Republicans still refusing to countenance modestly higher tax rates for the wealthiest Americans are facing a moral dilemma. If tax cuts for the gilded-class do not in fact drive economic growth and job creation, then the GOP has been draining the United States Treasury for the sole purpose of needlessly padding the bank accounts of the rich. Unfortunately for the ideologues of the right, recent analyses from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and Congressional Research Service as well as the robust U.S. economic expansion following the 1993 Clinton tax hikes have laid waste to the Republican "job creators" myth. Which means conservatives can either come clean, or come up with a different rationale for their budget-busting, upper-income tax cuts.
Florida Senator and 2016 White House hopeful Marco Rubio has opted for the later approach. Joining a long list of conservative con men, Rubio argued that raising tax rates on the rich is pointless because they will get around paying them anyway.
Rubio made that point last week during his first visit to Iowa. There, he suggest that Americans shouldn't expect more tax revenue from the likes of Mitt Romney:
"The billionaires and millionaires that are going to be impacted by higher rates, they can afford to hire the best lawyers, lobbyists and accountants in America to figure out how not to pay those higher rates. Rubio told National Journal's Major Garrett at The Atlantic Washington Ideas Forum. "The people that are going to get stuck by that bill are the small businesses, the partnerships, the S corporations, that cannot hire the lawyers to get them out of it."If Rubio's pitch sounds familiar, it should. After all, during his 2004 reelection campaign President George W. Bush said much the same thing in response to John Kerry's proposal to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the top two percent of earners.
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