Deficit Panel Faces a Rift Over Who Ought to Pay

[alp227]

Source: NYT

With time running out, members of the special Congressional deficit committee are stymied by a deep rift over whether affluent Americans should help reduce the deficit by paying more taxes.

Republicans hold that the committee’s plan should consist predominantly of spending cuts, not tax increases, even proposing to lower income tax rates for everyone, including the rich. Democrats argue that this is unfair, fearing tax cuts would require cutting even more from government programs that primarily aid the poor.

The dispute involves complex tax policy details and revenue projections. But at its core, the fight is over who should be shouldering the burden of deficit reduction in a time of stagnating median incomes and growing income inequality.

The politically charged notions of economic equality and fairness have come to define the Congressional negotiations, which have gone on for weeks, and the year of deficit proposals, deficit talks and deficit commissions that came before them.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/us/politics/deficit-supercommittee-at-odds-on-how-to-cut.html

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Hilarious.

:eyes:


:puffpiece:

[DesertFlower]

2. why am i not surprised?

[Cirque du So-What]

3. If the deficit committee accomplishes nothing

it's far better than allowing the repugs to get their way. As I see it, a stalemate is superior to capitulation.

[pscot]

7. Seven trillions in deficit reductions over 10 years

if they do nothing. No link, but E.J.Dionne cited that number in the WaPo,

[TheWraith]

9. I'm not sure where he got that number, but I'm pretty sure it's wrong.

The automatic cuts are $1.2 trillion over 10 years.

[quakerboy]

10. Although

if they do nothing, we also have the Bush/Obama tax cuts for the rich expiring next year. Which will raise revenue considerably. I also vaguely recall something with the millionaire inheritance tax expiring as well, but I don't recall any specifics.

I don't know that these add up to that 7 trillion number, but i suppose they are fairly significant, or the pub's wouldn't have spent so much effort fighting for them.

[pscot]

14. Doing nothing nets 7.2 trillion

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/why-doing-nothing-yields-71-trillion-in-deficit-cuts/2011/11/16/gIQAsOdwRN_blog.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions

What would happen, however, if Congress did not do any of those things? Deficits would be more than $7.1 trillion lower over the next 10 years, and the budget would be nearly balanced in 2021. The savings from such inaction would be:

● $3.3 trillion from letting temporary income and estate tax cuts enacted in 2001, 2003, 2009, and 2010 expire on scheduled at the end of 2012 (presuming Congress also lets relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax expire, as noted below);

● $0.8 trillion from allowing other temporary tax cuts (the “extenders” that Congress has regularly extended on a “temporary” basis) expire on scheduled;

● $0.3 trillion from letting cuts in Medicare physician reimbursements scheduled under current law (required under the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate formula enacted in 1997, but which have been postponed since 2003) take effect;

● $0.7 trillion from letting the temporary increase in the exemption amount under the Alternative Minimum Tax expire, thereby returning the exemption to the level in effect in 2001;

● $1.2 trillion from letting the sequestration of spending required if the Joint Committee does not produce $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction take effect; and

● $0.9 trillion in lower interest payments on the debt as a result of the deficit reduction achieved from not extending these current policies.

[indepat]

16. But rethuglicans want to gut social security, Medicare, and Medicaid while giving

further tax cuts to the wealthy to pay for these depraved cuts. Time will un-mistakenly identify their willing accomplices, aiders, and abettors are. :patriot:

[No Elephants]

23. Most Democrats want to cut "entitlements," too.

[No Elephants]

22. Thanks, pscot. As usual, Americans are being misled, as when we are told bailout money was repaid.

[No Elephants]

21. If the Committee (possibly unconstitutional) does nothing, we get the Obama defaults.

[elleng]

4. No kidding.

The system is KAPUT!

[KansDem]

5. Let's put "economic equality and fairness" aside and attack the real reason for our deficits...

Two bogus wars based on lies that benefited corrupt and criminal government contractors, not to mention members of Congress and the Bush Administration...

Tax cuts for the wealthy...

F*ck the GOP's hysteria about "spending cuts."

...stymied by a deep rift over whether affluent Americans should help reduce the deficit by paying more taxes. That caused the deficit, assh*les!!!

[go west young man]

18. +10000

Fuck the GOP and their wars and their corporate masters.

[KansDem]

6. Self deleted

Double post...

[zbdent]

8. It cracks me up when the RWers use the "if you CONFISCATED EVERY DOLLAR of the wealthy,

it wouldn't eradicate the deficit/debt/whatever, so the plan has to be destroyed" ...

because, if you use their logic, then Religion should be abolished and destroyed, because, despite all the Churches' actions ... there is still evil ... all that praying hasn't eradicated evil ... (in fact, it's been co-opted to the point where the evil ones, Republicans, are courted by the churches in the U.S. ...)

[russspeakeasy]

11. and if we confiscated every boxing glove, there wouldn't be

any more fights. thanks zbdent..

[zeemike]

12. That got me to thinking.

If we did confiscate let's say everything over a million dollare....just what would that mean?
And I wonder if that excess we confiscated would be in the form of US bonds....because if it were the debt would automatically go down...It would be our debt we would be confiscating....or canceling.

[UpInArms]

13. they should ask Cheney and Raygun - their answer was

that "deficits don't matter"

[TomCADem]

15. Amazing, On Deficit Committee, Republicans Are Pushing For MORE Tax Cuts To Rich!

Of course Republicans can shamelessly seek to protect the rich. The American people have been conditioned to give them a free pass. The Tea Party gathers a few hundred people, and its a movement. But, several thousand OWS protestors are dismissed as a bunch of hooligans. When Republicans complain about the debt, but still push for tax cuts to the rich, they are given a free pass. Conversely, Democrats are dismissed as being beholden to special interests if they try to protect services that benefit the poor and middle class.

Mr. Toomey defended his plan in the Republicans’ weekly radio address on Saturday, but he also stressed that “the best way to revive the American economy is to reform our broken tax code.”

“We should seize this opportunity to throw out this unfair monstrosity and replace it with a system that will lower tax rates for every single American, simplify the code and get rid of the special-interest tax breaks and loopholes,” he said.

The Republicans’ deficit-reduction plan might wrench the country back toward the black. But it would do so on the backs of lower- and middle-income families, some economists say. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, for instance, estimated that a household earning more than $1 million per year would see a 4 percent increase in its after-tax income under the Toomey proposal. Meanwhile, because of the loss of deductions, some middle-class families could actually pay more in taxes.

“The combined result of such a package would be tax increases for lower- and middle-income people to finance further tax cuts (beyond those that the Bush tax cuts already provide) for wealthy people, with a small contribution to deficit reduction,” the budget center’s staff wrote.

[Scuba]

17. No one could have predicted this. n/t

sarcasm thingy

[high density]

19. Just more starve the beast BS

with the intended side effect of their rich buddies getting richer.

How do you work or negotiate with people who, as Krugman put it the other day, assert that "down is up?"

[Zorro]

20. Committee failure also gives Republicans top cover

They actually may be secretly relieved that the Bush tax rates will expire and government revenue will be increased, without having to be on the record for reneging on their anti-tax pledges.

And they can continue to bash the Democrats for being intransigent and unwilling to "compromise", and blame them for the rate increase.

They can also blame the Democrats for any DoD cuts based on committee failure, and continue to lay claim to their military support credentials.

[w4rma]

24. The belivability of their con is the number one priority to them, so yes - you are likely correct.nt