What happened to the Super Committee’s prospects of a deal? The Weekly Standard reports on Sen. Pat Toomey’s view. The senator had proposed a compromise that some felt had real potential. That is, until liberal Democrats made sure it went nowhere.
The $250 billion in higher taxes really was no small concession for Toomey, the conservative stalwart who had chased liberal Republican Arlen Specter from the GOP. Toomey says some fellow Republicans were “genuinely concerned” about his plan. And anti-tax activist Grover Norquist called Toomey’s plan “poison.” Toomey acknowledges it’s a plan he wouldn’t propose as a free-standing measure. But he thought it was worth it to get lower, pro-growth tax rates and entitlement reform.
In the end, Toomey didn’t have to worry about allaying the concerns of some conservative Republicans. Democrats squelched the plan, saying the $250 billion in higher taxes wasn’t enough. Although “several of our Democratic colleagues had repeatedly spoken about the virtues of tax simplification and tax reform,” Toomey says, “they couldn’t budge from the idea of a trillion dollar tax increase.” The Democrats also “never once throughout the entire process were willing to propose or accept our proposals about any type of structural reforms to the big health care entitlement programs,” according to Toomey.
“It’s like they were very concerned about the Occupy Wall Street movement,” he added. “They had to demonstrate that they were willing to soak the rich.” Why wasn’t Toomey willing to go along with $1 trillion in higher taxes? It would have been “devastating” to the economy, he says.
