Super committee: Let Bush tax cuts expire and your work will be done

[ashling]

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2011/1102/Super-committee-Let-Bush-tax-cuts-expire-and-your-work-will-be-done

$11.6 million every hour of every day. That’s how much money would be flowing into the US Treasury, but isn’t, as a result of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans.

*****
Recent analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service predicted that restoring higher tax rates on wealthy Americans – including raising the capital gains tax – would not harm small businesses or investment. And Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, said in testimony before the super committee that “the negative effects of the extra debt” from tax cuts for top earners outweighed any positive benefits to the economy from keeping those tax rates low.

On the other hand, programs like unemployment compensation make for efficient stimulus, because the least well off spend those cash benefits quickly, pumping needed funds into the economy.

Doing away with the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans would exceed the super committee’s deficit reduction goal and let us put federal dollars toward more urgent problems – especially the persistently high unemployment and underemployment that have pushed millions of Americans into poverty.

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. I think you mistake what their work is.

Their work is the privatization of SS and dismantling of Medicare.

Their work has just begun.

[SammyWinstonJack]

10. That's exactly right.

:thumbsup:

[DCKit]

21. I hate to have to agree, but I don't tell lies.

You nailed it.

[DirkGently]

2. Why, you'd hardly even need a Super Committee if that's all it takes ...

[closeupready]

3. These will be permanently extended in exchange for table scraps.

You just watch.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

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[Vincardog]

8. It is because when the top tax rate is over 50% you business owners are better off leaving the money

in your business (in the form of more workers and equipment) than in taking it out and sending all the taxes to Washington.
Now please explain to me how allowing the top 5% to bleed all the wealth from the economy is good for the economy?

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

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[Vincardog]

16. You are aware that Bill Gates and Microsoft have shifted their development to India aren't you? They

have pushed for more wage killing H1B visas' at every opportunity.
Sending whole industries to India, China, and Mexico is how the MAKE more PROFITS and BLEED the economy.
Are you under the mis-impression that capital formation is the reason we don't have full employment in this country?

What mythical business are you in that makes money without employees or equipment?

[Zorra]

9. The Bush Tax Cuts did not spur job growth and have been an economic

catastrophe for the people of the United States.

The hard, empirical facts:

The tax cuts did not spur investment. Job growth in the George W. Bush years was one-seventh that of the Clinton years. Nixon and Ford did better than Bush on jobs. Wages fell during the last administration. Average incomes fell. The number of Americans in poverty, as officially measured, hit a 16-year high last year of 43.6 million, though a National Academy of Sciences study says that the real poverty figure is closer to 51 million. Food banks are swamped. Foreclosure signs are everywhere. Americans and their governments are drowning in debt. And at the nexus of tax and healthcare, Republican ideas perpetuate a cruel and immoral system that rations healthcare -- while consuming every sixth dollar in the economy and making businesses, especially small businesses, less efficient and less profitable.

http://www.tax.com/taxcom/taxblog.nsf/Permalink/CHAS-89LPZ9

Again, the hard cold facts are in.

[Zorra]

5. +1

If that really is their "work".

We'll see when their "work" is done.

[TheWraith]

6. Not even close. The trillion plus they're supposed to find is in ADDITION to those expiring.

The expiration of the Bush tax cuts is already figured into the "floor" that the committee has to work with.

[Why Syzygy]

11. What's the source

for this bit of info? thanks

[jtown1123]

13. That's not what I've been seeing during their public hearings on CSPAN n/t

[redqueen]

7. K&R

[MrDiaz]

12. sorry buddy

The BUSH TAX CUTS did expire... What we have now are The OBAMA TAX CUTS since he signed them into law.

[lutefisk]

15. Ouch

Good observation.

[libinnyandia]

17. Obama Tax Cuts

THat is pretty simplistic way to putit. Beacuse of the completely dysfuntional system of government we have, in order to get the extension of unemployment benefits, the extension of the tax cuts was agreed to. And it isn't likely that Obama will allow the extensions again. We'll see.

[MrDiaz]

18. i understand what you are saying

I really do, but honestly he said during his campaign that he would not extend them and he did, I am sorry that I do not trust him when I'm told he won't extend them again. Samething with the wars, and torture, and money flowing towards large corporations. These are all the same reasons why I hated BUSH.

[libinnyandia]

20. It takes time

It took a while for us to get into this mess and it will take a while to turn it around. When 20 small states with the population of California hav 40 senators, many of whom are right wing, it is hard to change the situation in D.C. American voters have shown an ability to vote against their own best interests so many times. After what the GOP did to our country, it is hard to believe that it is possible that they will take over everything in 2012. I live in a congessional distict where the incumbent is in the top 1% of craziness and it will be hard to defeat him even though his district has changed. And the population of 1%ers is very low.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. They'll have to agree on the amount of the payoffs they'll get before their work is done.

"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress." Mark Twain