Billionaire Astroturf Group Claims Tea Partiers Voted To Give Billionaires Tax Cuts

By Brad Johnson

Americans for Prosperity, the Astroturf group run by pollution billionaire David Koch, claims that voters rejected “tax-the-rich ideas” in the midterm elections. On NovemberSpeaks.com — a website launched the day after the election — AFP rallies its supporters to oppose any action by Congress during the lame-duck session that begins November 15, while Democrats still control the House of Representatives. Not only does AFP falsely claim that Democrats intend to pass “enormous Social Security tax hikes,” it also makes the absurd claim that the midterm elections were driven by popular support for the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires:

1. These are the first votes of the 2012 cycle and public anger is not going away. 2. You have no right to raise taxes on any American while the economy remains weak and after class-warfare, tax-the-rich ideas were decisively rejected in a national election. 3. It’s wrong to cheat the American people by voting to fund ObamaCare before a new Congress elected not to fund it can be seated.

In fact, voters from Wisconsin to New York, from California to Indiana, were overwhelmingly concerned about the state of the economy, much as they have been since 2008. They are worried because of the millions of people who lost jobs and homes during the Bush recession — not because David Koch, a 70-year-old with a net worth of twenty billion dollars, might see his taxes return to levels during the Clinton era. They believe that Congress isn’t doing enough to fix the economy — not that that Congress needs more vacations.

During the lame-duck session of the 111th Congress, elected officials still have the opportunity to get the United States working again with the enactment of progressive pro-jobs policies. However, the billionaire-driven tea party front groups — like FreedomWorks, which warns Democrats will use the lame duck session to “Pile on More Tax Hikes to Fund their Socialist Agenda!”, the Traditional Values Coalition, which says the lame duck agenda is “more spending, blanket amnesty for illegal immigrants, new taxes, and anti-Christian laws,” or American Solutions For Winning the Future, which calls the lame duck “the worst kind of political corruption” — want the corporate takeover of Congress to begin now, instead of next year.

Update Huffington Post's Sam Stein reports on the right-wing mobilization against the lame duck session:

"We do not feel it was right that a Congress defeated would come back and basically try and nullify the election. This lame duck session is a payback to various constituencies and a down payment for 2012," said Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition. "If Democrats begin pushing items, I think people are going to freak... We are also looking at this in long term, if there are people who go along with this charade, this scam, people will remember in two years. People are going to remember. This is not going away... You might even see pitchforks at the capital, who knows."