Democrats in Congress have openly threatened to take the country off the fiscal cliff by raising taxes across the board, allowing all of the Bush tax cuts to expire unless Republicans consent to tax increases.
But House Republicans are calling Democrats’ bluff.
Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), who is chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee and sits on the Ways and Means and Budget committees, proclaimed in an op-ed in The Hill on Tuesday that House Republicans would not waiver and hold firm in not raising taxes.
“Senate Democrats can propose all the tax increases they wish,” Price wrote. “The U.S. House of Representatives will not pass a single one of them. House Republicans are acutely aware that we are the only thing standing between a tax hike and the American people, and we will not waver.”
Price mentioned that Americans did not have to face this fiscal cliff because Republicans, since taking control of the House in January 2011, “have governed responsibly to avert this crisis” by passing budgets that would reform the tax code, while Senate Democrats have not passed a budget in more than 1,100 days.
“Senate Democrats profess they are acting as good stewards of America’s financial future,” Price wrote. “Frankly, it’s hard to take this seriously when the Democrat majority has refused to pass any sort of tax reform, much less an annual budget in more than 1,100 days.”
Price then tore down claims made by Democrats that tax increases would “have a negligible impact on America’s job creators and would put our nation back on a path to financial solvency.”
“Both claims are patently false,” Price wrote. “Nearly a million successful small businesses and more than 50 percent of small-business income would be subject to the Democrats’ tax increase, and it would have a negligible impact on our national debt or eliminating budgetary deficits.”
Price then accused Democrats of either playing politics with or being addicted to tax increases.
“They are either playing election-year politics at the risk of our nation’s financial future or they are so obsessed with raising taxes on job creators that they are willing to ignore the impact it will have on real lives,” Price wrote.
Last week, Price explained in more detail on CNBC how tax increases hurt job creators and small businesses:
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