Marathon Pundit: Huntsman on Obama's tax increase proposal

Monday, September 19, 2011

Huntsman on Obama's tax increase proposal

Arches National Park, Utah

This morning President Obama gave a speech where he offered his plan to lower the deficit. He proposes a "Buffet Tax" to collect more money from millionaires. For a guy who keeps claiming that jobs are what he is focused upon, it's an odd but predictable move for the president. After all, class warfare is a favorite past time of his party.

Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman issued the following statement about Obama's proposal:

President Obama continues to demonstrate that he has no new ideas on how to create American jobs. For two and a half years he's been peddling a version of the Buffett Tax Hike as a key pillar of his failed attempt to tax and spend and regulate this country to prosperity. That simply hasn't worked and it won't work now. President Obama's veto threats and partisan demands are a poor attempt to camouflage a $1.5 trillion tax hike that is deeply misguided and the latest example of his ineffective leadership on the economy.

The most important thing Congress and the super-committee can do is deal with the structural problems that are causing our debt and impeding job creation. Meaningful entitlement reform and revenue-neutral tax reform should be priority #1; tax increases should not make the list.

I recently presented a jobs plan to the American people that dramatically reforms our country's tax and regulatory system –that's what we need as a country to create jobs and it's exactly why the Wall Street Journal endorsed my plan. I urge Congress to resoundingly reject the president's $1.5 trillion tax increase and work together on the structural reforms to entitlements and taxes that we so desperately need.