Today’s debate over tax increases took a surprise turn when Republicans asked that a promise made by Democratic President Barack Obama be amended into a bill. Even more surprising is that Senate Democrats rejected the motion.
In his 2009 address to the Joint Session of Congress and on the campaign trail, Obama promised not to raise taxes on families making under $250,000 a year. Republicans say that promise will be violated by the Colorado Democrats’ latest proposal to raise taxes on Colorado families and businesses by $335 million.
“…let me be perfectly clear, because I know you’ll hear the same old claims that rolling back these tax breaks means a massive tax increase on the American people: if your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increase a single dime,” Obama said in his speech. “I repeat: not one single dime.”
Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, requested that the aforementioned promise, no doubt reiterated by many of the Democrats in the Colorado state Senate, be included in the record of today’s debate over tax increases.
“Revisionist history won’t work,” Penry said. “Democrats can’t ignore that their own president promised taxes wouldn’t increase for anyone making under $250,000. Yet that is exactly what they are doing.”
Penry offered an amendment that would have made businesses making less than $250,000 a year to be exempt from the Democrats’ tax increases. The amendment was rejected on a party line vote. Democrats then refused to let President Obama’s words be part of the legislative record.
Click here to listen to Sen. Penry.