The Congressional Republican Pledge to Special Interests

Tonight, we learned more details about the Congressional Republican agenda – their “Pledge to America.” With this plan, they have made clear that they want to take America back to the same failed economic policies that caused this recession.  Instead of charting a new course, Congressional Republicans doubled down on the same ideas that hurt America’s middle class. 

Here’s what they made clear:

• Tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires by borrowing $700 billion we can’t afford;
• Tax hikes for 110 million middle-class families and millions of small businesses;
• Cutting rules and oversight for special interests like big oil, big insurance, credit card and mortgage companies and Wall Street banks;
• Doing nothing to stop the outsourcing of American jobs or to end tax breaks that are given to companies that ship jobs overseas;
• All while adding trillions to our nation’s deficit.

Their plan is also notable for what it doesn’t talk about: protecting Social Security and Medicare from privatization schemes; investing in high-quality education for our nation’s children; growing key industries like clean energy and manufacturing; and rebuilding our crumbling roads, rails and runways.

This is the same agenda that caused the deepest recession since the Great Depression, costing 8 million jobs, wiping out trillions in family wealth and setting middle-class families back.   Instead of a pledge to the American people, Congressional Republicans made a pledge to the big special interests to restore the same economic ideas that benefited them at the expense of middle-class families.

Dan Pfeiffer is White House Communications Director