Now, I think this plan is better than Governor Romney's plan. First, the Romney plan failed the first test of fiscal responsibility: The numbers just don't add up.
I mean, consider this. What would you do if you had this problem? Somebody says, oh, we’ve got a big debt problem. We’ve got to reduce the debt. So what’s the first thing you say we’re going to do? Well, to reduce the debt, we’re going to have another $5 trillion in tax cuts heavily weighted to upper-income people. So we’ll make the debt hole bigger before we start to get out of it.
Now, when you say, what are you going to do about this $5 trillion you just added on? They say, 'oh, we’ll make it up by eliminating loopholes in the tax code.' So then you ask "well, which loopholes and how much?" You know what they say? 'See me about that after the election.' I’m not making it up. That’s their position. See me about that after the election.
Now, People ask me all the time how we got four surplus budgets in a row. What new ideas did we bring to Washington? I always give a one-word answer: arithmetic. If — arithmetic! If they stay with a $5 trillion tax cut plan — in a debt reduction plan? — the arithmetic tells us no matter what they say, one of three things is about to happen:
1) assuming they try to do what they say they’ll do, get rid of — pay — cover it by deductions, cutting those deductions, one, they'll have to eliminate so many deductions like the ones for home mortgages and charitable giving that middle class families will see their tax bill go up an average of $2,000 while anybody who makes $3 million or more will see their tax bill go down $250,000;
Or 2) they'll have to cut so much spending that they'll obliterate the budget for the national parks, for ensuring clean air, clean water, safe food, safe air travel; they'll cut way back on Pell Grants, college loans, early childhood education, child nutrition programs, all the programs that help to empower middle class families and help poor kids. Oh, they’ll cut back on investments in roads and bridges and science and technology and biomedical research. That’s what they’ll do. They’ll hurt the middle class and the poor and put the future on hold to give tax cuts to upper-income people who’ve been getting it all along.
Or 3) in spite of all the rhetoric, they'll just do what they've been doing for more than thirty plus years now- They’ll go in and cut taxes way more than they cut spending, especially with that big defense increase, and they’ll just explode the debt and weaken the economy. And they’ll destroy the federal government’s ability to help you by letting interest gobble up all your tax payments. Don’t you ever forget when you hear them talking about this that Republican economic policies quadrupled the national debt in the 12 years before I took office, and doubled the debt in the eight years after I left, because it defied arithmetic. It was a highly inconvenient thing for them in our debates that I was just a country boy from Arkansas, and I came from a place where people still thought two and two was four. It’s arithmetic. We simply can't afford to give the reins of government to someone who will double-down on trickle-down.
Really. Think about this: President Obama's plan cuts the debt, honors our values, brightens the future of our children, our families and our nation. It’s a heck of a lot better. It passes the arithmetic test, and far more important, it passes the values test.
= new reply since forum marked as read
