Tag Archives: Bush tax cuts

How many times can the Republicans count the same money toward the budget?

  By Liz Iacobucci | March 12, 2013 - 11:03 pm | , ,
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Paul_Ryan
  1. Back in 2001, the Bush Tax Cuts were supposed to be temporary. All the old tax laws were supposed to kick back in, starting in 2011. The fact that all those “old taxes” were going to come back into effect was what made the tax cuts “affordable”, back when Alan Greenspan was doing the math.
  2. Fast-forward to January 2013, as the federal government goes over the Fiscal Cliff. The Republicans finally agreed to some “new taxes” – even though the “new taxes” were less than one-third of the “old taxes” which had been “temporarily suspended” by the Bush tax cuts. (The 10-year cost of the Bush tax cuts was $2.2 trillion. The Fiscal Cliff deal was $617 billion over 10 years.)
  3. Now it’s March. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan just released his budget proposal. And gosh, there’s that money again — this time as “budgetary savings”. Here’s what The Hill had to say:

The Ryan budget counts the $600 billion in new tax revenue raised under the January “fiscal cliff” deal as budgetary savings. Ryan also counts hundreds of billions in additional revenue being raised due to rosier economic growth projections…

But wait. There’s more:

The budget would also cut the top individual tax rate from 39.6 to 25 percent as part of an overhaul of the tax code that would eliminate breaks within the system. Like last year’s budget, the overhaul would leave two remaining rates at 10 and 25 percent.

Are the Republicans still trying to increase tax revenues by cutting taxes on the rich?

Confused? Me too.

But here’s the most confusing thing. Ryan describes this as – direct quote, here – “A budget that addresses America’s needs.”

In order to address America’s needs, Ryan proposes to:

  • cut Medicare, Medicaid and other health care spending by $2.7 trillion over 10 years;
  • cut an additional $1 trillion from “other programs” including food stamps, student loans and federal employee pensions; and
  • add $500 billion to the Pentagon’s budget.

So… apparently, Paul Ryan thinks America needs a budget that increases spending on military contractors while cutting spending on actual citizens.

Meanwhile, around this great country of ours…

Sequestration cuts mean that 600,000 young children from low-income families are losing the free milk, fruits and vegetables they had been receiving through a U.S. government nutrition program.

It’s Lent, Rep. Ryan. Been to church lately?

“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Military contractors? or hungry kids? Where’s your tax money going?

 

The Action to urge lame ducks Bass, Guinta to get back to work

  By New Hampshire Labor News | December 27, 2012 - 1:47 pm | ,
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TheAction

Here is your chance to encourage your Congressional Representatives to get back to work and the Bush Tax Cuts.

Activists working with The Action, a joint project of Granite State Progress and the New Hampshire Citizens Alliance for Action, will demonstrate outside the Concord office of lame duck Rep. Charlie Bass and the Manchester office of lame duck Rep. Frank Guinta tomorrow, Friday the 28th, to demand that the House get back to work to stop the country from going over the fiscal cliff and protect the middle class by maintaining the current tax rates for 98% of Americans and 97% of small businesses.

The House, including lame ducks Bass and Guinta, remain on vacation while the Senate and Pres. Obama have returned to DC to try to find a solution to the on-going uncertainty created by the so-called ‘fiscal cliff.’ Activists from the Action will be urging Bass and Guinta to get back to work and help the president and Senate find a solution.  After the failure of Speaker Boehner’s ‘Plan B,’ the GOP leadership of the House has failed to offer any solutions while the Senate passed a bill over the summer to protect the middle-class. Speaker Boehner has refused to bring this bill to a vote.

The event will include a short speaking program and rally, followed by the building of snowmen to hold signs outside of the offices long after the action ends.

Who:             Activists with The Action, a joint project of NH Citizens’ Alliance for Action and Granite State Progress 

What:            Demonstration to urge Bass and Guinta back to work on fiscal cliff 

When:            Friday December 28th 12:00 noon  

Where:           Office of Congressman Bass, 114 North Main Street, Concord

Office of Congressman Guinta, 33 Lowell Street, Manchester

According to Bush Economists: His Tax Cuts Don’t Really Improve the Economy

  By Liz Iacobucci | December 18, 2012 - 11:12 am | ,
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best case scenario

Another thing to remember, as you’re watching the Fiscal Cliff negotiations:

Back in 2006, President George Bush asked the US Treasury Department to analyze what would happen to the economy if his tax cuts were made permanent.  Treasury economists conducted a “dynamic analysis” of the tax cuts, which was clearly intended to provide a political justification for making the tax cuts permanent.

best case scenario for economic impacts of Bush Tax Cuts

This is the Treasury’s “best case” scenario, which
is based on extremely optimistic assumptions.
Source of chart: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

But here’s what they found, instead:

even under favorable assumptions, making the tax cuts permanent would have a barely perceptible impact on the economy.  Under more realistic assumptions, the Treasury study finds that the tax cuts could even hurt the economy. In addition, the study casts doubt on claims that the tax cuts are responsible for much of the recent growth in investment and jobs.  It finds that making the tax cuts permanent would lead initially to lower levels of investment, and would result over the longer term in lower levels of employment (i.e., in fewer jobs).

