Quick fact: Hume says if Obama had included tax cuts in stimulus, GOP would have supported it — but he did and they didn’t
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on November 10th, 2009 5:46 am by HL
Brit Hume claimed that if President Obama included tax cuts with the stimulus bill’s “spending extravaganza,” it “would have attracted Republican votes.”
From the November 9 broadcast of Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier:
HUME: [O]n the main issues of this year — the economic stimulus package and the Obama health care plan — Republicans have stood in near unanimous opposition while Democrats have struggled to round up votes despite their large majorities in both houses.
The person most responsible for this is no Republican leader, but President Obama himself. His policies have made it easy for Republicans of all stripes to oppose him. Just think how different it would have been if the President had insisted on mixing in some tax rate cuts with that spending extravaganza in that stimulus bill. That would have attracted Republican votes, allowed the President to claim a bipartisan victory, and provided the Democrats some political cover, not to mention some potential economic benefits.
Fact: The $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included $288 billion in tax relief
As Media Matters for America has Making Work Pay tax credit, an annual credit of $400 per individual or $800 for families. In addition, the recovery act included a temporary increase in the earned income tax credit, a temporary increase in the refundable portion of the child tax credit, an increase in the first-time homebuyer tax credit, and tax incentives for businesses.
