Barletta Embraces Middle Class Tax Hikes and Skyrocketing Deficits To Give Millionaires and Large Corporations a Windfall
\Non-partisan analyses agree that Congressman Barletta and Paul Ryan’s tax plan will raise middle class taxes while adding $1.3 trillion to the debt. This flip-flop makes it clear that Congressman Barletta puts lining the pockets of donors, large corporations, and wealthy D.C. special interests ahead of all else.
Congressman Barletta refuses to promise Pennsylvania’s middle class that their taxes won’t go up under his plan. If Barletta believed his own claims, he’d have no problem guaranteeing that no lower or middle income families will be forced to pay more in taxes while millionaires like Lou pay less. But Barletta won’t make that promise because he knows the middle class will face tax hikes under his plan.
One of Barletta’s first press releases as a member of Congress complained that the Affordable Care Act would “add $701 billion to the deficit in the first ten years alone.” His plan adds roughly double that. When Congressman Barletta was elected, one of his first press releases lambasted the notion of a piece of legislation adding $701 billion to the deficit in ten years. The tax plan he voted for manages to add $1.3 trillion to the debt while still hiking taxes on low and middle income Pennsylvanians.
Congressman Barletta said raising taxes and increasing the deficit was the opposite of “fiscal responsibility.” In July of 2011, Barletta said on the House floor, “We can either continue on the path that we’ve been on a path of reckless spending, of increasing taxes, of mounting debts and deficits. Or we can change our direction. We can put the brakes on the out-of-control spending. We can forge a new direction. One of fiscal responsibility.” The plan he’s pushing now both increases taxes and the deficit over the next ten years.
“Congressman Barletta has been reduced to dishonest spin and rank hypocrisy to sell his giveaway to millionaires,” said Pennsylvania Democratic Party spokesman Max Steele. “Barletta’s plan, which will add $1.3 trillion to the deficit and raise taxes on the middle class, makes it clear that his longstanding criticism of tax hikes and deficit increases was nothing more than empty Washington rhetoric. If Congressman Barletta thinks lying to middle class Pennsylvanians and then raising their taxes will earn him a promotion, he will be in for a long 2018.”