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Congress: Let My Tax Cut Expire
As Congress begins debate over what to do about the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy, I hope it has the courage to let my tax cuts expire. It would be the right thing to do.
Back in 2001, Congress voted for President Bush's tax program, including substantial tax reductions for those of us with incomes over $250,000. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, our nation had to borrow more than $700 billion over the last decade to pay for those cuts.
When these tax cuts were enacted, congressional forecasters projected budget surpluses totaling more than $5 trillion over the ensuing decade. In the meantime, as we all know, the fiscal situation of the nation has dramatically deteriorated.
But the cuts were never meant to be permanent. They are now due to expire at the end of this year, but some lawmakers want to preserve them. I would pay less in taxes if Congress extended my tax cuts, but as a citizen I think it would be irresponsible.
Retaining the tax cuts for another 10 years would cost our nation $826 billion. No one is suggesting I pay back the tax breaks I've already received, but we cannot afford to continue them.
The good news is that there were benefits built into the Bush tax program that affected middle-income families, too. Congress should take steps to preserve these tax cuts, because for half a century we've been shifting taxes off the wealthy and onto the middle class. We've cut top income tax rates and taxes on capital gains and inheritances, tilting the system in favor of taxpayers like me and further exacerbating the great inequalities in wealth and income in our society.
Preserving the cuts for middle-income families and eliminating tax breaks for incomes over $250,000 is a solid first step toward rebalancing our nation's tax code.
No one likes to talk about taxes in a positive light, but the truth is that our nation has built a remarkable marketplace for enterprise and wealth creation. Taxes paid for the public investments in research, education, infrastructure and technology that made this possible. They paid for law enforcement and orderly marketplaces. These public investments buoyed my personal opportunities and wealth. I am certain they have done the same for millions of other Americans.
We should remember this on Tax Day, as Congress debates what to do about tax cuts. Some of our leaders will argue that allowing the tax cuts for the wealthy to expire will have an adverse effect on the economy, job creation, and that it will punish success. They will argue instead for deeper spending cuts in Medicare, Social Security, education, and social spending.
But our country needs the estimated $45 billion in annual revenue that these taxes would generate.
Those of us who have benefited the most during abundant times have a duty to our country during lean times.
Yes, I can voluntarily pay more taxes, just as I choose to give more money to charity. But that won't address the magnitude of the problem we are leaving to future taxpayers. The issues before Congress are the structure of the tax code and the question of how we, as a nation, take responsibility for the reckless debts of the past.
Congress can take a responsible step in the right direction: Let my tax cut go.
- Posted in
23 Comments so far
Show AllIt's way past time that these tax cuts be rescinded!!!
If you're a member of Congress and want the middle class vote, don't ask average working citizens like myself to pay ever-increasing taxes until these tax cuts for the wealthy are repealed!!!
We're watching closely how members of Congress are voting!!!
The article fails to mention an even more disturbing long-term trend.
In 1970 corporations paid 29% of US income taxes. In 2008 corporations paid 6%of US incomes taxes and within a decade they will pay none.
Until corporations are once again paying 29% of US income taxes you can count on higher taxes and fewer services for you and I.
Yes , but if a given country raises taxes on a Corporation, under various free trade agreements that Corporation is allowed to pick up and move to a Mexico or a Haiti where they will see a red carpet rolled out for him and STILL have full access to the US Market.
If you happen to be a "poor worker" wanting to earn a beter wage or pay less taxes, you are greeted at borders with armed guards and dogs and labled an "Illegal Immigrant".
The simple fact is that in the 1970s the Corporations did not have in place all those "Free trade agreements" and Institutions like the WTO. Until THOSE are repealed and it as hard for them to relocate as it is a REAL person, raising taxes will do no good at all.
