Lee Fang from Think Progress:
Today, Republicans will discuss their “Pledge to America,” the political agenda they plan to campaign on as they attempt to take control over the House of Representatives. The agenda is supposedly the culmination of a project GOP lawmakers launched - America Speaking Out - which was designed to give the public a virtual platform to submit ideas and then vote on them. As the Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo reported last week, the second most popular item on the “job creation” section of America Speaking out was the user-submitted idea to “Stop the outsourcing of jobs from America to other countries that do not pay taxes into the U.S. and stop the tax breaks that are given to these companies that are outsourcing.”
Yesterday, after a Republican Ways and Means Committee members press conference, ThinkProgress asked Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) if Republicans would truly use the ideas from their own online platform - as they said they would - and include the popular idea to remove tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas in their “Pledge to America.” Brady, who actually voted to protect tax break for companies that ship jobs overseas, attacked the idea. After being pressed again, he flat out said “no,” and explained that Republicans would continue to favor tax breaks to the wealthy and to corporations that ship jobs overseas:
TP: I like the idea, letting people vote. As of last week, I don’t know the exact date, but the second highest idea, voted up by popular vote, was to end tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. Do you expect something like that to be included in the new “contract” that will be unveiled tomorrow?
BRADY: I haven’t - well, can you tell me what that provision is, because right now the ones we’ve seen from the Democrats and the White House actually penalize companies trying to sell and compete overseas. They do just the opposite. [...]
TP: So you think that some form of that, just different than what the Democrats have proposed, will be in the proposal tomorrow?
BRADY: No. I think our proposal is going to be how are you going to create the strongest economy in the world? And how’s America continue to lead for the next 100 years? All that has to do is lower taxes.