Top advisor to Democrats recommends raising taxes

WASHINGTON – Democrats rested on Wednesday following their victory to take over both houses of Congress. But sure enough by Thursday the calls for tax increases were put on the table by the Democrats’ top economic advisor, Robert Rubin. Rubin served as Treasury Secretary in the Clinton Administration and as an advisor to failed presidential candidate John Kerry.

The decision to wait until after the elections to mention tax increases should come as a surprise to no one since Rubin suggested this exact tactic during the Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. Rubin said:

"I don \’t think you can make proposals to try to dig out of this hole until you \’ve gotten elected and until you \’ve organized effectively across both parties and both houses. If you start to put out proposals now, they would be vigorously attacked, and they would in effect become tainted so they couldn \’t be used." Source: Rich Miller, "Robert Rubin: Embrace Kerry," Business Week Online, 8/2/04

“Liberals are doing exactly what Rubin suggested in 2004 and what conservatives tried to emphasize throughout the entire course of the 2006 election cycle,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “Clearly, Rubin views his position on taxes as unacceptable to the American people or he wouldn’t have advocated keeping their plans a secret until after being elected.”

Americans are now in jeopardy of experiencing a $2,000 tax increase if some or all of the President’s tax cuts are not made permanent. All the tax cuts are set to expire by the end of 2010. Furthermore, the new Congressional leadership is advocating tax increases wrapped under different guises such as the “Tax Gap” and “Tax Reform.” Despite their poll-tested rhetoric, the fact is these proposals are designed to extract higher levels of tax payments from the American public.

“Democrats dressed up like Republicans on the tax issue during the campaign and emphasized they would not raise taxes. Somehow the new leadership believes they have a mandate to raise taxes on working American families," continued Norquist. “Despite repeated rhetoric by Pelosi and Rangel in the final weeks of the campaign claiming they will not raise taxes, it is becoming clearer each and every single day that tax increases will be on the table.”