How Do Democrats Expect to Pay for the Tax Cuts for the Middle Class?

[jsamuel]

What will we cut to make up for this graphic?



70 Billion a year is due to the rich part of the tax cuts. Since people are asking the Republicans how they are going to pay for the tax cuts for the wealthy, I thought it was only fair to be consistent and ask how we are going to pay for the tax cuts for the middle class.

Update:
According to this link, 172 Billion per year is because of incomes below 250,000 and 54 Billion per year is due to incomes above 250,000.

[elocs]

1. Fair enough. n/t

[librechik]

2. all of the tax cut for the workers will get spent here in the States.

It's stimulus. We need to spend that part. The other part just gets put into foreign investments by the rich. We lose that money abroad or in secret accounts.

[jsamuel]

4. according to the CBO it is the least effective form of stimulus

[librechik]

17. yeah--food stamps is number one--everyone in the country should be issued

300 a month in food stamps every month to fix the deficit.

But this regime is not interested in pushing what works--they are in a necklock by the RW which forces them to use the weakest gambits imaginable, (apparently)

[monmouth]

3. Make the rich pay their fair share of taxes. Easy...n/t

[jsamuel]

6. so you want them to raise taxes on the rich beyond what they were under Clinton?

I don't disagree, but I haven't seen anyone in congress suggesting that.

[monmouth]

8. Not raise them, just make them pay their fair share like we have to.

Of course no one in Congress is going to suggest it....LOL, most of them are millionaires.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. Cut the defense budget. End those damn wars.....

[jsamuel]

7. That's a good answer!

(updated for inelegant statement)

But I don't see Democrats in congress proposing that.

[BrklynLiberal]

16. Sad..isn't it?

[Greyhound]

9. Democratic politicians have no plan nor intention of paying for anything

that benefits the little people.
:kick: & R #5

[hfojvt]

10. I'd reverse the Bush tax cuts for incomes over $80,000

$80,000 for singles and $140,000 for couples

Those people are in the top 15%. At least 80% of taxpayers would keep their tax cuts under my plan. I'd wager the impact on the deficit would be much smaller as well.

The cuts for those above $250,000 = $700 billion over 10 years
The cuts for all incomes = 4 trillion over 10 years.

How much of that $3.3 trillion is for people with incomes between $140,000 and $250,000? My guess is at least a trillion. Perhaps as high as 2 trillion. That's just a guess, but in 2005 tax filers with incomes between $75,000 and $500,000 had a whopping 42% of all taxable income even though they were only 17.8% of all taxpayers. So it would not be surprising if they got 50% of tax cuts that were tilted towards the top.

edit: here's a comparison of before and after rates. I'd sorta restore the top 3 rates. Making for a mere $1,750 tax increase on a single person with an income of $150,000. http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/103

[Warpy]

12. You'd hurt a lot of people in the big cities, unfortunately

and ensure the defeat of Democrats nation wide.

That was the problem with the Clinton tax increase and why 1994 saw the beginning of a 12 year GOP stranglehold on Congress, a stranglehold they have yet to relinquish even as a minority. Clinton simply made the increase too broad. Had he graduated it from 1% to 3%, moderate income to high income, then there wouldn't have been as dramatic a rebellion.

What we really need is a return to the progressive tax structure, but that's just not going to happen for the next two years, at the very least.

The best we can do under your plan is give moderate earners a little pinch and high earners a definite squeeze.

[hfojvt]

15. oh hurt schmurt

boo hoo those rich people would pay another $400 in taxes. Ouch. It's the end of the frigging world and I cannot vote for Democrats any more. So much for "ask not what you can do for your country". Even if I am in the top 20%, another $300 or so is off the table.

Of course, I did propose some more brackets as well.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/129

It makes perfect sense to me to put in three more brackets
39.1% up to $500,000
45% up to $1,000,000 (1)
55% up to $5,000,000 (2)
65% for the rest (3)

[Warpy]

20. I've been more Draconian than you

and have proposed a confiscatory rate of 99% for incomes over a million to kick in until the debt is paid down to 50% of GDP (the golden number for most economists being 60%), after which it will drop to a top rate of 70%.

However, raising taxes alone won't do it. Cuts need to be made and the main place to cut without killing the economy is the military. Offshore bases need to be closed and we need to focus on a defensive military instead of the imperial one we clearly can no longer afford.

[Warpy]

11. That's what I've been wondering

Without substantial cuts to the Pentagon, those cuts will damage the country, too. Cuts to the Pentagon need to be targeted toward overpriced weapons systems and overseas adventurism, not personnel or former personnel.

I've resigned myself to paying a grand more in taxes next year on my 5 figure income if the bottom tier of cuts is allowed to expire and I'm OK with that. However, once we rid ourselves of hostile Republicans and do nothing Blue Dogs, perhaps we can reinstitute the ones that did the most good, the breaks for people with children all the way through college.

[Winterblues]

13. Democrats are joining Republicans in becoming Tax Cut & Spend

:shrug: and Spend and Spend and Spend....Just like Bush* and the Republicans..

[jsamuel]

14. nice to see the UNrecs

;|

[Hannah Bell]

18. most of the bush tax cuts went to the top 2%, so i don't see the point of the op.

[jsamuel]

23. not true, only 25% of the expense is for the wealthy

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=nmt045qr

It shows that 172 Billion will be spent to extend them to the middle class and 54 Billion will be spent to extend them to the wealthy.

[Hannah Bell]

27. i'm not going to search through that mess for you: link me directly to the claim.

[Hannah Bell]

28. 2. Who gets the tax cuts enacted so far?

The following two graphs illustrate the distributional
effects of the Bush tax cuts enacted so far.
The pie chart shows the shares of the total tax cuts
by income group, in 2010, when all of the tax cuts are
fully phased in (including the full repeal of the estate
tax).

Among other things, the graph shows that the
bottom 60 percent of all taxpayers get only 15 percent
of the fully phased in tax cuts, while the best-off one
percent get more than half of the tax cuts.

The bar chart shows the average annual tax cuts over
the entire 2001-10 period, by income group. These tax cuts
range from an average of $80 a year for the poorest 20 percent up
to an average of almost $52,000 a year for the best-off one percent.

http://www.ctj.org/pdf/housetestimony030507.pdf


Top 1% gets 53% of the Bush cuts.

Next 4% gets 6.6% more. Grand total for the top 5% = 60%.

The use of the word "wealthy" means the NYT can make up whatever stats it likes, depending on how it defines "wealthy".

[EFerrari]

19. Like this:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=nmt045qr

[jsamuel]

22. I like a lot of what you have there

but I definitely don't agree with the national sales tax. It is a very regressive tax.

[EFerrari]

25. Well, it was pretty much the last choice I had to make up the difference.

I wasn't crazy about it myself.

[slackmaster]

21. End the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. De-fund the War On (some) Drugs.

Stop incarcerating people for growing and smoking pot.

[tritsofme]

24. It will most likely be added to national debt without being paid for.

Democrats wrote an exception in the statutory PAYGO rules so that the middle class tax cut extensions do not need to be offset.

In any sort of deal, the upper income tax cuts would have to be fully paid for, or the rule could be waived by 60 votes in the Senate.

[Angry Dragon]

26. The rich will pay for it and the excess will be used to

reduce the deficit.