Hatch Responds to President Obama’s Call for Tax Hikes to Deal with Debt

WASHINGTON –U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, issued the following statement regarding President Obama’s call for tax hikes for deficit reduction:

“The president needs to stop listening to his liberal allies who want to raises taxes at all costs. Middle-class families and small businesses understand that raising taxes on those who are trying to lead our economic recovery is the absolute wrong approach at the wrong time. The president can try to call it something different, but the bottom line is that all he has offered American taxpayers and our struggling economy is tax hikes.

“I’d remind the Administration that even if none of their proposed tax hikes take effect, revenue will go over its historical average of 18 percent of our nation’s economic output. So, taxes are already headed higher that they’ve historically been, and they want to raise taxes even more? So much for the President’s lead economic advisors promising that an Obama Administration wouldn’t allow taxes to go over 18.2 percent of our gross domestic product. With our economy as weak as it is, it’s baffling that we’d whack small businesses with a 17 percent tax hike and hit investments that generate capital gains with a 59 percent tax increase.

“We can confront our debt if we tackle spending and our broken entitlements that are pushing our nation to a crisis point. But tax hikes that hurt job creation and an economic recovery are not the answer – pro-growth policies of less government, less regulation, less taxes is the cure our nation needs. As last week’s jobs report showed, Obamanomics has failed, and hard-working American taxpayers deserve better leadership from their president, who continues to push the same failed economic policies.”

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