Political Hotsheet
By

Rebecca Kaplan /

CBS News/ July 17, 2012, 9:15 AM

Portman slams Obama for trying to raise taxes on small businesses

In this May 11, 2012, file photo, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, speaks to supporters at the Wayside Inn in West Union, Ohio.

/ AP Photo/Al Behrman
(CBS News) Ohio Sen. Rob Portman said President Obama is trying to reduce the deficit on the backs of small businesses by letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire for top earners, saying the president's recent rhetoric shows "a fundamental misunderstanding of the American economy."

"He is somehow trying to get the American people to believe if you just tax small businesses more, we can solve this deficit and debt problem," said Portman, appearing on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning. He argued that letting the tax cuts expire would have a minimal effect on the economy, citing a Congressional Budget Office report that said the revenue from such a move would amount to only four percent of the economy.

"Even if do you that, it runs government for about a week," Portman said. "So it's not the answer to our deficit problems and it's part of this concern I have about the direction of the economy under this president. We continue criticize business. We continue to play class warfare and this is what's driving investment and jobs and opportunity offshore," he said, advocating for presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney as president.

Portman, who is widely believed to be at the top of the short list for Romney's running mate, offered no news on the search process. Asked if he had heard from Romney recently, he replied, "I have not. I've been watching him on Fox, though!"

© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
28 Comments Add a Comment
linkicon reporticon emailicon
B_Erhart says:
"I have not. I've been watching him on Fox, though!"

'W' Budget Director, The Onion, MadTV or Comedy Central couldn't top

this. Can you say clone of Quayle?
reply
linkicon reporticon emailicon
RollotheNorman says:
Portman, I guess he want's less stimulus so he can fire more teachers, firemen, and police like Willard suggests. Isn't anybody learning the lesson of Wisconsin?
reply
linkicon reporticon emailicon
getcentered says:
"a fundamental misunderstanding of the American economy."

Oh really?

Obama wants the taxes on the people who make $250,000 a year to go up and that is about 2% of small businesses or less than a million people in our country.


Question for Mitt "Let Detroit Fail" Romney:

How is a giving tax cut to a Wall Streeter who peddles exotic financial derivatives creating jobs for America?

See the bigger picture here is that the Romney campaign and Republicans in general, have no policy positions to offer other than that of the tired rhetoric that, "tax cuts and deregulation" are the answer to the problems with our economy.

It's obvious by now that cutting taxes for the rich did not create jobs and the war in Iraq was a huge unnecessary burden on the US tax payer.

From 2000 to 2007, the United States lost one in five (3.5 million) middle-class jobs. A majority of the new jobs created in the United States under Bush pay extremely low wages at less than $18,000 a year, usually without benefits. This is with corporate profits at an all time high since 1960. The 2005 CBO data show that changes in law enacted since January 2001 increased the deficit by $539 billion in 2005. In the absence of such legislation, the nation would have a surplus that year. In 2010, when all the Bush tax cuts were finally phased in, a staggering 52.5 percent of the benefits went to the richest 5 percent of taxpayers.

President Bush and his supporters argued that high-income tax cuts would benefit everybody because they would unleash investment that would spark widespread economic prosperity.

Never happened.

What about the endless sloganeering against "regulations" by the Republican Party? Republicans like to call regulations "job killing". I admit the phrase is heart breaking and disparagingly clever, but the fact of the matter is that regulations create jobs and ultimately support the general welfare of all the people of our country.

Look at it this way: If you have Social Security, Medicare, the right to vote, the right to an education, a clean park or a lake near you or an FDIC insured place to put your money. If you were given a disability check or a wheel chair ramp into the store you buy your food, if you like safe bridges, clean drinking water, clean air and a nontoxic environment, if you feel safe when you fly, or eat out, or give your child a toy, then it's time you give liberals and "regulations" the credit they deserve.
reply
linkicon reporticon emailicon
TimeToEvolve says:
Republicons like Portman are an embarrassment to the mind and to the senses. Even though everything they stand for in that party is a scam or has already failed they insist of saying the same tired junk. Earth to Republicons: you are part of a failed and obsolete party of half blind, bullet point talking fools.
reply
linkicon reporticon emailicon
hypnotoad72 says:
Hey Portman, think about this instead:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/04/14/158424/republican-leaders-debt-limit-hypocrisy/

And how lowered taxes won't help anybody if we keep losing jobs in this country. The middle class jobs that keep every aspect of this country going.

If there is to be any future for people, regardless of it is, then the games must end.
reply
linkicon reporticon emailicon
A_Canadian_Opinion says:
Portman - try watching Insincere Romney on any other channel besides FOX. His true colors show through on the non-FOX (non-fiction) channels. FOX is a joke!!
reply
TimeToEvolve replies:
linkicon reporticon emailicon
The Fox Propaganda Channel. I will not buy anything from any business that shows this channel or advertises on it. And all their fake "news" people will all be in hell.
linkicon reporticon emailicon
TimeToEvolve says:
This is another Republicon from the failed and obsolete Republicon Party. They keep saying that the rich create jobs. They keep saying that the rich need more tax cuts. They keep saying the free market works. They are truly nuts. There NEVER WAS a "free market".
reply
liberalmike replies:
linkicon reporticon emailicon
Yea same ol' same ol' this guy is a joke!
linkicon reporticon emailicon
BuckeyeChuck says:
Portman, he's not the solution, he's the problem.
reply
linkicon reporticon emailicon
WHAT-IS-HE-SMOKING says:
Just wonder, who buys most of the products produced the 1% or the 99%?
reply
TimeToEvolve replies:
linkicon reporticon emailicon
Exactly the 99% run the economy. We are the job creators. We are the 99%.
linkicon reporticon emailicon
smick714 says:
What is it about trickle down economics didn't work do these jerks not get?
reply
See all 28 Comments