U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday called on the Democratic-controlled Congress to preserve tax cuts passed by the Bush administration, approve a free-trade agreement with Colombia, and drill for more domestic oil. “We must preserve the tax cuts delivered by President George W. Bush,” Cheney said in a speech to the board of directors of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Raising taxes would hurt the economy, the vice president said. “But that is precisely what is set to occur. … In six months will be the beginning of 2009, and the year after that the Bush tax cuts passed by Congress in our first term will expire,” he said. “Letting the tax cuts expire would hit Americans with a $280 billion per year tax increase,” Cheney said. “Understandably, the politicians who promise to get rid of the Bush tax cuts don't want to get into these details.” Cheney criticized House of Representatives Democrats over a proposed trade deal with Colombia, saying their leaders refused to bring the measure to a vote. “If the Democratic leadership in Congress persists in blocking the agreement, the result will be a tremendous setback for one of our closest allies in Latin America and severe damage to our nation's credibility in the region,” he said. With oil and gasoline prices skyrocketing, the vice president called for more domestic oil and natural-gas drilling, including in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). “We must produce more energy right here in the United States,” he said. “We are an economy that runs on petroleum.” “Yet on Capitol Hill, many have ignored the obvious and stood in the way of more domestic energy production,” Cheney said. “It's my own view that we should be drilling in ANWR in an environmentally responsible way.”
