What? Huh?

The GOP has a new Flash Animation out. Halloween themed, don't you know. One frame that caught our eye was this:



We were intrigued by the citation of Meet The Press for October 6, 2002. So we took a look at the transcript (by the way, an excellent resource for finding old Meet The Press transcripts - and others - is here). Tom Daschle was the guest. Here is the exchange on taxes:

MR. RUSSERT: You mentioned the economy. This is what you said just about two weeks ago about it, and the tax cuts: “The tragic set of financial and economic circumstances we are witnessing today, is directly connected to the tragic decline in our fiscal circumstance. ... President Bush’s solution appears to be pretty clear. ...They have one all-purpose, economic antidote to everything, and that is tax cuts—tax cuts largely dedicated to those at the very top.” Having said that, it now appears on the verge of a war with Iraq, would you be in favor of postponing the Bush tax cut, the implementation in order to have money to pay for the war and also reduce the deficit?

SEN. DASCHLE: Tim, I have said from the very beginning that what we ought to do is to not dig the hole any deeper. The president has proposed that we make permanent all of the tax cuts, that we make permanent all of the specific, very expensive and costly and I think imbalanced approaches to tax policy. And what we have said is we won’t do that. We’ll have that vote, and I think we ought to stop that from occurring and we ought to have a vote on it right now.

MR. RUSSERT: But what about the existing tax cuts that are in place? Why not...

SEN. DASCHLE: Well, let’s take first things first.

MR. RUSSERT: If you feel so seriously about it, Senator, why not postpone the tax cut, freeze it and not let it take place?

SEN. DASCHLE: Well, because the president has said he’d veto something like that. There’s no way that that will become law. It would be a futile effort in part because the administration is so opposed to it. So that isn’t going to get us anywhere. What I think we can do, though, in spite of the administration opposition is keep this from becoming permanent so we don’t lose another $400 billion in the first 10 years and $4 1/2 trillion in the second 10 years. We can avoid that from happening. We can put some semblance of fiscal responsibility back into the budget by taking at least that minimal step.

Got that? Not making the tax cut permanent is now considered to be raising taxes. Earlier, the GOP was saying that freezing the tax cut was a raise, but now they've gone further with that "logic." Now, even if the Senate/Democrats do nothing, it's considered raising taxes.

And another thing. It's "Taxes Raised" (past tense), even though the time frame is eight years in the future.

Amazing.

posted by Quiddity at 10/29/2002 10:13:00 PM