Harkin accuses GOP of ‘class warfare’

The Senate may be in a lame duck session, but Sen. Tom Harkin has no intention of limping toward the finish line of the 111

^th

Congress.

The Iowa Democrat accused Republicans of engaging in class warfare” by insisting on extending tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans while blocking the temporary extension of unemployment benefits.

“There's been a lot of talk about just how out of touch Washington is with the concerns of ordinary working Americans and I couldn't agree more,” Harkin said Nov. 18 in his weekly conference call with Iowa reporters. “But listening to Republican members of Congress you would think the most urgent and pressing issue facing the nation now is extending the Bush tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.”

Republicans, he said, want to add $700 billion to the deficit over next decade to pay for extending those tax breaks even as they oppose a temporary extension of unemployment benefits averaging $300 a week.

“Talk about class warfare. Republicans are instigating class warfare in this country,” Harkin charged.

It's “obscene,” he said, to talk about extending tax cuts for millionaires at the same time the USDA is reporting that 17 million households are having difficulty putting enough food on the table and more than 950,000 school-age children are homeless.

The wealthiest Americans “have done extremely well,” Harkin noted. When he went to Congress in 1976, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans took home 9 percent on the nation's total income. Today, they take home 24 percent, he said.

Harkin called on President Obama to resist the GOP's efforts to strike a deal to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans in order to continue the middle-class tax breaks.

“This is where we need to draw a bright line,” he said. “With the deficit we're in, with so many people unemployed and people who are running out of money, we can't afford to give the wealthiest in our country an extra $100,000 a year.”