An op-ed that Eric Cantor wrote for yesterday’s Washington Post is very interesting, to say the least:

But the politics of division have reared up, fueled by efforts to incite class warfare. For example, though he often talks about millionaires, billionaires and corporate jet owners paying their “fair share,” behind closed doors the president admits to wanting to raise taxes on individuals making $200,000 per year and families and small businesses earning $250,000 per year.

Again we have a Republican leader worrying about only 2% of this country. What about the other 98% who don’t earn that much? How about the fact Eric Cantor voted for the Paul Ryan budget that essentially raises taxes on the middle and lower class, while cutting them on this 2%? I’m sorry, but if there’s a class warfare going on, it is being caused by Eric Cantor and his party.

But this is to be expected. Cantor is another example of those who forget about history. We are talking about deficits here and not to long ago the right seemed to not mind those deficits one bit:

As President Bush sent his budget to Capitol Hill Monday, a split opened among congressional Republicans between those who are still deficit hawks and an increasing number, including top leaders, who no longer see deficits as the touchstone of fiscal probity.

Confronted with projected deficits until fiscal 2007, senior GOP lawmakers are backing away from long-standing rhetoric about the government’s duty to live within its means.

The switch – whether from conviction, circumstance, or both – is bringing charges of hypocrisy from Democrats.

Some lawmakers view the existence of deficits as a useful tool to keep spending down.

“I came to the House as a real deficit hawk, but I am no longer a deficit hawk,” said Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.). “I’ll tell you why. I had to spend the surpluses. Deficits make it easier to say no.”

Of course that was then and this is now. Just like then we saw a George Bush enter the White House with a surplus, which was quickly eliminated. If you ask the rewriters of history, they will say the depletion of the surplus was caused by 9/11, even though in reality it was depleted before that. As matter of fact the thing that caused the surplus given to us by Bill Clinton was Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, AKA “The Bush Tax Cuts”, which of course mostly benefited that top 2%.

But even more interesting is the timing of this op-ed. We are starting to hear details of President Obama’s job plan that is being released next month (still to late if you ask me!). One of the details we know is that Obama is going to ask for an extension of the payroll tax cut. Guess who’s against that one? The Republicans. So we have a Republican leader saying Obama wants to raise taxes, while his own party is pushing to raise taxes. How does that make sense? It doesn’t and it’s more of the partisan rhetoric I was talking about earlier.