Ryan Streeter
Follow Ryan on Twitter
Tom Coburn is attaching an amendment to a bill on Tuesday that would end the ethanol subsidy.
This, The Hill reports, has predictably revived the Coburn-Norquist spat over the subsidy and whether ending it is a "tax increase." Norquist is quoted as saying:
[Coburn's] goal is to try and say: ‘Ha, ha, see in some cases it’s OK to eliminate credits and deductions and not offset it,’” the Americans for Tax Reform president told The Hill on Friday. “And then he’ll come back with $2 trillion in tax increases and try to say that’s somehow not a tax increase. It’s wrong on so many levels.
Yes, it would be wrong "on so many levels" to raise taxes by $2 trillion. But that's not what Coburn is doing. The $5.4 billion given out last year as credits to refiners and gasoline blenders is a real, if indirect, cost to American tax payers (e.g., without spending cuts elsewhere, the government will always be finding ways to gain in taxes what it needs to cover the shortfalls from credits). That's what Coburn is taking on. Ending it forces those special interests to pay more in taxes. It doesn't affect the rest of us.
It would help if Norquist understood that sometimes doing the right thing is simply the right thing to do. We shouldn't have the ethanol credit in our tax code, period. Getting it out is not a tax increase on Americans, though refiners and blenders will see their tax liability increase.
We need to end credits and deductions. We need to reduce spending. And we need to lower tax rates. We need them all. And we cannot always do them all at the same time. Privileging one industry over another is just wrong. Ending the credit for that favored industry won't be a happy day for those in that industry. But that doesn't mean it's th wrong thing to do.
Fortunately for those who fear having Norquist's ATR accuse them of breaking their tax pledge, Jim DeMint has supported Coburn and offered his own amendment that will end ethanol mandates and the death tax, which hurts family farms. ATR has said they won't accuse Senators of breaking their pledge if they support Coburn's and DeMint's amendments.
Comments