On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) said that he doesn’t believe spending cuts are necessarily needed and “we’d be better off” if the current tax cuts expired, but he wants to see tax cuts for the middle class.
Co-host Becky Quick asked, “How would you go about cutting spending?”
Pallone answered, “Well, first of all, this is all being done, these Medicaid cuts are being proposed in order to pay for the Republican tax plan, which, basically, just helps the very wealthy and large corporate interests.”
Quick then cut in to say, “The tax plan, actually, helps all Americans. And I know that Democrats were in favor of keeping most of those tax cuts around, too. If you look at the problem, it’s a spending and a taxes problem. But if you go to the problem on this, you’re going to have to cut spending. How would you start with that?”
Pallone responded, “I don’t think that you necessarily need to cut spending, right? And, first of all, I guess I disagree with you, fundamentally, I don’t think that the average person benefits from this tax cut. The other thing that you should –.”
Quick then cut in to follow up, “So, you would get rid of the tax cuts altogether and just say, forget it, we’ll go back to where we were ten [years ago]? They would expire and most Americans would pay more taxes.”
Pallone responded, “They would expire, sure, that would be much preferable to making all these cuts in Medicaid and devastating our healthcare system, because the bottom line is that the average person doesn’t benefit from this tax plan that the Republicans put in a few years ago. Yeah, we’d be better off if it expired.”
Pallone added that he would like to see a middle-class tax cut, but the middle class gets “almost nothing” from the Republican plan.
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
The post Dem Rep. Pallone: ‘Don’t Think That You Necessarily Need to Cut Spending,’ ‘We’d Be Better Off’ if Tax Cuts Expired appeared first on Breitbart.
