Hoyer: Middle-class tax cuts may be on chopping block

[unhappycamper]

Hoyer: Middle-class tax cuts may be on chopping block
By David Lightman | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Tuesday, June 22, 2010

WASHINGTON — House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer tiptoed into dangerous political territory Tuesday, suggesting that to cut the government's record budget deficits dramatically, popular middle-class tax reductions set to expire at year's end could be extended only temporarily.

Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, also suggested that future Social Security benefits may have to be trimmed to contain the national debt. Those calls from the House of Representatives' second-ranking Democrat, at a Washington budget conference, were seen as an important political step as well as a legislative trial balloon.

Congressional Democrats are being pulled in two different fiscal directions. Most Bush administration tax cuts expire at the end of this year, and extending them would be popular before November's congressional elections. Voters also are signaling, however, that they want to curb federal deficits and the national debt, both of which exploded over the past decade, especially since the recession of the past few years.

Democrats in Congress are divided over how to proceed, a mission that's complicated by an increasingly popular Republican drumbeat, as GOP candidates say that the looming deficits are hurting the economic recovery, government spending should be cut and expiring tax reductions extended.

Hoyer expressed a willingness to get tough with the budget and a desire to work with Republicans.



unhappycamper comment: Hey Steny! You're supposed to be a fucking Democrat, not a bushbot.

[Vinca]

1. They might as well line us poor and middle class (soon to be poor)

folks up along a pit and shoot us. Of course they can't - they need someone to mow the lawns and fry the burgers.

[doc03]

2. Cut SS! We paid into SS the politicians

spent the trust fund so they cut benefits.:wtf:

[doc03]

6. In effect they have been cutting SS every year for decades.

The formula they use to calculate COLA doesn't reflect the actual COL increase for retirees. Then
on top of that whenever they pay the COLA the premium for Medicare increases and takes most of it back.

[crazyjoe]

3. So glad we can trust democrats to do the things they say

they are going to do during elections.

[vi5]

4. So let me get this straight....

..not only are they not spending (which they should be doing on stimulus) because they've actually kicked the deficit football that the Lucy republicans have been holding for them.......now they're going to raise middle class taxes and cut SS?

I fully agree that people need to be hit with the choice of "Look you don't want us to cut spending, if you say you are serious about caring about the deficit then that means taxes need to come up." But that would be a strategic bluff calling and I don't get one bit of impression that's what this is. This is pure democratic gullibility.

It seriously is almost like they are living in bizzaro land.

[AndyA]

5. Leave the middle class alone, tax the hyper-wealthy.

They have profited financially more over the last decade than anyone else. People who earn multi-millions don't need social security, cut off their benefits completely. This would include most in Congress, as well.

It's ridiculous to think that someone who has earned millions or billions during their lifetime is also entitled to social security. Isn't social security designed to help people make ends meet in their old age? Why would a millionaire need that? Cut them off.

The middle class has been ravaged enough, tax the wealthy and cut their benefits. They don't need them, they can afford to pay for whatever they need. They should feel fortunate that they can make their own decisions and not live hand to mouth like so many do in their golden years.