Correct. We really need to return to circa 1945 when FDR was still in the driver's seat & protectionism was the rule & a credit-based fixed exchange rate was to be enacted (acing out the rise of the global bankster syndicate) & a SERIOUS New Deal/Marshall Plan was going to be enacted for the entire world of former colonies & WWII-ravaged nations. Haitians, Mexicans, 3rd worlders, etc... would have their own factories, farms, developing middle-class, etc...It can still go that way. It's morally imperative that it does go that way. We're in danger, due to policies pursued since the death of FDR, of truely collapsing into a new dark age; a general, civilizational-breakdown crisis.For example; we don't even have the means to go to the moon anymore, or to build the containers for nuclear reactors (we'd have to import them now). The point is that knowledge & technology is LOST if not vigorously pursued & expanded & passed on, & THAT is the ESSENCE of a dark age.
Let's take this train of thought further. Corporations could pass the taxes on to the consumers which isn't necessarily bad because you can avoid paying taxes on your income or investments but, this way, if you buy junk you help support this country. Unfortunately, to do this the corporation must raise prices which makes them less competitive with the rest of the world.
Unless we're willing to address this with appropriate import duties, at some point, we have to balance wanting inexpensive things with wanting a living wage for all people. As long as there are countries with slave wages, in a globalized competitive market, there will continue to be downward pressure on wages in the U.S. Less wages means less willingness or even ability to pay taxes. For a while we made up for declining wages with increasing borrowing. The Fed's only strategy seems to be to try and jump-start the home-as-ATM party.
In the long term, unless we are able to address global imbalances, it's as Ross Perot said, "...the giant sucking sound.." of jobs, wages, and the perks of U.S. citizenship we've come to expect going down the drain.
Good news. Here in Canada our very own "Fraser Institute" did another of their oftimes quoted studies.
Amongst their claims.
The Stimulus did nothing to create jobs or add to GDP growth. All the Job creation Canada has had over the past months along with any growth was due strictly to the Investments made by private enterprise.
In order to move forward , the Government of Canada has to lower taxes again particularly on the wealthy and cut program spending on social programs to balance the budget.
It is their claim this will lead to greater tax revenues and even more growth thus enriching everyone.
Meanwhile in a mad search for Revenues the Premier of BC announced the construction of our provinces largest Casino. He enthusiasticly claimed this would create more jobs and help enhance Vancouvers reputation as a tourist destination.
(He failed to mention the amount of money that flows into the coffers via taxing of the gambling industry)
This was the Same Gordon Campbell who some years ago slammed the then party of power the NDP to daring to suggest the expansion of casino's.
He righteously claimed that "When I am Premier I want to build a province for WINNERS not for LOSERS" and suggested a Government that relied on Gambling for revenues lacked vision.
"In order to move forward , the Government of Canada has to lower taxes again particularly on the wealthy and cut program spending on social programs to balance the budget. It is their claim this will lead to greater tax revenues and even more growth thus enriching everyone."
This is the sort of thing we keep hearing from Republicans. The Reagan tax cuts certainly did not help me. My income was flat for those years but my taxes went up.
The problem with these proposals is that they assume that "generation of wealth" is equivalent to "stimulating the economy." In fact, the generation of wealth for the last decade has been concentrated in the investment banks which do not produce anything "productive" in the traditional sense. All they create is money for themselves. I don't see much of it trickling down to the rest of us.
It now seems to me that to generate wealth takes large numbers of scientists,engineers,technicians,tool & die techs,machinists,mechanics...& the same kind of line-up on the agri-bio side of creative/productive activity: & all of this effort applied to some vision of "bettering our conditions" in a real tangible physical way. Simply upgrading & maintaining our extensive infrastructure would go a long way towards full & useful employment. Maybe canada's bankers know a wise business plan when they see one & invest accordingly (they obviously have no natural monopoly to such a visionary skill-set). The vision thing is uppermost, with advanced labor skills being next in importance. Wallstreet-style casino gamblers are just a leechy drag on this whole process.
I say yes to expiring those Bush tax cuts but one question remains. What to do with that revenue? I don't trust Congress to spend wisely.
