meme
New member
the NY slimes has a sane moment..
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By JACKIE CALMES
Published: July 31, 2009
WASHINGTON — Behind Democrats’ struggle to pay the $1 trillion 10-year cost of President Obama’s promise to overhaul the health care system is their collision with another of his well-known pledges: that 95 percent of Americans “will not see their taxes increase by a single dime” during his term.
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
President Obama has promised that 95 percent of Americans “will not see their taxes increase by a single dime” in his term.
This will not be the last time that the president runs into a conflict between his audacious agenda and his pay-as-you-go guarantee, when only 5 percent of taxpayers are being asked to chip in. Critics from conservative to liberal warn that Mr. Obama has tied his and Congress’s hands on a range of issues, including tax reform and the need to reduce deficits topping $1 trillion a year.
“You can only go to the same well so many times,” said Bruce Bartlett, a Treasury official in the Reagan administration.
In the budget, Mr. Obama and Congress have already agreed to let the Bush tax cuts for the most affluent expire after 2010, as scheduled, but to extend them for everyone else. The top rates, now 33 percent and 35 percent, will revert to Clinton-era levels of 36 percent and 39.6 percent.
The critics do not have a beef with the government’s taking more from the wealthiest Americans, especially given the growing income gap between the rich and everyone else. They object to doing so for health care over other pressing needs.
“I want to tax the rich to reduce the deficit,” said Robert D. Reischauer, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office who heads the Urban Institute, a center-left research group. Similarly, Mr. Bartlett, a conservative analyst who often chastises Republicans for their antitax absolutism, supports overhauling the tax code to raise revenues.
As these analysts recognize, taxing the rich has its limits both economically and politically, such that members of Congress are not likely to tap that well again and again.
Polls show strong majorities supporting higher taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year, Mr. Obama’s target group. Yet some Congressional Democrats are fearful of Republicans’ attacks that “soak the rich” tax increases will douse small-business owners, too, even if the number of those affected is far less than Republicans suggest.
Also, higher rates like those in the House health care legislation could lead to tax avoidance schemes, reducing the government’s collections and warping business decisions, analysts say.
the whole article here..
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/01/us/politics/01taxes.html?_r=2
--------------------------------------------------------------
By JACKIE CALMES
Published: July 31, 2009
WASHINGTON — Behind Democrats’ struggle to pay the $1 trillion 10-year cost of President Obama’s promise to overhaul the health care system is their collision with another of his well-known pledges: that 95 percent of Americans “will not see their taxes increase by a single dime” during his term.
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
President Obama has promised that 95 percent of Americans “will not see their taxes increase by a single dime” in his term.
This will not be the last time that the president runs into a conflict between his audacious agenda and his pay-as-you-go guarantee, when only 5 percent of taxpayers are being asked to chip in. Critics from conservative to liberal warn that Mr. Obama has tied his and Congress’s hands on a range of issues, including tax reform and the need to reduce deficits topping $1 trillion a year.
“You can only go to the same well so many times,” said Bruce Bartlett, a Treasury official in the Reagan administration.
In the budget, Mr. Obama and Congress have already agreed to let the Bush tax cuts for the most affluent expire after 2010, as scheduled, but to extend them for everyone else. The top rates, now 33 percent and 35 percent, will revert to Clinton-era levels of 36 percent and 39.6 percent.
The critics do not have a beef with the government’s taking more from the wealthiest Americans, especially given the growing income gap between the rich and everyone else. They object to doing so for health care over other pressing needs.
“I want to tax the rich to reduce the deficit,” said Robert D. Reischauer, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office who heads the Urban Institute, a center-left research group. Similarly, Mr. Bartlett, a conservative analyst who often chastises Republicans for their antitax absolutism, supports overhauling the tax code to raise revenues.
As these analysts recognize, taxing the rich has its limits both economically and politically, such that members of Congress are not likely to tap that well again and again.
Polls show strong majorities supporting higher taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year, Mr. Obama’s target group. Yet some Congressional Democrats are fearful of Republicans’ attacks that “soak the rich” tax increases will douse small-business owners, too, even if the number of those affected is far less than Republicans suggest.
Also, higher rates like those in the House health care legislation could lead to tax avoidance schemes, reducing the government’s collections and warping business decisions, analysts say.
the whole article here..
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/01/us/politics/01taxes.html?_r=2