Obama the Silent Tax Cutter

[Ian David]

Obama the Silent Tax Cutter
You wouldn’t know it, but he’s cut taxes more than George W. Bush did in his first term. But Obama doesn’t get credit because he hasn’t cut income taxes as broadly as Bush and Reagan did, says Eleanor Clift.
Sep 11, 2011 10:51 PM EDT

The one thing most voters know about President Obama is that he wants to raise taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations. Republicans have blocked him at every turn, but he continues to talk about changing public policy so that billionaires pay more.

Obama has invested so much time demonizing the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich that he has obscured the true narrative of his presidency. Class-war rhetoric aside, Obama is one of the most prolific tax cutters in recent history, with a record that puts him squarely alongside that of George W. Bush.

Crunching the numbers at the liberal think tank the Center for American Progress, analyst Michael Linden found that if one compares the cost of tax cuts in just the first four years of Bush’s term (2001–04) to the first four years of Obama's (2009–12), Obama’s tax cuts are bigger. The value of the Bush tax cuts were about $475 billion in those first four years, or about 1.1 percent of GDP. Obama’s total about $1 trillion, or 1.6 percent of GDP.

Obama has cut taxes to lower levels than Bush did, says Linden. This is because, of course, Obama thus far has extended all of the Bush tax cuts and then cut taxes on top of that. His original stimulus bill in 2009 had $290 billion in Making Work Pay tax cuts. His speech Thursday night before Congress advocated for another $175 billion in payroll tax cuts, which come on top of $110 billion from last December’s budget deal. Speeded-up expensing for business adds another $10 billion or so.

All in all, Obama is responsible for many billions in tax cuts, yet the popular perception is that he has raised taxes.

More:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/09/11/obama-tax-cutter-he-has-slashed-more-than-bush-did-in-first-term.html

[DJ13]

1. I dont know whether I should post this to the cons I run into on other boards and laugh

Or to scream that Obama is acting more like those cons than I like.

[saras]

2. Both, but not at the same time

When a company stops making a product I like, and replaces it with cheap toxic shit, getting them to lower the price isn't very high on my priority list. Getting the quality back is the priority.

The same goes for my taxes. I don't want to stop paying them, I want fools, tools, thugs, and Rethugs to stop stealing them.