From Special Report with Bret Baier | Tuesday, July 10, 2012
On Mitt Romney’s response to President Obama’s proposal to extend the Bush tax cuts only for those making less than $250,000:
I think Romney got himself a couple of gloves, boxing gloves. And he was out there punching. I think he used the word “liberal.” He went after Obama hard on this proposal — the usual argument, I think a correct argument, the usual Republican argument that it will hurt the economy and creation of jobs. Then you quote Obama in 2010 saying: the one thing you don’t do in a recession is raise taxes. I think he was out there rather aggressively.
On the president’s tax proposal:
I think what is so impressive about this is how small a game Obama is playing. Here is a guy who comes in 2008, hope and change, change the way Washington works. He passes a $1 trillion stimulus, the largest spending in American history. He does a healthcare bill that is one-sixth of the U.S. economy. He attempts cap and trade, which would control the energy industry. He does Dodd-Frank, which regulates finances. He wants to change America. What he is proposing here is the center of the economic plan for the next term? A partial extension of tax cuts for one year just on part of the American people.
But doesn’t Obama argue that the one-year extension will provide time to negotiate long-term tax reform?
The guy’s has had a term in office. If he wanted tax reform, he could have done it. He appointed a debt commission that in 2010 recommended exactly the kind of tax reform he now says he wants. What did he do? He walked away. He didn’t do a thing on it. It’s Republicans, Paul Ryan and others, proposing the tax reform.
So he [Obama] says: “Oh, yes, we will do the tax reform in the future.” That is the way he says: We’ll do spending now, cut back on spending in the future. He does spending now and never cuts back on spending. All these promises of what will happen in the future are not worth the paper they are written on.
This is a guy who is proposing a one year [tax cut] extension. If it’s so important to help the economy, as he says, why doesn’t he do a permanent extension? Because it’s an election year gimmick and nothing else.
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