Well that is something that is prospectively IN our hands (unlike banks & corporations & such). If we can elect wise statesmen/wise spenders, then we'll be in excellent shape.
Let's play Wall Street and do a little casino gambling. I'll bet those whores in the U.S. Congress will continue these Tax breaks for wealthiest 1% and impose an additional tax on the middle class. Oh, I forgot , they just did impose an additional tax on the middle class with "Health Care Reform".
Never Mind.
Yes. the leona helmsley "little people" tax. Isn't it pathetic that some rich guy has to BEG congress to let his tax cut expire?
I would go MUCH further than letting these tax cuts expire. I would repeal the Reagan tax cuts and put the rich back at a 72% tax rate over $3 million. In fact, I would repudiate the ENTIRE Alzheimer's economics system that Reagan put us on. It has been just what I thought it would 30 years ago: A COMPLETE disaster.
It bothers me to no end when I hear, like I did from a friend a few weeks ago, that we need to give business and the rich even MORE tax breaks so they will give us jobs. I have to ask people like him how that has been working for THEM, since we've been doing it for 30 years, now, and we've lost 3 MILLION jobs just in the last 9 years!
From the 1930s until the beginning of the 1980s we had the strongest, most secure middle class in the world's history. Starting with the Reagan era, and rushing like a torrent during the W years, we lost jobs, wages, benefits, and security. The middle class the dems built up over 50 years went away within 3 decades of republican chicanery. It will take another FDR and another 50 years to give us even a HOPE of return to stability. But back in the 30's we had an infrastructure that we could use to rebuild ourselves. Now, after the republican screwing of the last 30 years, those things are GONE, shipped off to foreign lands. We now have to rebuild even our factories before there are even PLACES to go for a job.
The righties and the rich have screwed us all for profit, and they have run off with our jobs, wages, benefits and our children's futures. All for profit. To HELL with profits, and to hell with them. PEOPLE are what should matter, not PROFIT.
Let the W tax cuts expire. Repeal the Reagan tax cuts. And in fact, repeal the KENNEDY tax cuts and put the rich back to a 91% rate with NO loopholes. They have benefited more than anyone else, it's time they pay that back to the PEOPLE they stole it all from. And that would be US.
Time for this class war to end, and there is only ONE way for it to that works for US. Time for the rich to THANK us for LETTING them keep ANYTHING, and for business to return to being our SERVANT, not our owner.
I'll second that! Also, restore the ESTATE tax.
I agree with upending the Reagan tax cuts, but not the Kennedy cuts. It would be too revolutionary to repeal everything. You should add that the rich did very well for themselves during the FDR age (1930-1980): they were hardly what you'd call 'pinched'.
Gene Mulligan writes a good article and I believe he is being truthful, but he's a retired investment manager after all. People who have money, or deal with money have done very well since Reagan. People who deal with just about anything else have not done well, indeed have gone backwards. And the finance sector has grown to become a major part of the economy making, what exactly? Deals? Tax breaks? Bubble inflation? Credit default swaps? Does anyone know what the finance sector MAKES that actually has real value??
Bush said we live in an 'ownership society', by which he meant we were all investment bankers now, swapping and trading houses like they were financial derivatives. Well, in such a society where we all know the cost of everything and the value of nothing, its the veteran gamblers like Gold-in-Sachs that end up with everything: the house always wins.
Take the money, invest in the long-lead items that corporations are afraid to (3 month profitability horizon), like renewable energy, etc. and put Americans to work MAKING stuff again, rather than just trading stuff toward the 'big score'.
I liked Volker's answer: The only useful invention to come out of finance over the last 30 years is the ATM. As an old electrician, this post-reagan world makes no sence at all to me. I read that old book "Megatrends" back in 1980 (I think).Even then I was thinking "there's gotta be some guy at a workbench SOMEWHERE, banging out widgets to store in some warehouse SOMEWHERE, for this book to even BEGIN to make some sense".
