Wallace ignored Cornyn's reconciliation votes, asked about "political repercussions" for Dems
Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace asked Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) about the "political repercussions" Democrats would face if they were to use reconciliation to pass health care reform. Wallace made no mention of any "political repercussions" Cornyn faced for embracing reconciliation in order to pass the Bush tax cuts and to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
FACT: Cornyn supported Republican use of reconciliation to pass Bush tax cuts, oil drilling in ANWR
Cornyn supported passage of 2003 tax cuts through reconciliation. In 2003, Cornyn voted for the Senate version of the fiscal 2004 budget resolution that called for additional tax cuts to be considered under reconciliation and for the final version of the 2004 budget resolution. He also voted against an amendment to the Senate version of the budget resolution, proposed by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), that would have stripped reconciliation instructions from the resolution. He subsequently voted for the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 itself. CBO estimated that the bill, as cleared by Congress, "would increase budget deficits ... by $349.7 billion over the 2003-2013 period."
Cornyn supported passage of 2005 tax cuts through reconciliation. In 2005, Cornyn voted for the final version of the fiscal 2005 budget resolution, which also called for tax cuts through reconciliation. He subsequently voted for the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 itself. CBO estimated that the bill, as cleared by Congress and signed by the president, would "reduce federal revenues ... by $69.1 billion over the 2006-2015 period."
Cornyn supported use of reconciliation to pass measure that would have allowed oil drilling in ANWR. Cornyn was one of 51 senators who voted against striking language allowing the reconciliation process to be used to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from the 2006 budget resolution and voted for a reconciliation bill that, as originally introduced in and passed by the Senate, included a provision to open up the refuge to drilling. (The bill as enacted did not contain such a provision.)
Cornyn, like most conservatives consistently ignore real science and believe in fairy tales. One of the reasons we're having the Great Recession is because conservatives spent money like there was no tomorrow and failed to rise revenue to pay for their spending. All the while letting Wall St use other people's money to gamble.
The oil in ANWR? Maybe enough to supply the state of California with gas for one year. Want better government that cares about the common good? Get rid of the Cornyns.
Before the Bush Recession
Supply Side Tax Cuts Failed to Deliver Jobs and Growth Between 2001 and 2007
In his final days in office, President George W. Bush told the American Enterprise Institute:
[T]he benefits of the tax cuts have been obscured by the recent economic crisis, no question about it. But when they finally take a look back at whether or not tax cuts were effective or not, it’s hard to argue against 52 uninterrupted months of job growth as a result of tax policy. And so my hope is, is that after this crisis passes—and it will—that people continue to write about and articulate a public policy of low taxes.
This and other efforts of the “Bush Legacy Project” to rehabilitate the last administration’s job creation image and defend its tax cuts ignore the stark reality that the Bush administration’s tax policies fostered the weakest jobs and income growth in more than six decades, and ignored alarming labor market trends in minority communities. This record of anemic job creation was accompanied by sluggish business investment and weak gross domestic product growth that characterized the period after the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 went into effect.
Yet conservatives continue to argue for another round of permanent tax cuts similar to those of the Bush administration. Even if all of the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire as scheduled, the projected cost of the Bush tax cuts to the federal budget over the next ten years is $3.9 trillion, an average of 1.4 percent of the country’s total economic activity (GDP) per year. Those asking for more permanent tax cuts continue to justify the cost, claiming tax cuts create jobs.
But their analysis ignores what actually happened during the economic cycle that began in March 2001 and ended in December of 2007—which almost exactly coincides with the Bush presidency and the implementation of the Bush tax cuts. This period registered the weakest jobs and income growth in the post-war period. Overall monthly job growth was the worst of any cycle since at least February 1945, and household income growth was negative for the first cycle since tracking began in 1967. Women reversed employment gains of previous cycles. And for African Americans, the worst job growth on record was matched by an unprecedented increase in poverty.
Given this incredibly weak record, it is astounding that some conservative members of Congress held up—and eventually voted against—the Obama administration’s economic stimulus and recovery package because it did not contain additional permanent tax cuts. The anemic Bush economic cycle directly contradicts the idea that those tax cuts delivered broad-based economic growth and job creation—never mind the promise of long-term economic growth so quickly squelched by the onset of the recession beginning in December 2007.
