{"id":270764,"date":"2010-02-03T10:35:38","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T15:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.reuters.com\/james-pethokoukis\/?p=3326"},"modified":"2010-02-03T10:35:38","modified_gmt":"2010-02-03T15:35:38","slug":"obama-and-middle-class-tax-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/270764","title":{"rendered":"Obama and middle-class tax cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tax Foundation<\/a> thinks the White House is too sensitive about charges that middle-class taxes are going up:<\/p>\n

\n

The Administration’s outrage is a bit overdone, though, for three reasons:<\/p>\n

Democrats didn’t support most of the middle-class tax cuts in 2001.<\/strong> The only Bush tax cut provisions that enjoyed any Democratic Party support in 2001 were the 10% rate and the doubling of the child tax credit from $500 to $1,000. In running for president, Obama made the political calculation that the middle- and upper-middle income tax cuts (marriage penalty relief, cutting the 28% rate to 25%, and cutting the 31% rate to 28%) were unassailable; hence the $250K threshold promise. (Throw AMT relief in that basket.) In his progressive heart, Obama can’t really believe those cuts were virtuous. And now the Administration is desperate for big new sources of tax revenue, so there is suspicion that middle-class tax hikes are coming<\/a>. As many commentators are pointing out, the new fiscal commission is exactly the vehicle that could deliver those tax hikes in a way that would look as if the President were being forced to do it, that he didn’t break his tax promise willingly.
\nBush’s middle-class tax cuts were huge.<\/strong> Even now the President uses the phrase “mostly for the wealthy” in describing the Bush tax cuts as a package, which is false (at least by his own, new definition of wealthy — over $250K). Even the most anti-Bush tax think tank in town, Citizens for Tax Justice, can’t come up with numbers that portray the tax cuts for people over $250K as reaching 50% of the whole package.<\/p>\n

So many shocking things have happened that rational expectations are shaken.<\/strong> No one thought this Congress and Administration would allow the estate tax to reach full repeal, as it did on January 1, a month ago. But they did, violating every premise of progressive tax policy. And quite aside from politics, it’s a nightmare for executors. Following that shocker was the health bill train wreck, resulting in a level of political and fiscal uncertainty that is almost unprecedented for a non-crisis situation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Tax Foundation thinks the White House is too sensitive about charges that middle-class taxes are going up: The Administration’s outrage is a bit overdone, though, for three reasons: Democrats didn’t support most of the middle-class tax cuts in 2001. The only Bush tax cut provisions that enjoyed any Democratic Party support in 2001 were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1063,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1063"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270764\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}