Rep. Cotton: Americans Don’t Need Another Tax Increase

Arkansas Republican Rep. Tom Cotton said on “Fox News Sunday” the country doesn’t need — or want — another tax increase.

“We just increased taxes by over $600 billion last month,” Cotton said. “We can’t keep increasing taxes every three months just because Barack Obama wants more welfare spending.”

The $85 billion in automatic spending cuts looming on the horizon March 1 includes reductions to military outlay that will be devastating, he said.

“Republicans have proposed a responsible alternative to the sequester, which is what President Obama proposed in 2011, which would shift those cuts away from the Department of Defense and to domestic spending,” Cotton said. “There’s more than enough tax pork in the fiscal-cliff bill for things like NASCAR-track owners, and wind-energy producers, and Puerto Rican rum manufacturers that would more than offset the defense cuts that would be so devastating.”

On the issue of the drone-strike policy with respect to American citizens, Cotton rejected a call for a so-called “drone court,” in which a federal judge would be required to review each targeted subject prior to an attack.

“We don’t need federal judges involved in sensitive and urgent national-security matters, and it would be an unconstitutional infringement on the president’s rights to keep America safe,” he said.

President Obama did not keep Americans safe in the hours after the deadly attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi that left four Americans dead, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, according to Cotton.

“Winston Churchill said the essence of civilian leadership of the military is always right to probe,” Scott said. “This is a complete failure of leadership. It’s not just shocking, it’s outrageous, as well, and it shows his lack of preparation to be the commander-in-chief and lead troops when they’re in combat.”