In what looked like it was going to be another typical softball session for Rep. Eric Cantor on Morning Joe today, Jeffrey Sachs managed to ask him a few questions that he probably wasn't too comfortable having to answer. Cantor defended the proposed budget cuts to NOAA, despite warnings that it could lead to furloughs at tsunami warning centers, which he disputed with Sachs here.
Sachs also asked Cantor whether Congress had any interest in closing the tax loopholes which allow corporations to hide their income in places like the Cayman Islands. Cantor of course agreed that "if" anyone was cheating and not paying their taxes he'd like to put a stop to that. He claimed that Republicans would be willing to work with President Obama to close those loopholes. Sachs wasn't given a chance to follow up with him but if he had been, I imagine he would have asked him why Republicans were fighting to keep those loopholes open last year if that was true.
Of course along with supposedly closing the loopholes, Cantor wants the tax code "reformed", which I'm sure will result in lowering tax rates for corporations if their track record means anything. Republicans don't want corporations to have to pay any taxes, so I don't know why anyone should take in good faith that they'd start making sure they do now with these negotiations.
Cantor went on to brag to Mika and Joe about the "Interactive Jobs Forum" they were holding today. Campaign for America's Future has more on that -- GOP Bait and Switch on Jobs:
Today Darell Issa tweeted a new Congressional GOP website, AmericanJobCreators.com-- a site which implies a focus on job creation. The site consists of a form in which business owners can provide feedback to their elected representatives, but it asks just two questions, neither of them dedicated to job creation: “How is government holding your business back?” and “Please indicate the federal government agencies that oversee the regulations identified in your response (check all that apply).” AmericanJobCreators.com? Maybe AmericansAgainstRegulations.com was already taken.
And today’s Forum on Job Creation held at the Capitol Visitors Center by the Republican House leadership was yet another misdirection play by the GOP. Today’s talk was billed as a summit bringing business leaders from across the country together to discuss job creation, but putting people back to work was barely mentioned. Instead, the hour-long session served as a punching bag for regulations and corporate taxes and a PR blitz for the REINS act, which would require agencies to get approval from Congress for all significant regulatory decisions.
And they didn’t let the facts get in the way of a good time, either. Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling of Texas asserted that the EPA was now trying to regulate spilt milk on dairy farms as they do for oil spills. This was first declared in an unsigned Wall St Journal editorial and repeated in a newsletter from Congressman H. Morgan Griffith, but the claim has been roundly rebuked as fiction by the EPA and Politifact. But that didn’t stop Hensarling.
CFAA has video of the event posted at their site if you'd care to watch it.
