Congress will tell President Barack Obama "no tax increase, Mr. President," for his proposal to raise taxes by $320 billion, Rep. Ted Poe told
Newsmax TV's "America's Forum" on Monday.
Obama is expected to call on Congress during Tuesday's State of the Union address to raise taxes on capital gains, eliminate a tax break on inheritances, and add fees on financial institutions. The White House said the increased taxes could fund tax credits to the middle class.
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"I mean are you kidding me?" the Texas Republican said Monday. "The president wants a tax increase? Americans are already paying too high in taxes percentagewise."
"No new taxes. Not going to happen. The economy is struggling," he said. "No tax increase, Mr. President. I'm sorry, Congress will not pass that."
The centerpiece of the president's tax proposal is an increase in the capital gains rate on couples making more than $500,000 per year to 28 percent, the same level as under President Ronald Reagan. The top capital gains rate has already been raised from 15 percent to 23.8 percent during Obama's presidency.
Americans were already "paying too high in taxes, percentage wise," Poe said, adding the high corporate tax rate in the U.S. was why "businesses are leaving America."
Proponents of raising taxes wanted "everybody in the country to make the same amount of money every year," which wasn't how "economic freedom works in this country."
Poe said that those in support of tax increases "don't want the tax increase on themselves," but instead looked to "other people to pay more taxes." He said part of the country's economic malaise stemmed from the high tax rate.
"People who are paying taxes in this country already pay, in my opinion, too high of taxes," he said. "Part of the economic problem in this country is the fact that people who are paying taxes continue to get tax increases from those on the left who want more people not like them to pay higher taxes."
By contrast, Poe suggested it was tax reductions that would lead to improving the economy.
"You increase taxes, you stifle economic freedom. If you reduce taxes, if we actually reduced taxes in this country, especially the corporate income tax in this country, we would have tremendous economic growth," Poe said.
The liberals had a philosophy "to tax something until it no longer exists," Poe said, adding he did not know of anyone who was "going to back that that's in the Republican conference."
Key Republicans in both chambers indicated they would oppose the plan.
"Slapping American small businesses, savers and investors with more tax hikes only negates the benefits of the tax policies that have been successful in helping to expand the economy, promote savings and create jobs," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Finance Committee, said in a weekend statement.
"More Washington tax hikes and spending is the same old top-down approach we've come to expect from President Obama that hasn't worked," said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner.
Obama aides were not surprised.
Said White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer on CBS' "Face the Nation": "Are they going to agree on everything? Absolutely not. I think we should have a debate in this country between middle-class economics and trickle-down economics and see if we can come to an agreement on the things we do agree on."
Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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