

http://cashamerica.com

[DFW]

4. Hensarling missed something

If he were interested in the truth, his statement would have read more like:

“If President Obama’s stimulus and tax increases had not been/are not soon enacted, we would be the most highly unemployed nation in the history of the industrialized world.”

These same Republicans that were screaming to let General Motors go bankrupt and disappear, with the resulting 2 million
jobless (probably understated) are now crying that Obama is endangering employment.

Republicans like a firing squad clamoring for gun control.

[Angry Dragon]

5. The republicans are the ones that started the class warfare

[Liberal In Texas]

16. Yes. And the upper class is winning.

We didn't start the "class war" but anytime someone pushes against it they're accused of starting it. Typical repuke double-speak.

[quaker bill]

6. There have been no tax increases.

Only tax cuts, no increases, none.

However, I agree that raising taxes on corporate jets, capital gains, high incomes, and more would reasonably be an act of "class warfare". THe bit republicans get but will never admit is that the class war has been on for 30+ years now. They started it with "welfare moms in cadillacs" and other similar BS back in the 1980s. Reimposing some tax burden on extreme wealth would simply represent a battle in this war that my side of this equation won for a change.

To a republican, it is only "class war" when the middle and lower parts of the economic scale post any sort of win. If we are losing, its "natural law", and "freedom".

[ejpoeta]

7. well it's sure been proven that if you cut their taxes they aren't going to give

that unemployed brother in law a job, they are more likely to take their money they saved and shove it in a bank somewhere and say, gee, where can I save more money.... hey you over there.... you make too much money. you are getting a paycut. oh and you are going to work more hours because we had to let that other guy go. oh, quit whining. we could let you go and bring him back. he'd probably not be whining. get back to work. now let me see where i can make the most interest on that tax cut i just got. oh, and i think i need another tax cut.

[quaker bill]

11. You can make way more money and pay less taxes

much faster doing high frequency trading than you ever can make hiring anyone. The tax code is set to encourage trading (capital gains) over hiring (regular profits), money goes where it earns the most return for the least labor and risk. The results observed follow the incentives given.

If the system is revised so that the fastest way to get rich is building businesses and creating jobs, then the money will go there and jobs will be the result. It is really just that simple. Now if you go one step farther and tie executive wages to a maximum percent (say 50 percent) of total compensation (all wages and benefits) paid to employees (anything higher than this percent taxed at near 100 percent), then wages would grow so executives could pay themselves more. In short, one could set up a tax system that encouraged job creation and paying higher wages as the quickest and easiest path to wealth, and if you did you would get this result.

Back in the day, people like Ford, Firestone, Carnegie, and so many more built businesses because this was the only real path to wealth. Later they got into stock manipulation and politics, some became "robber barons", and along came 1929. We live in a new era of robber barons.

[WCGreen]

8. Well they all ready aren't hiring anyone so fuck 'em....

At least we will get the deficit down...

[ProfessionalLeftist]

9. SO much projection from Republicans

not to mention pretentious hypocrisy. Pfft.

[rhett o rick]

10. I think it is crazy when the rich play the "we dont want a class war" card right in the

middle of a huge CLASS WAR.

[fishwax]

15. indeed n/t

[TomClash]

12. Good

It's about time.

[buddysmellgood]

13. But there are plenty of people who believe jobless benefits would be paid.

[MadHound]

14. About damn time,

Considering the wealthy in this country have been having class warfare for decades now.

[JHB]

17. Actually, I DO believe that if you increase the taxes on the boss...

...he'll change the decisions he makes to keep his tax rate down.

Like reinvesting profits back into the company rather than extracting them for personal wealth. Funding R&D for their business, using "carrots" more often than 'sticks" with employees, simply adding more employees because it becomes less worth it to run the ones you have ragged, etc.

Within my lifetime businesses used these strategies... until Reagan and pals cut their taxes so that liquidation and speculation became more renumerative than innovation and long-term investment.

[Bake]

18. Hell yes, it's class warfare.

And it's way past time we started fighting.

Bake