Republican Tax Intransigence Relies on Warped Facts
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Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) -- As many Republicans reject highertax rates for wealthier Americans, former House Speaker NewtGingrich urges them to continue to resist, claiming that theeconomic boom of the 1990s and the resulting budget surplus weredue to his leadership in Congress and not President BillClinton’s early tax increases.
All economic indicators were heading downward beforeGingrich became speaker, he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” onDec. 9, and “virtually all the economic growth occurs afterRepublicans take control” of the House in 1995. The budget wasbalanced late in the decade because of the tax cut he engineeredin 1997, he said.