April, 2007
Stop "Card Check"
>>Read More

April, 2007
House Democrats Pass Largest Tax Increase in U.S. History
>>Read More

November, 2006
2006 & 2004 Election Results
>>Read More

October, 2006
Job Growth in Dallas Continues to Outpace Nation.
>>Read More

September, 2006
Economic Growth Continues Apace Federal Tax Respits Surge; Budget Deficit Shrinks. Sessions Cites Tax Cuts As Cause.
>>Read More

April, 2007
house democrats pass largest tax increase in u.s. history
Despite their pre-election claims to the contrary, House Democrats have turned out to be exactly what they’ve always been: tax-and-spend liberals. On March 29, the Democrats confirmed taxpayers’ worst fears by passing a budget resolution that calls for almost $400 billion in higher taxes over the next five years. By including these “revenues” in the budget resolution, the Democrats have all but cemented the repeal of tax cuts passed by Congress from 2001 to 2003. The final vote was 216-210.

The Democrats’ 2008 Budget Resolution outlines a five-year budget plan that requires a “pay-as-you-go” treatment of projected spending. This means that Congress can only fund new projects within the boundaries of existing revenue. In order to facilitate their proposed new hikes in federal spending, House Democrats found $400 billion in “new” revenue by allowing the 2001-2003 tax cuts to expire. By prematurely adding this $400 billion to the revenue pot and budgeting expenditures based on this artificial figure, House Democrats have effectively handcuffed future Congresses from extending, much less making permanent, the reduced tax rates currently in place.

In the meantime, more and more tax-cut measures will expire with each passing year. Under the budget resolution, each tax-cut provision will revert back to its previous higher level. The repeal of tax cuts, resulting in a series of actual tax increases, starts out slowly but picks up towards the end -- culminating with devastating hikes in personal income tax rates in 2011.

The most alarming aspect of the Democrat-passed budget resolution is the lack of press coverage that was given to inform the public of the budget resolution’s implication. In the words of The Wall Street Journal, the Democrats passed the budget resolution under “the cover of zero media attention.”

In previous years, when Republicans passed budgets that called for tax cuts, the press extensively covered those resolutions, complete with “analysis” pieces which inaccurately and hysterically projected huge budget deficits, recessions and cutbacks on necessary government services to the poor and elderly, none of which materialized.

In fact, tax cuts passed by the Republican majorities in Congress from 2001 to 2003 led to a surge in federal tax receipts with the growing economy. Since 2003, the economy has created more than 7.8 million new jobs. Higher federal tax receipts have come with those new jobs, leading to a slow but steady decline of the federal deficit.

To show how the entire budget process is stacked against policies that are geared toward sustaining economic growth, consider just one example of a “revenue projection” made for one tax cut alone that was passed in 2003. When the tax rate on capital gains was lowered in 2003, the Joint Committee on Taxation forecasted the tax cut would “cost” the Federal Treasury $5.6 billion through fiscal year 2006. As it turned out, the Federal Treasury received an “unexpected” $133 billion of capital gains tax collections through 2006.

Capital gains tax collections in FY 05 and FY 06 effectively proved that policy makers who believe they can generate tax revenue to the federal government by raising the capital gains tax are simply mistaken. Policymakers who believe they can generate tax revenue to the federal government by raising the capital gains tax are simply mistaken. Likewise, those same policy makers today believe the repeal of tax cuts will increase federal revenues. They’re likely to be wrong again. As before, the forecasters will most likely be surprised when higher tax rates actually decrease total federal tax receipts from the sale of capital assets, due to investors wanting to avoid paying higher taxes.

Of course, the Democrats didn’t earn their reputation as tax-and-spend liberals just by raising taxes. Their reputation is also built on their predisposition to wildly increase spending on bloated federal programs, even if those programs don’t work. True to form: Democrats lived up to their reputation as spendthrifts in the budget resolution they just passed.

Unlike the Republicans who had frozen federal spending on discretionary programs since 2004, House Democrats are increasing that spending well above the current rate of inflation. If an economic slowdown were to occur due to the tax increases, a likely scenario, federal spending under the House Democrat budget plan will actually grow faster than the overall economy, a recipe for further economic stagnation.

As you would expect, Pete Sessions argued against the House Budget Resolution on the House floor and voted against it. The Republican budget alternative would have produced a balanced budget by 2012 without raising taxes, but it was turned down by the Democrat majority.