McConnell: Raising Taxes Will Worsen Economy

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says raising taxes wealthy Americans pay, as President Barack Obama plans to do in his “Buffett Tax” proposal Monday, “is a bad thing to do in the middle of an economic downtown.”

“We don’t want to stagnate this economy by raising taxes,” the Kentucky Republican said today on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “There’s bipartisan opposition to what the president is recommending already.”

On the same program, former President Bill Clinton said raising taxes on the rich is the “least harmful” form of tax increases.

McConnell said his party favors overall tax reform and wants to revise the U.S. tax code. But first, he said, the economy needs a jump-start.

“We’re not opposed to more revenue,” he said. “The way you get more revenue is get the economy going. The government is a big winner when the economy is moving.

“Right now, we’ve thrown a big, wet blanket over the private-sector economy,” McConnell continued. “We’ve borrowed too much. We’ve spent too much. We’re drastically over-regulating every aspect of the private sector in our country, and now, we’re threatening to raise taxes on top of it. That’s not going to get the economy moving.”

McConnell ripped the Obama for daring to ask the federal government for second stimulus.

“If you look at the stimulus bill . . . what did we get out of that?” he asked. “Turtle tunnels and Solyndra. And now, he’s asking to do it again.”

McConnell summed up his party’s opinion of Obama’s proposed American Jobs Act with an idiom from the Deep South: “There’s no education in the second kick of a mule.”