Republican Try’s To Preserve Obama’s Tax Pledge

The Senate Commerce Committee met again Thursday to continue “mark up” of it’s version of ObamaCare, written almost entirely by one man, Committee Chairman Baucus.  It was revealed last week that even after months of deliberations this the bill isn’t really a bill at all.  It’s merely a “conceptual paper.”

Last week Republicans proposed an amendment that would have required the “bill,” such as it is, to be posted on the Internet 72 hours before the committee voted on it.  The Amendment was defeated by the committee’s Democrat majority, perhaps to avoid the embarrassment to Senator Baucus of the whole world seeing his pathetic “concepts” in print.

On Thursday Senator Mike Crapo introduced another amendment.  He began by reminding the committee of President Obama’s campaign promise not to increase any tax on anyone earning less than $250,000.  The text of his amendment was very simple:

No tax, fee or penalty imposed by this legislation shall be applied to any individual earning less than $200,000 or any couple earning less than $250,000.

After Crapo finished the eight minute presentation of the basis and purpose of his Amendment, including projected taxes that would be required of low to middle income families, Bacus, who had not been paying attention asked him to explain it a second time.   He then claimed his bill would result in a 1% tax cut to all Americans by 2019 and wage increases to workers.  Finally, after several comments from other Senators Baucus  snorted:

This is a message amendment, and not really a substantive.  What you’re saying is you want to gut the President’s program.  More than that you want to gut health reform.

The committee’s Democrat majority then voted to defeat the amendment, paving the way for new health care taxes to be applied to the very people President Obama promised he would not tax.

Crapo noted three direct taxes on individuals imposed by the bill:

• The individual mandate to carry insurance means that there will be an excise tax of up to $1900 per family who fail to purchase insurance.  The bill provides for jail time for anyone who doesn’t pay.
• Tax penalties for those withdrawing money from Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) for non-medical emergencies would double from 10 to 20 percent.
• The tax floor for families seeking deductions for medical expenses rises.  Currently medical expenses are deductible to the extent they exceed 7.5% of one’s income.  The bill would raise that bar to 10%.

Here’s video of Senator Crapo’s remarks.