Washington, DC - U.S. Congressman Mike Pence, Chairman of the House Republican Conference, discussed the value added tax, the dangerous path of European bailouts and Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court On The Record with Greta Van Susteren:
VAT Tax
Greta: I understand the GOP leadership here on the House side is writing a letter to the president's Debt Commission. Why are you doing this? What do you want?
Rep. Pence: We really want to put down a marker that the answer during the worst economy in 25 years is not to raise taxes on working families, small businesses, and family farms, and it's especially not the right answer to pass a European-style value added tax as has been rumored by people in and around the administration. And House Republican leaders are, along with the majority of our colleagues, are going to urge the Debt Commission to take VAT off the table.
Greta: Has the president ever specifically said it is on the table or off the table?
Rep. Pence: He hasn't specifically said either one. We've heard very influential economic voices in and around the administration talking about the fact that everything is on the table.
Greta: I think Paul Volcker said something...
Rep. Pence: Well, Paul Volcker specifically referred to a value added tax, and we really believe that with the disappointing numbers last Friday, that despite some additional job growth in the economy, we saw unemployment rise from 9.7% to 9.9%, that this is the time when the administration and specifically this Debt Commission ought to make it clear to the American people and clear to the wider world that the VAT has no place in America's budgetary future.
Greece
Greta : It's abundantly clear, I mean, it's no secret that we have huge economic problems and we need cash, the government needs cash. Now the value added tax, I understand, was at least part of what's going on in Greece. Greece attempted a value added tax, has had a value added tax in an effort to solve their economic problems, and it's been at least, catastrophic. Are they pulling back on it in Europe?
Rep. Pence: Well, we'll see. The approach that this administration and the European Union is taking is the same flawed approach we took to our Wall Street crisis a year and a half ago. It's more borrowing, more spending, more bailouts. But when you look at the role of the VAT, during the years that Greece saw an extraordinary explosion in their domestic spending and their debt to the size of their economy, they had a 19% value added tax in place. Most of the countries in Europe that are facing a fiscal budgetary crisis today have a value added tax at the center, and it's easy to understand why it becomes a problem. The value added tax is in a very real sense a hidden tax. It taxes along the way the transaction of goods even in the midst of the manufacturing process. So, many countries can start with a fairly low value added tax and then raise it without much public scrutiny, and then it tends to just feed the beast of more government and more spending.&nbs! p; We really believe a value added tax in Europe was a major contributing factor to the fiscal crisis in Greece and Spain and other countries, and we simply need to take it off the table here in the United States.
Greta: I suppose that some would be more inclined to look at it with favor if any of the economies that have value added tax were thriving, although of course we don't have the value added tax and we're having problems, but let me go to Greece specifically. The European Union is bailing out Greece, and the IMF. Do we have to pick up any of that freight, American taxpayers?
Rep. Pence: We really do. The American people deserve to know that the deal that was cut to bail out Greece includes between 6 and 8 billion dollars in American taxpayer-loaned guarantees, and the massive new bailout, the $1 trillion bailout that's being discussed across the Euro zone would include more than $50 billion in U.S. taxpayer money and loan guarantees. Look, we're not looking to the European Union to bail out New Jersey or California. The European Union should not be looking to the taxpayers of the United States of America to provide the loan guarantees that bail out Greece or Portugal or Spain or any other country.
Supreme Court
Greta: Alright, another flip topic. You have been critical of the president's nominees for the United States Supreme Court, comparing her to Harriet Miers. Why?
Rep. Pence: As I look at the president's nominee to the Supreme Court, I don't see very much difference between this nominee and Harriet Miers.
Greta: No one ever gave Harriet Miers a chance. She never got a hearing. I mean, that was part of the problem.
Rep. Pence: Greta, the criticism on Harriet Miers, for good or for ill, a criticism that was sustained by the American public, was that she was a political lawyer for the administration. She had no judicial background whatsoever.
Greta: But in fairness to her, I always thought it was unfair she never got a shot even to be heard. I don't know if that's a fair criticism or not, but no one even bothered to give her a hearing so she could be heard.
Rep. Pence: Look, we're talking - like I'm telling Greta Van Susteren anything about the Supreme Court - we're talking about lifetime appointments. The American people, we believe, and I think the Harriet Miers nomination proved, the American people expect that there will be nominees presented by administrations and by presidents who have a record or at least who have a career of experience where we can determine their judicial philosophy, determine their judicial temperament, and quite frankly, the president's nominee has all of the qualifications of Harriet Miers, and I think and hope and trust that it will have the same reception that she got.
Source: GOP.gov
Raw Story 
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment