McConnell blasts Schumer’s suggestion to raise taxes on wealthy

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) accused Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Democrats of holding "the economy hostage" by suggesting any deal on taxes must include raising rates on the wealthiest income-earners.

“Sen. Schumer is now the second member of the Senate Democrat leadership to endorse ‘Thelma and Louise economics,’ " McConnell said in a statement Tuesday, after Schumer spoke about overhauling the tax code. Earlier this year, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) suggested Democrats let the Bush tax rates expire in January in order to get Republicans to agree to higher taxes on the wealthy.

“Senior Democrats are now openly acknowledging their plan to hold the economy hostage to massive, job-killing tax hikes, and espousing the fiscally irresponsible view that says the country should be driven off the fiscal cliff rather than Congress working toward bipartisan solutions to reform and strengthen entitlements without killing jobs.”

Schumer said any plan to avoid the “fiscal cliff” — when the Bush-era tax rates expire and sequestration is set to effect in January, if Congress does not act — should not include extending tax cuts for everyone. He said the government should raise revenue by taxing the rich in order to pay down the deficit.

“Speaker [John Boehner (R-Ohio)] and I have called for extending all the income tax rates for a year, ensuring that no one sees an income tax hike in January and preventing the economic harm and massive job loss that will come if Sen. Schumer and Washington Democrats follow through on their threats to drive us off the fiscal cliff,” McConnell said. “This uncertainty needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later. We need to find a way to deal with the sequester not by cutting a penny less, but by intelligently making the decisions that are necessary to keep our promise to reduce the debt by $2.1 trillion and to get our economy back on track.”

Currently, a group of eight senators — the so-called “Gang of Eight” — are working toward a bipartisan solution. Schumer said they shouldn’t bother proposing a plan in which the Bush-era tax rates are extended for people making more than $250,000 a year.

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