Since I spent some time examining how Todd Akin (R-2) has tried to spin his support for extending the tax giveaways for the super-rich with his on-going hectoring about deficits, I thought I would mosey over to look at the response to the issue by another Missouri GOP favorite, Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-9).  And guess what I found out? Good old, by-by-the-GOP-rule-book Blaine is hewing close to the Crossroads GPS strategy outlined earlier today – feign outrage and talk lots and lots about jobs, small businesses and the recession:

Today is a disappointing day for our job-creating small business owners, who are greatly affected by the job-killing tax increases that Democrats support, which will take effect in less than a month. Today’s job-destroying vote will continue to subject our small businesses to damaging tax hikes, which will only perpetuate the ongoing uncertainty that small business folks have been dealing with for months. My pledge to the people of the 9th District was to oppose all tax increases and to cut spending during these tough economic times. …

Once again, loud and clear – Blaine Luetkemeyer voted for tax increases for 98% of the American taxpayers, and his “pledge” to oppose “all” tax increases amounts to a willingness to sacrifice that 98% for the sake of those with enough of the green to fork over the big campaign moolah. Nothing more, nothing less.

But Luetkemeyer is right in line with the recommendations suggested by Glen Bolger in a Crossroad GSP GPS funded report on how to obfuscate those facts: Pretend, despite clear evidence to the contrary, that the tax giveaways for the wealthy would affect a majority of small businesses, and that they could have more than a minimal stimulative effect in general. He also deftly uses Bolger’s suggested ploy of conflating the tax giveaways for the wealthy with the middle class tax cuts put forward by the Democrats, creating an image of himself as a fighter for equal treatment for all, even those who have had an unequal advantage for the past eight years at least.

Just in case anyone’s inclined to take the equality bait, it is useful to look at this chart (source: The Joint Committee on Taxation, via Ezra Klein) that shows just how unequal the middle tax cuts vs. the wealthy tax giveways really are:

Somehow makes Luetkemeyer’s (and Akin’s) rhetoric about about extending the tax cuts for all “equally” seem just a little hollow.