I always figured that without either a good or a service, you didn't have a business. Imagine my surprise when I kept hearing "experts" talking about how the old rules didn't apply anymore, and we were in a whole new economy. I kept saying, just like I had for 10 years at that time that we were in for a huge fall when the shit hit that fan. Now here we are, and the fan is pretty nasty, now.
There was no new economy, it was all a shell game played by those who WANTED to destroy us and steal everything they could along the way.
Bankers, insurance companies, the stock market, all of this is just a huge ponzi scheme run by those with more money than brains. It's all just a three card monty game and you and I are screwed from the start. The problem is that OUR greed isn't nearly as strong as theirs is, and we just don't have the same avarice they do. It's what keeps them rich and us being honest, thinking that an honest day's pay for an honest day's work shouldn't be a sucker bet.
I lost a lot of money in the stock market before I finally heeded some very good advice: "if YOU would buy what that company is selling, then buy the stock. Otherwise, pass"
Who knew that an entire country could set itself up to sell vaporware? Dean Baker says housing is still overvalued by 15%, but my go-go economist friend says 'buy now'. Buy WHAT now? This country doesn't MAKE anything! I get that the GDP is now growing (thanks to massive intervention in the finance sector): does the GDP get that this probably means that IT doesn't mean anything? Economists got hooked on the idea of the 'money supply' during the Reagan years. As long as the 'money supply' was growing, it didn't matter that we actually didn't make anything. Well, here we are 30 years later and the verdict is in (and is about to become undeniable): if the money supply is growing, but you don't actually make anything, its because the money supply has no value. Its worthless. Inflation, here we come. Followed by? (didn't Germany do this in the '30s?)
I've started calling Reaganomics "trickle-down stupidity".
What the hell is the "middle class"? These conversations are virtually useless without some definition of this ambiguois demographic. My mother, for instance, is the homemaker widow of a pensioned firefighter who managed his way to department management before retiring. She receives widows fixed pension, has modest savings, and recieves SS and Medicare benefits. She considers herself "middle class". I, on the other hand, am a college educated professional making six figures. We live in the same neighborhood, five blocks from each other. I, too, consider myself "middle class".
"Some of our leaders will argue that allowing the tax cuts for the wealthy to expire will have an adverse effect on the economy, job creation, and that it will punish success."
What bull$hit!
Follow the "tax cuts" that were supposed to create jobs in this country and it shouldn't come as any surprise that the money didn't create jobs here, but instead, was used to invest in global stock markets and to create more industries and jobs in China and other countries where mega-profits were made at the expense of American workers.
And to add fuel to the fire, the serpents on Capitol Hill gave us the bill to bail-out the same pigs that offshored our jobs and imported immigrants to steal more jobs away from U.S. citizens. This of course wouldn't have been possible without the help of the serpents who are solely responsible for "deregulating" corporate conduct and giving them $incentives to move our jobs out the country.
"Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion." – Dwight D. Eisenhower
I don't know where people get the idea that someone is "importing" immigrants to "steal our jobs". Americans want to sit on their asses in an office, not work in the fields. When my parents were growing up, high school students got job picking crops. Even when I was in 6th and 7th grades, classes started in late August, and they closed the schools for a week when the apples were ready to pick. The fact is, Americans won't do those jobs anymore. The kids want a job at McDonald's.
I used to drive by a place where you could pick up day laborers, and most of them were Mexicans. I also used to drive by a couple of soup kitchens, and most of those people were whites.
So who are the lazy ones getting welfare? The Mexicans are coming here to work, because there are no jobs in Mexico ... NAFTA has destroyed the subsistence farmers.
It's already a lost cause. This country will either morph into a full-scale Fascist-style dictatorship, complete with stormtroopers & concentration camps, or financially collapse into a hyperinflationary scenario resembling Weimar Germany in 1922. Get out if you can .......