Kyl Won't See the Damage He's Causing

By Michael Bryan

Senator Jon Kyl stands firmly for the plutocrats. And he's willing to throw Arizona's working families, small businesses, and any hope of economic recovery under the bus to do it. Kyl is spearheading the GOP 'alternative' to extension of the Obama payroll taxcuts. The Dem plan would fund the continuing cuts (imagine that! paying for the cost of tax cuts with new revenues!) with a tiny surtax on incomes over $1 million. Kyl's plan would instead fund the cuts with a payroll freeze for the next 3 years for all federal employees.

Kyl couldn't make it more clear that he will only tolerate taxcuts for working families at the expense of other working families. He'd rather attack federal workers than allow ANY of his precious plutocrat constituency pay more of the thier fair share.

Here's how much is at stake in Kyl's game of chicken (or is that pheasant under glass?) for average families here in Arizona, by county:

Unless Congress acts, the average family in Arizona may be paying almost $1000 more in taxes because of Kyl's little game! 2.9 million Arizonans will be impacted by Kyl's tax hike, but Kyl is siding with the three thousand or so Arizona millionaires who would pay the over-a-million surtax.

Kyl also seems perfectly content to kill American jobs. Continuing the Obama payroll tax cuts will create 50,000 new jobs a month. Kyl's payroll tax hike would kill 400,000 existing jobs while we are struggling with a sputtering economy and devastating unemployment due to the financial crisis that Kyl's coddled millionaires created.

The Obama payroll tax cuts are also a targeted method of helping struggling small businesses, which create most new employment, to expand and hire new workers. Payroll deduction cuts are the most efficient and quickest way to put more money in workers pockets, expand the workforce, and grow the economy - but Kyl is willing to withhold that benefit to Arizona and its struggling families if his precious 0.03% of the highest income people are asked to do a bit more for America.

Instead, Kyl wants to slash the pay of hard-working federal employees who actually spend their salaries, so that millionaires have a few more dollars to horde away or invest in Chinese factories.

Who does Kyl really represent? Every Arizonan's interest in a rebounding and growing economy? The 99% of Arizonans who work for a paycheck?

No. Kyl, and the GOP's annointed replacement for him, Rep. Jeff Flake, only work for the few rich folks who fund the GOP's corporate greed machine, and nobody else.

 

 

Comments

[tune]

Note, Obama previously froze fed employee pay for 2010 thru 2011. Kyl's action will extend the freeze for a total of 5 years.

[Cheri]

You are correct. The President did freeze Federal workers pay...but they all still have jobs! What is not stated, is that not only does Kyl want to extend the freeze, but he also wants to reduce the Federal work force by 10%!!! Those would be people WITHOUT A JOB, thereby INCREASING the unemployment rate. What a brainiac that guy is...plutocracy is his middle name.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_12/the_devils_in_the_payroll_deta033819.php