While President Barack Obama used his State of the Union address to tout "middle-class economics," he has in fact strapped families with nearly two dozen taxes, stymieing them financially, Texas Rep. Kevin Brady said Thursday on
Newsmax TV's "America’s Forum."
"We've got 23 taxes that are crashing down on middle-class America and I agree, middle-class economics would work," Brady said. "This president isn't practicing it. In fact, right now an average family of four in America is missing $1,000 a month from their family paycheck because his recovery has been so slow and slow painful for the middle class."
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"Raising taxes on the wealthy and job traders won't grow one more job, it won't grow one more family's paycheck, it won't help one more college grad start their career, and so if we want more of the same stale, old ideas out of the White House, you heard them the other night. We need a fresh start on the economy."
Obama proposed offering "free"
community college. But he wants to tax a previously tax-free account that parents can set up to send their kids to college, according to Brady, who accused the president of wanting the government to decide how much of a nest egg is enough for each family.
"They will tax the rest," Brady said. "He's looking at family-owned businesses, farms, small business and others that have built up a nest egg, not in cash necessarily, just the value of their family-owned business and taxing that as well.
"I don't know how taxing families who work hard to save is any way to pay for community college, which by the way, community college are extremely important. There are a lot of incentives today in the tax code to help families support those first two years and so taxing them more to do it just doesn't make sense."
Brady is also outraged that Obama is taking credit for energy development when he has tried to stonewall energy programs whenever he has the opportunity.
"It is really the
height of hypocrisy for this president to claim credit for energy and gas development that he has tried to block at every step in the way," Brady said. "To claim credit for lower (gas) prices which he's had nothing to do with, and then not only to block the Keystone XL pipeline, but block our exports around the world that would actually keep our prices lower in the long run. It's just beyond me."
The president’s actions to stave off energy development — via things like environmental lawsuits and rewriting rules and regulations — all come down to Obama’s desire to shape his legacy, according to Brady.
"This is all about ideology. He wants to go down in history as a global warming president and all this is part of that whole agenda.
"How ironic, we started the discussion talking about middle-class economics, helping people get a good paying job. Some with low skills, some with high skills, but middle-class families — and here you have an energy sector that creates jobs for frankly those with very little skills, as well as those with the highest degrees, good-paying jobs all across the country — and the president is the sole person blocking Keystone XL pipeline.
"The sole person standing in between literally tens of thousands of jobs for Americans and energy security and so it really is, again, tied in with his plea for a better economy. His actions are exactly the opposite."