"Now that's Rich" - Krugman on Bush tax cuts and the deficit the GOP claims to give a damn about.

[JohnWxy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/opinion/23krugman.html

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So what’s the choice now? The Obama administration wants to preserve those parts of the original tax cuts that mainly benefit the middle class — which is an expensive proposition in its own right — but to let those provisions benefiting only people with very high incomes expire on schedule. Republicans, with support from some conservative Democrats, want to keep the whole thing.

And there’s a real chance that Republicans will get what they want. That’s a demonstration, if anyone needed one, that our political culture has become not just dysfunctional but deeply corrupt.

What’s at stake here? According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, making all of the Bush tax cuts permanent, as opposed to following the Obama proposal, would cost the federal government $680 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. For the sake of comparison, it took months of hard negotiations to get Congressional approval for a mere $26 billion in desperately needed aid to state and local governments.

And where would this $680 billion go? Nearly all of it would go to the richest 1 percent of Americans, people with incomes of more than $500,000 a year. But that’s the least of it: the policy center’s estimates say that the majority of the tax cuts would go to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent.
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[Jackpine Radical]

1. There's an easy fix that would let them keep the tax cuts for the rich.

Simply increase the taxes on the lower classes.

[fishcalledwanda]

2. Simply increase the taxes on the lower classes.

Not sure how you'd do that since the lower classes don't pay any income tax already. I used to make $12K per year and I got all my Federal and State income taxes back.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Then there's a lot of room for a tax increase, no?

The poor waste half their money on booze and cigarettes anyway.

At this point I'd best add a little something :sarcasm: to hold down on the number of responses from people who might take me as expressing a serious opinion here.

[JohnWxy]

4. I think the GOP consider anybody making less than $100,000 among the "lower class"