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Heinrich wants compromise, not capitulation
U.S. Rep. Martin Heinrich
U.S. Rep. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., says President Barack Obama’s recent tax compromise with Republicans is concerning because it was “too one-sided” – and he’s hoping it doesn’t indicate a new trend for the president.
“I have to see where things go from here,” Heinrich said last week in an interview. “Compromise is not a dirty word. That is obviously part of what you have to do to move forward – but you have to stand up for your principles too.”
Heinrich said he doesn’t believe the tax compromise will provide enough stimulus to justify the debt it will create. He said before the vote that the bill would force the United States “ to borrow another $900 billion, most of it from China, that will be redistributed to America’s wealthy. We simply can’t afford that.”
The congressman said in the interview with NMPolitics.net there “are places still on the Hill where good, bipartisan work gets done.” He cited the House Armed Services Committee, of which he is a member, as an example. Earlier this week, the House overwhelmingly passed the Defense Authorization Act following bipartisan negotiations. The bill included two pieces of legislation Heinrich proposed earlier this year.
Heinrich he said he hopes the New Mexico delegation, which will shift from five Democrats to four Democrats and Republican Steve Pearce in January, will work in a bipartisan manner.
Heinrich said he recently met with Pearce, and while it’s clear they won’t agree on many issues, he believes the two will find common ground and be able to work together on issues such as helping the national laboratories.
Finding balance
Heinrich said there’s a balance that must be struck between standing up for what you believe and compromising. He maintains that Obama’s compromise with Republicans on the tax bill failed to strike that balance.
After he was re-elected in November against the tide to the right, Heinrich wrote in a guest column on this site that Democrats who won re-election “did so by having the courage to stand by our legislative decisions – to run on, and not away from, our records.”
Heinrich said last week that he believes Americans want their elected leaders to stand up for their values, regardless of whether they view things from the left, right or center. I suggested that Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and former Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., were both re-elected many times because constituents believed they did just that.
He agreed, pointing out that they were very politically different senators who articulated the reasoning behind their decisions and were able to win re-election in the same state.
“I think I’d be wise to look at their leadership as a model in the future,” Heinrich said.
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qofdisks, you make some interesting points. I think the belief this tax bill is not stimulative, after the obvious failure of the Keynesian $1 trillion Obama/Pelosi/Reid attempt last year, is a key point. If the economy improves, the progressives will have to fight tooth and nail to deny the tax rates had anything to do with it, while trying to argue for the big government spending/Keynesian solutions. However, that will be a very tough sell to the public, and the concomitant loss of a key ideological point would very much hurt the progressive Democrats and their agenda. This is why the progressives like Marty, Jeff and Tom are fighting so strongly against President Obama’s tax bill. So, the progressives are hoping the economy continues to stagnate, thus proving only big government handouts and porkulous Keynesian spending works to improve economies. We will see what happens.
And the ubiquitous claim of fairness of the tax rates, the top 2% benefitting disproportionately, etc. is also interesting. There is no data or evidence of this. In fact, a 2008 OECD study says: “”Taxation is most progressively distributed in the United States, probably reflecting the greater role played there by refundable tax credits, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit. . . . Taxes tend to be least progressive in the Nordic countries (notably, Sweden), France and Switzerland.” The OECD study, entitled “Growing Unequal?”, also found that the ratio of taxes paid to income received by the top 10% was by far the highest in the U.S., at 1.35, compared to 1.1 for France, 1.07 for Germany, 1.01 for Japan and 1.0 for Sweden (i.e., the top decile’s share of Swedish taxes is the same as their share of income). So, I have to ask, if America has the most progressive tax system in the world, why is it we need to make it even more slanted to punish success? You are aware the “rich” pay a huge and disproportionately large part of federal income taxes today? In The Journal of Economic Perspectives (Winter 2007), Messrs. Piketty and Saez estimated that “the upper 1% of the income distribution earned 19.6% of total income before tax (in 2004), and paid 41% of the individual federal income tax.” No other major country is so dependent on so few taxpayers. And you would like to make this even more dependent on a few?
And, in a January 2008 New York Times article, Austan Goolsbee (now chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers) claimed that “average real salaries (subtracting inflation) for the top 1% of earners . . . have been growing rapidly regardless of what happened to tax rates.” This shows data from the ‘80s and ‘90s as well. So the “rich” are not benefitting solely due to tax rate reductions made under Bush, and those reductions are not causing the income inequality we see today. Therefore you can’t seriously believe raising the tax rates for the top 2% to disproportionately punish them is actually going to help the poor and middle class and remove income inequality from America. Spending is the issue, and that issue is one the progressives like Marty, Tom, and Jeff continue to ignore in order to appease their partisan base.
There are two reasons this deal is unjustly one-sided.
It is one sided because 75 percent of the cash charge to China will go to the upper 2 percent of the population. It will have no stimulative effect for the economy and the price is greater than the original stimulus package in the first place.
It is one sided because of the appalling short term benefit for a few Americans (the recently unemployed and the very rich) for the appalling long term debt and future destruction of our most successful social insurance program, Social Security.
I sure agree with the concern for the one-sided compromise, and especially the point that the tax cuts – and the extension of unemployment insurance which was in the package – were NOT PAID FOR. Rep Heinrich is right on this one.
Our country is going broke, and just for these reasons. The Health Care bill did nothing about cost control or paying for the costs. The Financial Controls (Dodd-Frank) Bill didn’t control Too Big to Fail or control of the derivatives market, among other things.
Lower taxes will cause the economy to expand and pay themselves? That was proven bogus under Reagan, and still doesn’t work.
We need to get serious about controlling the deficit – nationally and at the state and local levels. First, we need to figure out how to pay for what we have, then not add anything until it is paid for. Then start paying down the debt.
Short-term victories are not leading to longer-term solutions.
Marty says: “President Barack Obama’s recent tax compromise with Republicans is concerning because it was “too one-sided” – and he’s hoping it doesn’t indicate a new trend for the president.” I certainly hope it is a new trend for the President, and calling the tax rate extension bill “too one-sided” is just a completely partisan response. I suspect Marty wanted it all his way, and anything short of total left wing domination is too one-sided. He got used to that way the last 20+ months, but that’s over. I guess Marty never saw the White House economist’s briefing adding up all the Democrats got from the tax bill, it far overwhelmed what the Repubs got, please Marty. I can also see that the President’s “new trend” has won many very vital and signifcant bills, like the repeal of DADT, the compensation fund for the 9/11 heroes, and the START treaty ratification, all by very large, bipartisan majorities, not bare partisan ones like Marty wants. Wake up Marty, come Jan. 1 your comfortable world as Pelosi’s minion is coming to an end forever.