What ?!?

The Treasury study finds that making the tax cuts permanent would reduce long-run labor supply (i.e., the number of people working and the number of hours they work) by 0.3 percent.

Three-tenths of one percent in today’s labor market translates into about 468,000 jobs.

If we end the Bush tax cuts, will those jobs come back?

The Magical Math of Boehner’s Congress: tax cuts don’t ‘cost’ anything

  By Liz Iacobucci | December 14, 2012 - 11:01 am | ,
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House Speaker John Boehner

House Speaker John Boehner
Another thing to remember, as you’re watching the Fiscal Cliff standoff:

When John Boehner was first elected Speaker of the House of Representatives, he changed the Rules.

Yes, the actual Rules that the House uses to structure debate on pending legislation.

One of those changes tells you a lot about Boehner’s priorities.

Boehner decreed that the House would not consider any additional federal spending without an identified “offset”.  For example, in order to increase spending on Medicaid, the House would have to “offset” that spending through cuts to other programs (for example, by cutting Food Stamps).

chart of factors contributing to federal debt

BUT – Boehner decided that tax cuts would be exempt from this. Under Boehner’s Rules, Congress could pass any tax cut proposal without having to “offset” – or even consider! – the revenue cost of the legislation.  [And yes, the Bush tax cuts are specifically mentioned, and specifically exempted from any Congressional consideration of their cost.]

In other words, under Boehner’s Rules, Congress will not add a dime to the deficit through increased spending.

But Congress can increase the deficit by any amount, as long as the money is being “spent” on tax cuts.

Yes, for more than a decade, our country has been borrowing to pay for the Bush tax cuts.  And under Boehner’s Rules, Congress can increase the deficit as much as it wants – as long as the borrowed money is paying for tax cuts, not spending.

Boehner’s “Magical Math” sheds a different light on the Fiscal Cliff “negotiations”, doesn’t it?

Speaker Boehner’s ‘New Offer’ is ‘to make top 2% tax cuts permanent’?!?

  By Liz Iacobucci | December 12, 2012 - 4:41 pm | , ,
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House Speaker John Boehner

Speaker Boehner

Was House Speaker Boehner joking?

The press is beginning to report the details of his latest “offer” in the fiscal cliff negotiations.

Guess what?

The GOP’s newest proposal is to make the Bush tax cuts for the top 2 percent of American… permanent.

Read about it here.

Guess the GOP still thinks they should be able to dictate the terms of the fiscal cliff “compromise”.  What a way to “fix” the crisis that Congress created.  Most of us are still hurting from one of the worst recessions in history; 12 million Americans are still unemployed.  Shouldn’t the GOP be concerned about something other than protecting the wealthy?

Fiscal Cliff: Who is “entitled” to what?

  By Liz Iacobucci | December 4, 2012 - 5:10 pm | ,
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Washington Post Poll September 11 2001

Something else to remember, as you’re watching news coverage of the Fiscal Cliff negotiations:

The tax rates that GOP Congressional leaders are trying so hard to defend are relatively recent – and the public has never supported them.

Washington Post Poll September 11 2001Just months after the first round of tax cuts was passed, in 2001, a Washington Post poll found that 57% of Americans wanted to roll back the tax cuts in order to preserve the federal budget surplus. (Yes, we had a surplus, back then.)

There’s more:

President Bush’s budget director had just warned congressional Republicans that “it was likely the government would tap the Social Security surplus this year, contradicting what he had been saying only a few weeks earlier.”

That same Washington Post poll found that “an overwhelming 92 percent of those surveyed said they opposed using Social Security funds” for things other than retirement benefits.

That was in 2001. Two years later, it was clear that the first round of Bush tax cuts hadn’t “jump-started” the economy – so the White House pushed through another round. This time, the bill had so little support it almost didn’t pass the Senate. GOP stalwarts John McCain, Lincoln Chafee and Olympia Snowe all voted against it. The Senate split 50-50 – and Vice President Dick Cheney cast the deciding vote.

That’s right… Dick Cheney was responsible for passing the tax cuts that House Speaker John Boehner is now trying so hard to defend.

“Entitlements”?

In recent weeks, Speaker Boehner has been talking about tax cuts for the wealthy as if they’re somehow sacred. He doesn’t seem to care what he has to sacrifice, to protect those high-income taxpayers.

Speaker Boehner is insisting on cuts to “entitlement programs” such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – before he will agree to any fiscal cliff “compromise”.

And if taxes are going to be raised – well, guess who Speaker Boehner expects to pay the price? Here’s Senate President Harry Reid’s analysis of Speaker Boehner’s latest proposal, earlier today:

“Their proposal would raise taxes on millions of middle-class families,” Reid said on the Senate floor. “Their plan to raise $800 billion in revenue by eliminating popular tax deductions and credits would reach deep into pockets of middle-class families.”

