Thursday, September 23, 2010
Arkansas Politics Which Tim Griffin do you believe?
Posted by Max Brantley on Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 10:59 AM
(Bad) Character-laden Tim Griffin is just all over the map on taxes. He was for the "Fair" Tax. Then he was against. Then he was for a flat tax. But he says he's also for preserving the home mortgage interest deduction, which is just the sort of reason why a flat tax is not only regressive, but a non-starter. All the special pleaders like Griffin will want special set-asides that will make the "flat" tax anything but flat. A homeowner with a mortgage will have a lower tax than someone not paying mortgage interest. That ain't flat.
The Joyce Elliott campaign calls Griffin's hand on this. Expect a defense of his flip-floppery and contradictions shortly from his apologists over at the DOG editorial page. Elliott supports the mortgage interest deduction and a progressive income tax.
Griffin, meanwhle, rolls out an an ad in which he dons a hard hat and promises to create jobs by cutting taxes and balancing the budget. Which taxes? Which expenditures? He'll save that for another day, but we already know the millionaires are high on his list of priorities.
ELLIOTT NEWS RELEASE
Tim Griffin has a plan when it comes to explaining his policy on taxes: tell people whatever they want to hear. During his primary race, in a March 29, 2010 interview on KARN radio, Mr. Griffin stated, “I am absolutely committed to the Fair Tax.”
In the candidate forum hosted by the Pulaski County Bar Association on September 17th, Mr. Griffin said he did not support the Fair Tax, rather he supports the Flat Tax. In a campaign press release after the forum, Mr. Griffin announced that he now has a “preference” to “avoid any reform that includes a consumption tax and focus on the flat tax.”
“In March, Mr. Griffin said that he was ‘absolutely committed to the Fair Tax.’ Now he says he is not for a Fair Tax because it includes a consumption tax,” reiterated Marisa Pryor, communications director for Joyce Elliott. “Mr. Griffin has spent 15 years working in Washington or working for Washington D.C. lobbying and political consulting firms. Are voters really supposed to believe he did not know that a Fair Tax plan would impose a 23-30% sales tax? If he didn’t know, then why would he say he was absolutely committed to it? Does Mr. Griffin not know what it means to make an absolute commitment to something?”
On Friday, September 17, Mr. Griffin said he was focused on supporting the Flat Tax. On Tuesday, September 21, at a luncheon hosted by BOMA and the Arkansas Realtors Association, Mr. Griffin pledged his support to protect tax deductions for homeowners. The problem is Mr. Griffin cannot have it both ways. Even the conservative Heritage Foundation says one of the “common features” of all flat tax plans is the elimination of all “special” deductions including the mortgage interest deduction. 1
“Senator Elliott knows that protecting the mortgage interest tax deduction is vital to thousands of Arkansas families, and she has been steadfast in her support of it,” said Pryor. “She would welcome Mr. Griffin’s support in protecting middle class homeowners. However if Mr. Griffin now supports the flat tax, how in the world can he also say he stands with Arkansas relators and middle class homeowners when just this past Friday Mr. Griffin re-affirmed his support for a plan that would repeal the tax deduction for homeowners?”asked Pryor.
Would Mr. Griffin like to simply tell voters where he stands?
“Arkansas voters are smart, hard working and just want a candidate that will be honest with them. Voters want a candidate to stand for something, because they won’t fall for just anything,” concluded Pryor.
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Comments (9)
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It is depressing! The one really bright spot for me in this election cycle was that the choice for Congressman from the Second District is so crystal clear. But this morning I had to try to explain to a neighbor why Joyce Elliott is clearly the candidate to vote for. She didn't know that Tim Griffin had ever worked for Carl Rove, had never heard of Bud Cummings that she could remember, didn't remember the firing of all of those Federal Prosecutors, the resignation of Alberto Gonzales, didn't know about Rove-inspired "caging" of voters in low-income neighborhoods. It is depressing!
"Griffin's . . . apologists over at the DOG editorial page."
I usually ignore the ArkD-G's Republican-themed editorials (do enjoy most of the non-political ones), but did read the one promoting Griffin yesterday, and it was pitiful. Poorly written anti-Elliott jibberjab without any substance whatsoever. I'm thinkin' ole Paul had the day off.
I'm thinking this is the best "ole Paul" could do to help Griffin--whine about Joyce Elliott pointing out the glaring holes in Griffin's integrity.
Keep hammering him Joyce! Just hit harder every time, and let us help land some blows too.
Griffin hasn't bothered to explain how the budget deficit is going to be reduced if he gives tax cuts to the people making the most money. He also hasn't mentioned that the rich people who own U.S. big companies are not hurting and that their companies are flush with more cash than anyone can recall in recent memory. They just aren't spending the cash to provide jobs. They don't need a tax cut to begin hiring.
if creating jobs made people money, believe me we would have plenty of them. We don't. Rich people and Corporations put their money in the bank...they don't spend it to create anything but more wealth for themselves through compiling interest. The rest of us have to spend money for food, clothing, housing, transportation and so on and so on...makes sense to me that the wealthy don't need a tax break to create jobs...
"I'm thinking this is the best "ole Paul" could do to help Griffin--whine about Joyce Elliott . ."
Nah, Thinking: Ole Paul didn't write that feeble attempt at an editorial. His knife is much sharper and more deadly than what we saw yesterday. He's out sick or on vacation, for sure. Or, of course, he mighta been busy writing another anti-lotto piece.
By the way, I thought his column yesterday on great teachers he's known was danged good. Sorta ripped the UofA a new one, too, about dumbing down its curriculum. And here I thought he was a partner in a Walton-UofA conspiracy to kill public education.
"C"arl Rove? Bud Cummin"gs"? HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dude...the per capita informed IQ on this wealth envy site is really unfortunate.
This country has been indoctrinated into thinking that the Income Tax system is the way to fund the government.
But the Income Tax system is a corrupt mess and only gets worse as time goes on.
Eventually the whole Income Tax system is going to collapse on itself as it gets larger and larger, more paper intensive, more confusing and mind numbing.
If you add in the fact that the Income Tax code itself is close to 70,000 pages long plus the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pages that make up Income Tax Revenue Rulings, Private Letter Rulings, Tax Memorandums, Tax Publications and Tax Court cases, you can see that the whole system has turned into a complicated and unintelligible mess.
The Income Tax system is also extremely inefficient.
That’s why there has been and always will be a “tax gap”.
Finally, according to President Obama’s tax commission, citizens of this country pay close to 140 BILLION DOLLARS in tax preparation fees on a yearly basis.
They also spend over 7 BILLION HOURS in Income Tax record keeping.on a yearly basis.
And on top of all this, Treasury Secretary Geithner (who is in charge of the Income Tax) and Congressman Rangel (who writes Income Tax policy) both don’t know how to correctly fill out their own Income Tax return.
So when those who write Income Tax law and those who are in charge of administering Income Tax policy don’t know how to correctly fill out their own Income Tax return, what hope is there for the rest of us?
So this country has a choice to have an open honest debate on what to do about the current tax system.
That means no more lies about how various candidates want to add a sales tax and then forget to mention that they also want to abolish all income taxes and payroll taxes,
And then also forget to mention that in various surveys of foreign companies, 80% of them would build their next factory in the United States if the Income Tax system was abolished and another 20% of them would would relocate their whole company back here entirely.
That means jobs and manufacturing coming back to the United States. .
So any candidate that LIES about the Fair Tax is then supportive of the current and corrupt Income Tax system that does NOT work.
That in itself tells you something about that particular candidate.
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