A group of ten Republican senators wrote to President Obama in February in support of the very tax credit program they now oppose, Bloomberg News reports.
The letter, on Senator Orrin Hatch's (R-UT) website, and signed by 10 senators including Hatch, asks the president to "embrace" an extension of the research tax credit, saying that would lead to job creation, new investment in high-tech industry, an increase in the amount of new patents and, they claim, a $90 billion boost to the annual GDP. "We urge you to help us enact a strong research incentive to keep us first in the world by endorsing the strengthening of the credit as well as its extension," the letter reads.
Earlier this month, Obama proposed a version of that very program as part of his new package of economic stimulus initiatives.
And yet, Hatch, the lead signatory on that letter, said Obama's plan would be "job killing."
"I don't think anyone believes an administration that created these problems is going to be able to come up with effective solutions to get us out of them," he told the Salt Lake Tribune in response to the president's proposal. "That's like putting Bernie Madoff in charge of fixing your company's broken accounting system."
Bloomberg points out that in 2008, House minority leader John Boehner endorsed a plan, according to the congressman's website, to allow businesses to get a tax credit for "tangible property in the year it is purchased." Again, it's practically the same plan Obama proposed this month, which Boehner is now opposing.
Republicans have, for the most part, avoided engaging directly with the proposed tax credits, dismissing them on the basis that an extension of the Bush-era tax breaks for the wealthy is more urgent. Boehner said Obama is "missing the big picture."
"There's tremendous pressure on the Republican leadership, since things look so favorable for picking up seats, not to give the Democrats some type of advantage," Lee Edwards, of conservative think-tank Heritage Foundation, told Bloomberg.