Bipartisan hypocrisy

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Hypocrisy Proves Bipartisan in Payroll Tax Debate: Caroline Baum
By Caroline Baum Dec 15, 2011 4:00 PM PT

[snipped]

Hypocritical Oath

Republicans are reluctant to admit that the payroll tax cut is the wrong kind of cut. They favor reductions in marginal and capital gains tax rates to encourage work, saving and investment. In their world, tax cuts are an incentive to increase the supply of labor -- one’s willingness to work -- not the demand for goods and services.

In order to deflect attention from their philosophical aversion to tax cuts that merely “put money in the pocket of people who will spend it,” as Obama is wont to say, Republicans are touting the Keystone pipeline as a “job creator” in an attempt to make the president look indifferent to long-term unemployment with his veto threat.

And that’s not all. Earlier this month, Senate Republicans rejected measures that would have paid for the payroll tax cut by imposing a surtax on millionaires. Obama turned that to his advantage, charging tax-cut-loving Republicans with refusing to help the middle class while protecting the wealthy.

Round and round it goes. The two parties are so intent on scoring political points and playing gotcha, they can’t even see to what extent their current behavior is countercultural (at least counter to their particular culture).

So the next time you hear someone complain about the lack of bipartisanship in Washington, tell him, nonsense. Hypocrisy is as bipartisan as it gets.
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