Republican Party Senate candidates pledged this past week to protect tax loopholes for companies that outsource jobs, according to new media reports. In response, the Obama administration wasted no time slamming Republicans who want to stall economic recovery or advocate policies harmful to working families.
White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer told reporters Monday the Republicans are planning to slash funding for education should they manage to gain power in Congress. “Education is our economic defense budget for the future,” Pfeiffer said on a press conference call. “The Republicans want to gut this.”
“The Republicans are proposing one of, if not the largest education cut in history,” he said, referring to their recently orchestrated political theater they called their “pledge to America.”
Pfeiffer added that if the Republican plan were adopted, some eight million college students, for example would see their financial aid reduced.
By contrast, the President and Democrats have fought for some of the largest new investments in education in decades, he added.
He also noted the Republican “pledge” demands an end to federal oversight of the banks and corporations behind the collapse of the financial system in 2008. Republicans want to “return to the era of recklessness and irresponsibility by cutting rules and oversight for special interests like Big Oil, insurance companies, credit card and mortgage companies.”
“This would be a disturbing return to a set of rules that helped create the financial crisis we’re in,” he pointed out.
The White House also plans to campaign against the Republican Party’s plan to privatize Social Security or to slash benefits for seniors and other beneficiaries.
The administration’s new push came on the heels of a new voters scorecard out now that lambastes Republican Senate candidates for their support for economic polices that would kill jobs in the U.S. and hand big tax breaks to the corporations that do it.
A number of Senate candidates recently signed a pledge put out by the far-right anti-working families Republican Party front group called Americans for Tax Reform pledging to protect tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas. These included Tea Party Republicans Joe Miller (Alaska). Christine O’Donnell (Delaware), Marco Rubio (Florida), and Rand Paul (Kentucky). Each has also found themselves behind or neck-and-neck with their Democratic opponent.
Other like Ken Buck (Colorado), professional candidate Dino Rossi (Washington), and Ken Ayotte (New Hampshire) have also public defended taxpayer subsidies for such companies.
Other Republican Senate candidates like Carly Fiorina (California), Sharron Angle (Nevada), Dan Coats (Indiana), and Linda McMahon (Connecticut) have actually ordered outsourcing when they controlled or directed companies in the past or have defended the practice as good for the economy.
So far none of these candidates have held a vote in Congress, but many other Republican candidates have repeatedly voted to kill jobs in the U.S. in order to protect the financial interests of their corporate backers. For example, as a member of Congress, John Boozman (Arkansas) voted six times to protect loopholes that reward corporations for moving jobs out of the country. Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Illinois, also voted six times to protect such tax loopholes and even voted against a job that saved close to 6,000 teacher jobs in his own state.
Both Sens. Richard Burr, R-North Carolina, and David Vitter, R-Louisiana, also known for his admitted solicitation of prostitution, have long records of protecting companies that close down jobs in the U.S.
Add to that list of Republicans who are out to hurt working families, Robert Portman, Senate candidate form Ohio. Portman has the distinction of being an architect of the Bush administration’s failed economic policies. Portman served as Bush’s U.S. Trade Representative when some 17,000 Ohio jobs were closed down and re-opened in other countries.
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