GOP Hypocrisy: Rhetoric vs. Real Record

In their 'Pledge to America,' unveiled today, House Republicans made a lot of promises. What is most striking is the hypocrisy of so many of these promises – which run directly counter to their record. Leader Boehner admitted today what the 'pledge' really means: "We are not going to be any different than we've been." Here are some key examples of GOP rhetoric vs. the GOP record:

SMALL BUSINESS TAX CUTS

RHETORIC: GOP says they're for small business tax cuts

REALITY: GOP has voted against 7 out of the 8 small business tax cuts enacted so far in this Congress and today they apparently are planning on voting against 8 more small business tax cuts in the Small Business Jobs bill (H.R. 1; H.R. 3590; H.R. 2847)

KEEPING US JOBS HERE AT HOME

RHETORIC: GOP says they're going to promote American jobs

REALITY: GOP has voted repeatedly to protect tax breaks that encourage corporations to ship American jobs overseas (H.R. 4213; H.R. 1586; H.R. 5982; H.R. 4849)

SMALL BUSINESS REPORTING REQUIREMENTS

RHETORIC: GOP says they're eliminating the small business "1099" reporting requirements

REALITY: GOP voted against eliminating the small business "1099" reporting requirements (H.R. 5982)

TAX CUTS

RHETORIC: GOP says they're for tax cuts for the middle class

REALITY: GOP has pledged to raise taxes on more than 110 million American families by repealing the Recovery Act; and they are holding President Obama's middle class tax cuts hostage to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires

DEFICITS

RHETORIC: GOP says they're going to put us on the path to a balanced budget

REALITY: GOP's plan would add more than $4 trillion to the deficits they created in the last decade – borrowing from China to give tax cuts to billionaires and millionaires, and increasing the deficit further by repealing health reform

TARP

RHETORIC: GOP says they're ending TARP

REALITY: When the GOP voted against Wall Street Reform, they voted against a provision winding down TARP as of June 25, 2010 – banning new programs and requiring repayments to TARP to be used to reduce the debt – which saves U.S. taxpayers $11 billion (H.R. 4173). And now, overall TARP spending authority expires next week, on October 3 – so a GOP promise to "end" TARP is just political hyperbole