Republicans Don’t Believe Taxes Are Lower Under Obama
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on June 3rd, 2011 4:39 am by HL
Republicans Don’t Believe Taxes Are Lower Under Obama
When House Republicans met with President Obama earlier this week to discuss the debt ceiling, The Hill reports GOP members engaged in a lot of “eye-rolling” over his assertion that tax rates are lower today than they’ve been in decades.
Rep. Terry Lee (R-NE): “He made a comment like the tax rate is the lightest, even more than Reagan.”
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA): “We learned we had the lowest tax rates in history … lower than Reagan!”
Of course, as Jed Lewison points out, total federal tax revenues as a percentage of GDP averaged 18.2% during Reagan’s presidency, reaching a low point of 17.3% in 1984. During Obama’s term, total federal tax revenue as a percentage of GDP have averaged 14.9%.
Unemployment and Re-Election
Nate Silver: “Make no mistake: The higher the unemployment rate in November 2012, the less likely President Obama is to win a second term. But we should be careful about asserting that there is any particular threshold at which Mr. Obama would go from favorite to underdog, or any magic number at which his re-election would either become impossible or a fait accompli. Historically, the relationship between the unemployment rate and a president’s performance at the next election is complicated and tenuous.”
“But we should be careful about asserting that there is any particular threshold at which Mr. Obama would go from favorite to underdog, or any magic number at which his re-election would either become impossible or a fait accompli. Historically, the relationship between the unemployment rate and a president’s performance at the next election is complicated and tenuous.”
New Hampshire Debate Set
CNN reports the field is set for the June 13 debate in New Hampshire.
Attending: Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty and Rick Santorum.
Not attending: Rudy Giuliani, Jon Huntsman, and Sarah Palin.