Speaker Boehner wants to cut “entitlements”?!

The working families of America have paid into the Social Security system for decades, expecting to get benefits back when we retire.

High-income taxpayers owe their low tax rates to former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Who, exactly, should be entitled to what?

Read more about the fiscal cliff here.

Working Family Advocates From 33 States Travel to Washington D.C. to Tell Congress: No Benefit Cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Let Top 2% Bush Tax Cuts Expire

  By New Hampshire Labor News | November 27, 2012 - 4:00 pm | ,
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NH - Facts

New AFL-CIO report shows millions of Americans harmed by any effort to cut Social Security

www.aflcio.org/StateFactSheets

Washington DC, Nov. 27– Local AFL-CIO leaders from across the country and other working family advocates from 33 states are in Washington on November 27 and 28 to ask members of Congress to let Bush tax cuts for the top 2% expire and say no to benefit cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.  They will be joined by hundreds of other advocates from other progressive and labor groups.

The lobby fly-in day coincides with a new state by state report released by the AFL-CIO detailing how many Americans across the country would be negatively impacted if Congress cuts benefits for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

The report notes the number of people per state who currently receive Social Security, including people with disabilities and children, as well as the number of people per state who get their health care coverage from Medicaid, including children and seniors. The report also highlights the amount of money the three programs combined deliver to each state’s economy and the economic costs to individuals if the Medicare eligibility age were increased.

“Working people, jobless people and retirees, who just voted for a middle-class economy, shouldn’t have to sacrifice their health care and retirement security so that the richest 2% can continue getting more tax breaks,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. “It’s time to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits that support our working families. It’s time to eliminate tax breaks for the richest 2%. That’s fair, reasonable, and good public policy. ”

On November 8, working families across the country held over 100 events targeting members of Congress in the Lame Duck session. Retirees, activists and members of progressive and faith communities gathered outside Congress members’ offices, health clinics, Social Security offices, construction sites and other community locations. According to Trumka, through November and December, activities in districts will continue to make sure working families’ voices are heard.

For a list of events so far, see:http://local.americawantstowork.org/protectourfuture

For more information about the report, see: www.aflcio.org/StateFactSheets

 

Promises, promises…

  By Liz Iacobucci | November 18, 2012 - 8:43 am | ,
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EGTRRA signing

A lot of promises were made, back when the Bush tax cuts were first enacted.

Back in 2001, the Heritage Foundation projected that:

  • “Under President Bush’s plan, an average family of four’s inflation-adjusted disposable income would increase by $4,544 in fiscal year (FY) 2011, and the national debt would effectively be paid off by FY 2010.”
  • “The plan would save the entire Social Security surplus and increase personal savings while the federal government accumulated $1.8 trillion in uncommitted funds from FY 2008 to FY 2011.” (“Uncommitted funds” is a fancy way of saying “surplus”.)

Did your family’s disposable income increase by $4,544 last year? (Wondering how the top 1% are doing? Browse through “How to Spend It” here.)

Has the national debt been paid off?
Is the Social Security surplus “safe”?
Has your family been able to increase your savings?

What happened to the $1.8 trillion federal surplus that was supposed to appear, after the tax cuts stimulated the economy and the “job creators” created jobs?

Lots of promises were made, back when Republican Leadership was forcing the Bush tax cuts through Congress. [Historical footnote: both the 2001 tax cuts and the 2003 tax cuts were passed in a way that made them exempt from Senate filibuster. In 2003, the Senate vote was 50-50 after Republican Senators John McCain, Lincoln Chafee and Olympia Snowe voted “nay”; and Vice President Dick Cheney cast the deciding vote to enact the bill.]

Those promises never panned out. But now, Republican leaders in Congress are acting as if high-income taxpayers are somehow entitled to the low tax rates they have been enjoying for the last decade

What’s up with this idea of “entitlement”?

Millions of American workers have paid into the Social Security system for decades, based on the promise that we would get Social Security benefits when we retired. Isn’t it reasonable for all of us workers to think we’re entitled to the benefits we contributed to? But now, Congressional Republicans are insisting on “adjustments to eligibility and benefits in the Social Security and Medicare programs.”

One man – Dick Cheney – cast the deciding vote to give the wealthy their tax cuts; but now Congressional Republicans think those tax cuts are somehow sacred. Just two days ago, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told a hometown newspaper that any “fiscal cliff” deal “must not raise taxes on wealthy.”

Sense of “entitlement”?

“Gifts” from the government?

The Bush tax cuts were supposed to “jump-start” our economy. They were supposed to “trickle down” and enrich working families. They were supposed to eliminate the country’s debt. They didn’t do any of that – but now Congressional Republicans want us to pay the price, through cuts to our Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Didn’t they get the memo? Romney-Ryan lost.