Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee disputed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s testimony Tuesday that tax increases included in President Barack Obama’s 2013 budget are necessary to correct the nation’s fiscal problems.
“I don’t see how you get there if you are unable . . . to contemplate and to embrace modest increases in revenue through tax reform,”
The Hill reported Geithner as telling the panel. “I just don’t think it’s possible.”
Geithner also repeated the administration’s claim that higher-earning Americans should shoulder the burden of higher taxes.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, ranking member of the committee, countered Geithner’s testimony, saying, “It is clear that [Obama’s] plan would only make our fiscal problems worse and harm our economy by imposing around $1.9 trillion of stifling tax hikes.”
Obama’s tax-and-spend policies and stimulus schemes have failed and would continue to generate historic deficits, The Hill quoted Hatch as saying.
Committee members in both parties grilled Geithner on why the Obama administration has not proposed comprehensive tax reform. Geithner responded that the White House will propose a “framework” for corporate tax reform in the coming weeks, but that no new efforts on overhauling the individual tax code would be offered.
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