McCarthy: Americans Want All Tax Cuts Renewed

By Kyle LaFleur

Incoming House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and other House Republicans rallied for a total extension of the Bush era tax cuts on Tuesday minutes before President Obama met with Democrat and GOP leaders at the White House.

“This election was about jobs and spending,” said McCarthy.

McCarthy went on to add that in the 754 months since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began recording unemployment statistics that only 50 of these months held umployment above eight percent, with 21 of these months falling under the current administration.  

“The difficulty we have is, this is the wrong time to raise taxes on small business,” said McCarthy. “This is the time to end uncertainty and this is the time to think anew and get this country working again.”  

With little over a month until the January 1st deadline for the cuts, the issue still remains up in the air. 

GOP Plans To Unveil New "Contract With America"

The Hill is reporting that the GOP, with prospects of regaining the majority in the House, is pulling a compilation of items from its “America Speaking Out” program to create an agenda before November’s elections.

Republicans plan to unveil a “Contract  with America” in Virginia Thursday as a response to Democratic criticism that the party is lacking an agenda.  

The new “contract” is said to include a two-year tax freeze and a reduction in spending to 2008 levels as hinted by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). Lawmakers on the right have also pushed for the repealing of healthcare reform, replacing it with a few reforms of their own and other GOP figures have also showed signs of repealing Wall Street reform as well. 

The GOP’s new “Contract with America” is said to be an attempt at reestablishing a 1994 “contract” that helped Republicans win the House and provided them with a base to hold the House majority until 2006. 

The unveiling of the new GOP agenda comes at crucial time and has led some Democrats to question why it took so long and argue that the timing is all too convenient.

A spokesman for Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee told The Hill that the GOP’s new agenda mirrors that which “caused the Great Bush Recession.”

“Washington Republicans are finally getting around to releasing an agenda for this Congress. What’s shocking is that it took them more than 20 months to repackage  a plan that is no different from the one that caused the Great Bush Recession,” he said. ” We have seen this movie before and the American people walked out on it, we don’t need a sequel.”