Salon.com > Bush Tax Cuts

Dumb tweet of the day: “Here comes tax MAN”

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 22:28:00 +0000

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Poll: GOP would accept tax hike

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 17:06:00 +0000

A new poll from NBC News/WSJ finds that Americans are willing to accept higher tax rates and entitlement cuts, as long as it means Congress will strike a deal to avoid the "fiscal cliff."

Sixty-seven percent of those surveyed said they'd accept "cuts to an important federal government program you care about or an increase in federal taxes" in order for an agreement to be reached.

A larger number, 76 percent, said they would accept higher taxes as part of the deal. That includes 61 percent of Republicans who said they would accept tax increases to avoid the "fiscal cliff" cuts.

The CEO who says tax cuts don’t create jobs

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 21:45:00 +0000

If you listen to Republicans, you get the impression that raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans or on capital gains will kill tens of thousands of jobs and tank the economy. "200,000 jobs are going to be destroyed ... this kills the middle-class jobs that are created by those small businesses," Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio told Fox News yesterday about President Obama's proposed tax hikes.

But at least one of those job creators says that's bunk. Bill Harris, the former CEO of PayPal and Intuit (the giant software company whose main clients are small business), and the current CEO of Personal Capital, recently wrote a column in Forbes headlined "Tax Cuts Don't Create Jobs." We spoke with him to find out more and he told us marginal tax rates simply aren't the driving concern for companies when they're thinking about creating jobs.

Why do you say tax cuts don’t create jobs?

Report: Latest GOP deal floated permanent extension of Bush tax cuts

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 20:04:00 +0000

The "fiscal cliff" talks have reportedly stalled because the latest Republican proposal involved permanently extending the Bush tax cuts, according to a CNN source.

From CNN's Dana Bash:

One of the reasons Tuesday night's conversation between President Barack Obama and John Boehner did not go well was because the GOP House speaker sent the White House a fiscal cliff proposal calling for a permanent extension of Bush-era tax cuts for all Americans, including for incomes in the top 2%, a Democratic source said Wednesday.

Democrats took the GOP counter offer to mean that tax reform cannot result in any marginal rates higher than current law, according to the source, who said Boehner's proposal was a "sign" to Democrats that "Boehner and the GOP are unwilling or unable to do any sort of deal that can pass the Senate or be signed by the president."

That may be why Boehner told Republicans not to make plans over the holidays.

Obama has maintained that any deal will have to include an increase of taxes on the top 2 percent, and, according to recent polling, the majority of voters are with him.

Rich people: Raise my death taxes!

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 17:25:00 +0000

While other critical tax issues have been largely overshadowed by the looming expiration of the Bush income tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, Congress is also debating what to do about another massive giveaway to the rich implemented under George W. Bush -- a dramatic cut, followed by the complete elimination of the estate tax, which conservatives derisively refer to as the “death tax.”

In 2001, Bush signed a law that gradually lowered the estate tax rate until 2010, at which point it was completely repealed. Congress extended the tax temporarily at the end of year (leaving people who died that year off the hook) and set the rate like this: The first $5 million of wealth go completely untaxed, while wealth above that line is taxed at just 35 percent. That temporary patch will expire at the end of the year, and if Congress does not act, rates revert to the much higher Clinton levels: An exemption on just the first $1 million and a 55 percent tax on all income above that.

The most important fiscal cliff issue no one is talking about: Payroll taxes

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 19:10:00 +0000

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the fiscal cliff is all about what happens to the tax rate for the richest 2 percent of Americans, given the focus on the Bush cuts, but there’s another tax cut set to expire at the end of the year that will hurt far more people and very few people seem to care. And Democrats are committing political malpractice by not taking up the issue and bludgeoning Republicans with it every day.

The payroll tax holiday gives every single American who collects a paycheck a tax cut, $1,500 a year on average, and is one of the best ways to stimulate the economy. But it looks like Congress will let it expire on Dec. 31, even if they reach a deal on the Bush tax cuts.

