McCain endorses cutting middle class tax breaks by using unspent stimulus funds.
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 10th, 2010 4:38 am by HL
McCain endorses cutting middle class tax breaks by using unspent stimulus funds.
Despite spending the past year talking about the need to cut spending and reduce the deficit, Republican leaders have proven time and again that they have few real ideas about how to accomplish that. Instead, they turn to gimmicks, like eliminating the Affordable Care Act — the repeal of which would actually increase the deficit — and using unspent stimulus funds. When right-wing CNBC host Larry Kudlow asked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) Friday whether he would support using unspent stimulus funds as a “down payment” for a future budget, McCain said he “would absolutely advocate that” and perhaps make it a part of the GOP agenda:
KUDLOW: There’s a couple of hundred billion dollars of unspent stimulus money. Now, can that be stopped? Can that be canceled? Can that save the spending baseline? Would that be the down payment on longterm budget plan?
MCCAIN: I would absolutely advocate that. And maybe if they haven’t spent that all by January, that should be in our agenda as well.
Watch it:
The problem with McCain’s plan is that represents a tax hike for middle class Americans. Despite conservative attempts to smear it, the stimulus package actually cut taxes for 95 percent of working families, providing middle class Americans with valuable tax breaks and credits. There is still $55 billion in unspent stimulus funds dedicated to tax benefits. Meanwhile, other Republicans have gone a step further than McCain, calling for raiding the middle class tax benefits in the stimulus in order to pay for extending the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy.
Fresh off his George Rekers scandal, Florida Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum is telling Florida Baptist News that he wants to expand Florida’s discriminatory adoption laws to prohibit gay people from serving as foster parents:
MCCOLLUM: I don’t believe in gay adoption. I don’t believe in involving the government in enforcing or encouraging the lifestyle of gays and homosexuals. I just don’t believe that. […]
Q: Florida permits homosexuals to serve as foster parents. That has been used as an argument to undermine the ban on adoptions. Should homosexuals be permitted to serve as foster parents in Florida?
MCCOLLUM: Well, I personally don’t think so, but that is the law.
Q: Should the law be changed?
MCCOLLUM: I think that it would be advisable. I really do not think that we should have homosexuals guiding our children. I think that it’s a lifestyle that I don’t agree with. I realize a lot of people do. It’s my personal faith, religious faith, that I don’t believe that the people who do this should be raising our children. It’s not a natural thing. You need a mother and a father. You need a man and a woman. That’s what God intended.
The Wonk Room counters McCollum’s bigotry with actual facts. With its dubious distinction of being the only state to ban same-sex partners from adopting children, Florida has been noted as being one of the least gay-friendly states in the nation.