Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) appeared on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday and told him that there just wasn’t enough revenue coming in to avoid the “looming” sequester due to hit on March 1 and that any deal reached between Republicans and Democrats would involve tax hikes. Yes, you heard correctly more tax increases are surely on the way. Reid claims that “the American People” are on his side in this.
Stephenopoulos asked, “You talk to leading Republicans in the House like Paul Ryan, leading Republicans in the Senate like Tom Coburn, they say the sequester is going to hit. Are they right?”
“The American people need to understand that it’s not as if we’ve done nothing for the debt,” Reid said. “$2.6 trillion, $2.6 trillion already we’ve made in cuts. And all those cuts have come from non-defense programs. We need to keep our eye on the prize and continue doing something about spending, but I think that what we need to do is do some of the things that Mitt Romney talked about. He said there’s some low-hanging fruit; there are a lot of tax loopholes that should be closed. I agree with him. We haven’t done that.”
When Reid said that some of the things he referenced were oil subsidies and shipping jobs overseas, Stephanopoulos attempted to speak about “oil subsidies stating, “…if you do the oil and gas subsidy, I think that might save you something like $25 billion over 10 years.” In other words, George said it would “extend the sequester by a couple of months.”
While Reid wanted to argue that it was more than that, he didn’t provide any meaningful argumentation to bolster his claim. He tried to talk about jobs being shipped overseas, which he has had a hand in because of the ridiculously low economy under the Obama administration and the new taxes and implementation of Obamacare are only going to make things worse.
Stephanopoulos though pointed out that Republicans have said they are done with revenues for 2013.
“The American people are on our side,” Reid said. “The American people don’t believe in these austere things. We believe that the rich should contribute. We believe we should fill those tax loopholes — get rid of them, I should say. And that’s where we need to go,” Reid said. “And I’ve got a pretty good fan base for that: the American people. Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.”
Well I must be un-American and so much all the rich people in this country since they are opposed to exactly what Reid is talking about.
When Stephanopoulos said that was the entire issue of the debate and that the problem wouldn’t be solved in a month, therefore the sequester would happen, Reid shot back, “George, that’s what they said two days, three days a week away from the fiscal cliff, “No revenue.” Well, we got about $700 billion in revenue. There’s still more that we can do.”
So in order to lift the sequester, does that mean we’ll need some new sources of revenue, I mean taxes, Senator Reid? “Without — without any question,” he affirmed. “And there are some efforts being made to only get rid of the sequester as it relates to defense. I repeat: $2.6 trillion already, all coming from non-defense. If we’re going to have a sequester, defense is going to have to do their share.”
When he was asked in a clarifying question whether his “position on lifting the sequester, on avoiding a government shutdown, and on extending the debt limit beyond August is any one of those deals must include new revenues?” Reid said, “yes, the answer is definitely yes. And I’ve got a pretty good fan base for that: the American people, Republicans, Democrats and independents.”
Friends with people like this as elected representatives, who needs enemies?
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