Per FNC’s Trish Turner:
Though the new special joint committee CAN consider revenue-raising measures (and there’s a LOT of talk abt letting the Bush tax cuts expire), most think it’s unlikely the panel will EVER be able to reach an agreement to effectively raise taxes. THAT, however, has not sat well w/ Dems. Here’s a comment, unsolicited, from Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson — sent to some of us Hill folk:
There’s a rumor going around that the Joint Committee would “effectively” be unable to raise revenues. That is false.
Jay Carney clarified this point at the podium today:
QUESTION: House Republicans seem to be arguing that — that this super committee is going to have a difficult time doing any type of reform, because it’s going to be scored by the CBO and the Bush tax cuts are set to expire in January 2013.
Could you comment on that?
CARNEY:
Well, I’ve seen that, and I would simply say that the suggestion that it is impossible for the joint committee to raise tax revenue is simply not accurate. It’s false.
If the joint committee decides, for example, that a balanced — that part of a balanced deal should be to eliminate tax subsidies for oil and gas companies or corporate jets, or if they decide to limit the value of itemized deductions for high-income earners, as the president has called for, they can do that, and they would raise revenues through doing that.
Second, nothing in the legislation that’s being considered by Congress specifies at all that the committee operate under any specific baseline. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.
