“60 Minutes” grilled Majority Leader Eric Cantor on why he is Republican.
“You’ve taken a lot of criticism from American Jews for being a Republican… They’re very critical of you.”
Maybe because democratic policies are bankrupting the country?… Maybe because 50% of Democrats oppose Israel.
How dare he stray off the plantation.
Lesley Stahl profiles House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. In this wide-ranging interview, Cantor describes his childhood in Virginia, his identity as a Jewish Republican, and his current reputation as a legislative “Dr. No.” Despite mounting public frustration with partisan bickering in Congress, Cantor says he is willing to “cooperate” with Democrats, but not “compromise” his principles…
President Obama has made Eric Cantor the face of what he sees as Republican inflexibility. Cantor has fought the president’s policies at every turn, including using his authority as majority leader to prevent a vote on the president’s jobs bill.
[Obama: I’d like Mr Cantor to come down here to Dallas and explain what exactly in this jobs bill does he not believe in?]
Cantor would say what he doesn’t believe in is spending government money to create jobs, but the president’s keying on him has taken its toll. He’s been picketed and heckled.
He has fallen in the polls and so has his party…
… Given his upbringing and his marriage, Cantor says he’s nothing like the intractable obstructionist the Democrats say he is.
Cantor: Nobody gets everything they want. And so–
Stahl: That’s just exactly your image: that you want only what you want…
He’s worried about the Republican’s hardline image and also his own which is why he invited us home to see the other side of Eric Cantor.
Cantor: So we’re countin’ on you to help us get the reality out to address that.
…As the only Jewish Republican in Congress, he says if ever there was anyone who knows how to go along to get along it’s Eric Cantor: a guy who grew up in the heavily Christian South.
Cantor: I’m sure there were times at which I was very aware of not being like others.
At home in Richmond, Virginia, he kept kosher and studied Hebrew; but at his elite private school, as one of only a handful of Jewish students, he just tried to blend in.
Stahl: But you know, your idol, as I’ve read anyway, was Ronald Reagan. And he compromised.
Cantor: He never compromised his principles.
Stahl: Well, he raised taxes and it was one of his principles not to raise taxes.
Cantor: Well, he– he also cut taxes.
Stahl: But he did compromise–
Cantor: Well I —
[Press Secretary: That just isn’t true. And I don’t want to let that stand.]
And at that point, Cantor’s press secretary interrupted, yelling from off camera that what I was saying wasn’t true.
Stahl, was not being honest. When Ronald Reagan took office, the top individual tax rate was 70 percent and by 1986 it was down to only 28 percent. All Americans received at least a 30 percent tax rate cut. Democrats like to play with the numbers to pretend that Reagans tax increases equalled his tax cuts. Of course, this is absurd.
UPDATE: Unfortunately, Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly continued to misrepresent Reagan’s record on tax cuts. It’s just soooo difficult for liberals to understand that tax cuts work. Sad.
