Ex-White House Spokesman Robert Weiner Asks, 'If There Were Reagan Democrats in the '80s, Why Can't There be Obama Republicans Now?' Roll Call Op-ed

/PRNewswire/ -- Ex-White House spokesman Robert Weiner, and policy analysts Jonathan Battaglia and Noah Merksamer, are asking, "If there were Reagan Democrats in the '80s, why can't there be Obama Republicans now?"

In an op-ed in today's Roll Call, they assert that "In today's politics, bipartisanship seems like a distant memory. It was not always like this.

"Until the 1990s, we had consensus by issue, not by party -- fierce opposition and strong support, but not based primarily on party lines." Weiner traces the history of large minority votes on historic issues as contentious as today's -- Social Security, Medicare, Civil Rights, and show their contrast to almost no minority votes on recent budgets, tax cuts, health care, the economy, and financial reform.

"In 1935, 92 percent of Congress voted for the Social Security Act, including 81 Republicans in the House. There were dissenters -- Rep. Daniel Reed (R-N.Y.) said that with Social Security, Americans would 'feel the lash of a dictator.' Sen. Daniel Hastings (R-Del.) declared that Social Security would 'end progress.' Yet the measure passed 77-6 in the Senate, 382-33 in the House.

"The Civil Rights Act of 1964 did away with segregation. 70 percent voted 'aye,' including 136 Republicans in the House and 21 in the Senate. Republicans and Southern Democrats crossed party lines on both sides of the issue -- they were voting on the issue, not the party regimen.

"When Congress was debating Medicare in 1965, Sen. Carl Curtis (R-Neb.) called the program 'brazen socialism' -- sound familiar? Yet 72 percent of Congress supported Medicare's creation, including 70 Republicans in the House.

"Under former Speaker Tip O'Neill (D), the Reagan tax cuts passed in 1981 with 48 Democrats supporting it. In addition, O'Neill and Rep. Claude Pepper (D-Fla.) were able to keep Congress from slashing Social Security benefits amid President Reagan's cuts in domestic spending. Reagan and House Republicans were part of governing with bipartisanship.

"In contrast, last year's health care reform did not receive a single Republican vote in the House or Senate on final passage. Despite the bill's use of private insurance, no public option, no Medicare buy-in and 160 Republican amendments in the bill such as tax breaks for 95 percent of small businesses, the minority would not give the Democrats a vote. Democrats weren't flawless -- they let partisanship get in the way of including medical malpractice reform, despite Obama's public support for it. Regardless, in the past, a bill with such broad-based compromises would have received 30 to 100 Republican House votes on passage and 10 to 30 in the Senate.

"Only three Republicans in the Senate voted for Wall Street reform in July, despite the financial meltdown, and despite broad minority participation in the drafting.

"This recent unwillingness to compromise began in 1994, with the rise of former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and the Contract With America. Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) earned the nickname 'The Hammer' because he punished those who did not support George W. Bush. The leadership triumvirate of DeLay, Gingrich and Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) would not allow Republican Congressmen to vote against the party only on major issues -- exactly the time to express one's conscience."

Weiner, Battaglia, and Merksamer conclude by asking, "If there were Reagan Democrats in the '80s, why can't there be Obama Republicans now?"

Geithner is Wrong: The Obama-Pelosi-Reid Tax Hike is Not a 'Return to the 1990s'

/PRNewswire/ -- In advance of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's major economic address today Americans for Tax Reform released the following:

In a speech today at the Center for American Progress, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will say that the largest tax hike in American history (coming this January) is a return to the "pro-growth" fiscal policies of the 1990s. This is patently absurd. Here is why:

1. The tax rates scheduled under current law and the Obama budget are higher than those of the Clinton years. Everyone forgets that Obamacare imposes a new 3.8 percent surtax on investment income and raises the top Medicare payroll tax rate to 3.8 percent in 2013. That means that the top tax rates on the table are higher than they were in the 1990s:

Obama     Current
               Clinton/     Budget       Law
                  GOP
               Congress
  Capital
   Gains              20%      23.8%       23.8%
  Dividends         39.6%      23.8%       43.4%
  Majority
   of Small
   Business
   Profits          42.5%      43.4%       43.4%

2. We can't afford to raise tax rates while other countries have been cutting them. The United States has the highest corporate income tax rate in the developed world (39 percent when states are factored in). The average in the developed world is 26 percent. Back in 1995, the developed world's average was nearly 37 percent, and the U.S. level was the same as today. So the corporate tax rate around the world has been slashed, and the United States has stayed the same. We can't afford to raise taxes at the same time as other countries have been cutting them.

3. The capital gains tax rate in the 1990s was going down, but the Obama budget calls for the rate to go up. The GOP Congress and President Clinton signed a capital gains tax cut in 1997, lowering the top rate from 28 to 20 percent. However, the combination of the January 2011 tax hike and Obamacare means that today's capital gains tax rate will rise from 15 to nearly 24 percent.

4. Spending was going down in the 1990s, but it is at record-high levels today. That's why the 1990s had surpluses, and this decade has record deficits. Between 1990 and 2000, federal spending fell from 22 percent of the economy to 18 percent of the economy. Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office projects that federal spending this decade will hover around 23 percent of the economy--each and every year, and far above the historical average of 21 percent. Record-high spending is causing deficits this decade, just as spending restraint caused surpluses in the 1990s. Taxes should not be hiked to pay for massive, deficit-causing spending.