First, some background. The holiday, which was created in late 2010 after a similar tax credit in President Obama’s stimulus package expired, cuts by 2 percent workers’ payroll tax bill, the tax that funds Social Security. The standard rate is 6.2 percent, but the temporary holiday dropped that to 4.2 percent, which works out to somewhere between a $400 cut for someone making $20,000 a year up to a $2,000 cut for someone making over $100,000.

Numbers not on GOP’s side

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 17:35:00 +0000

With no compromise in sight on fiscal cliff negotiations, the White House said in no uncertain terms yesterday that they are prepared and willing to go over the metaphorical cliff if Republicans refuse to allow the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans to expire. Politically, that's a more appealing option for Democrats than Republicans, who have been boxed in. On one side, they have an emboldened president's insistence that tax rates must go up, but on the other side they have their vows to the base, via Grover Norquist's pledge, not to raise rates. Something's got to to give.

Without a doubt, Republicans have been dealt the weaker hand here, as a look at poll numbers from the past few weeks demonstrates. "[We're in] a terrible position because by default the Democrats get what they want," Oklahoma Republican Rep. James Langford told NPR. And if there were ever a time in John Boehner's tenure as House speaker to concede big, now is it. Rank-and-file members seem to have recognized the bind they're in and are ready to back Boehner, even if he cuts a deal they're not thrilled with. Here's the story, in numbers:

Obama’s humblebrag: How to tell everyone you’re rich

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 17:04:00 +0000

Mitt Romney was never able to find the right way to talk about his money, but Barack Obama is happy to tell you that he's rich, again and again. That is, if he's asking for higher marginal taxes on the rich, whose ranks Obama first joined with book-related earnings and then with his $400,000 White House salary.

Obama said it again this week: "What the country needs … is an acknowledgment that folks like me can afford to pay a little bit higher rate," he told Bloomberg News. He's been saying it at least since April 2011, when he was pushing the "Buffett rule": "I don't need another tax cut," he said. "Warren Buffett doesn't need another tax cut."

Let the Bush tax cuts expire!

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 19:09:00 +0000

What’s the best way to pressure Republicans into agreeing to extend the Bush tax cuts for the middle class while ending them for the wealthy?

The president evidently believes it’s to scare average Americans about how much additional taxes they’ll pay if the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule at the end of the year. He plans to barnstorm around the country, sounding the alarm.

The White House has even set up a new Twitter hashtag: “My2K,” referring to the extra $2,200 in taxes the average family will pay if all the Bush cuts expire. Earlier this week the Council of Economic Advisers published a report detailing the awful consequences of going over the so-called “fiscal cliff.”

Excuse me for sounding impertinent, but isn’t this fear-mongering likely to buttress Republican arguments that the Bush tax cuts should be extended for everyone — including the rich? Republicans will say (as they have a thousand times before), the rich are the “job creators,” so we should tackle the budget deficit by cutting spending rather than raising anyone’s taxes.

4 key issues in the “fiscal cliff” showdown

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 17:34:00 +0000

The very next day after the election, congressional leaders held dueling press conferences in Washington to start the stampede to the fiscal cliff. But December 31st is not a cliff; it’s a slope. Actually, the better metaphor is a showdown between two different visions for the country – a showdown that will not only take place over the next four months, but will dominate debate about the economy for the next four years.

It is true that if Congress allows the tax hikes and spending cuts to be fully implemented, the economy will go into a tailspin, with four million people forced out of their jobs. But that won’t happen on January 1st. The impact of both tax hikes and spending cuts take time to accumulate. If Congress acts on taxes early in the year, it can make lower tax rates retroactive to the beginning of the year. Between federal contracts already in place and the time it takes to implement program cuts, budget cuts too will take a while before they slow down the economy. Better for Congress to walk down and back up the slope early in the year than be stampeded into bad decisions.