Posted on 01/07/2013 2:38:34 AM PST by Libloather
Democrats say they want to raise as much as $1 trillion in new revenues through tax reform later this year to balance Republican demands to slash mandatory spending.
Democratic leaders have had little time to craft a new position for their party since passing a tax deal Tuesday that will raise $620 billion in revenue over the next ten years.
The emerging consensus, however, is that the next installment of deficit reduction should reach $2 trillion and about half of it should come from higher taxes.
This sets up tax reform as one of the biggest fights of the 113th Congress, which began on Thursday.
Republicans say tax reform should be revenue neutral. Additional revenues collected by eliminating or curbing tax breaks and deductions should be used to lower rates.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has dismissed the possibility of negotiating additional tax increases.
“I'm in favor of doing tax reform but I think tax reform ought to be revenue neutral as it was back during the Reagan years. We've resolved this issue, look we don't have this problem because we tax too little. We have it because we spend way, way too much,” McConnell said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Liberal and centrist Democrats say revenues collected through tax reform should go to deficit reduction.
“We’ve done about $2 trillion. I thought $4 trillion is the goal we should reach. I think we’re about half way there. We need another $2 trillion,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax reform.
He said the $917 billion cut under the Budget Control Act passed in the summer of 2011 combined with $620 billion in revenues from Tuesday’s tax deal and interest savings adds up to about $2 trillion.
Cardin said the ratio of spending cuts to higher tax revenues “should be about even” in the next deficit-reduction deal passed by Congress.
Sen. Jon Tester, a centrist Democrat from Montana who won a close re-election in November, set out similar parameters.
He said the broad goal for deficit reduction should be in the $4 trillion to $5 trillion range and “we should strive for [a] one for one” ratio of spending cuts to additional tax revenues.
The White House also supports a 1:1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases as Congress seeks to finish the fiscal work left unresolved by the recently completed 112th Congress.
White House officials point to last week’s fiscal-cliff agreement to “buy down” the sequester for two months. The deal delayed the implementation of automatic across-the-board spending cuts to domestic and defense programs and paid for it with $12 billion in revenues and $12 billion in spending cuts — evenly divided between defense and non-defense spending.
Administration officials view that as a template for future deficit-reduction agreements.
But Democrats in Congress are not yet unified on the issue. Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat who won his first term in November’s election, said the spending cut-to-tax increase ratio should be higher.
“Obviously that second half of the fiscal cliff is the tough spending decisions,” he said. “During the course of the campaign I often talked about 2-1 as a total. That would count all the spending reductions that have already been agreed to.”
“I think if you’re looking at a 70-30 ratio, somewhere in between 2 to 1 and 3 to 1 , I think that’s a reasonable position,” said newly-elected Sen. Chris Murphy (D) of Connecticut, who noted he is from a “fiscally responsible” state.
Like Kaine, Murphy said, “you could factor in the cuts already made.”
Congress agreed to cut spending by $917 billion in 2011 and to raise $620 billion in additional tax revenues last week, settling on a ratio of roughly 3 to 2 so far.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Friday the ratio of spending cuts to tax revenues to date has been tilted more heavily toward spending. Counting the 2011 Budget Control Act and the year-end tax deal, he argues the split is closer to $1.1 trillion in spending cuts and $600 billion in revenues — but he appears to be counting interest savings from spending cuts and not from tax increases.
The biggest question for Democrats is how much revenue is realistically available through tax reform.
Former Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), a longtime chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, argues the federal government loses $1.2 trillion a year because of various tax breaks, a large pool for lawmakers to draw from to reduce the deficit.
“Through the tax code, we spend more there than we spend through all the appropriated accounts,” he said in his Senate farewell speech.
Conrad displayed a chart on the Senate floor Wednesday showing that people in the top 1 percent of income earners collect over $250,000 in after-tax income from tax expenditures. These expenditures are defined as revenue losses due to special exclusions, exemptions or deductions from gross income.
But policy analysts say the amount Congress can raise by eliminating tax expenditures will be constrained by political realities.
President Obama’s proposal to limit the value of itemized deductions to 28 percent evoked a backlash from the real estate industry and charitable groups. The mortgage interest and charitable tax deductions are two major drains on federal revenue.
Potential future revenue from limiting exemptions and deductions for wealthy taxpayers is also limited by the personal exemption phase-out and Pease — a cap on itemized deductions — provisions of the New Year’s Day tax deal. They account for $152 billion of the projected revenues from the deal.
Jim Kessler, senior vice president for policy at Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank, thinks the most Democrats can get from tax reform is about $300 billion to $400 billion. He said negotiators can find an additional $100 billion in revenue by switching the chained-CPI formula for calculating cost-of-living increases for Social Security and other federal programs.
“I think you get $400 or $500 billion in new revenue because stuff [is] taken off the table,” he said.
Also, when any of the dems begin pointing to former rates and current rates, they never seem to come around to the fact the social security taxes were much lower 30 years ago and there was no medicare before 1965 either. Also, states with income taxes were just getting their feet in the door and since then those rates have gone up along with concomitant sales and real estate taxes.
When one considers all taxes, local state and federal which we are paying, we are almost at the point of 100% taxation. But they still want more. By 2016 when we send in our tax payments, we will have to include a pint or two of blood too I fear.
they want another trillion in addition to the 620 billion for a total of 1.6 trillion....hell they want it all. They want to tax your income at 100%, they want to confiscate your private property and your 401(k) and private pensions too.
The wish to turn you into a serf.
When they claim they have already cut the the deficit by one trillion, they are counting the taxes they just raised on the rich, plus all the hidden taxes they tucked into other bills as deficit reductions.
Conservatives just scratch their head and say ...Huh?
I'm NOT joking, they really think that way!
They also count any tax cut as unfunded spending.
Freeper IbJensen posted: "The Obama regime has constructed an evil, monstrous govt that is the enemy of we, the people....it is illegitimate and operating far outside the parameters of the Constitution.....this evil entity has built up a support of mentally defective imbeciles---disaffected takers and losers---who look upon the regime as cash-rich Big Daddy."
PARA-MILITARY VOTE-CRAZED DEMOCRATS ARE ON THE MARCH Power-hungry para-military Obama/Democrats w/ patented voter fraud know-how have been empowered by 2012. The para-military Democrats worked openly to violently overthrow established rule......using intimidation and assassination to turn out of office those they could not subjugate. Be ready for the a litany of remarks about the “invisible and permanent powers-that-be” (Repubs/conservatives)mtrying to harm a long list of "govt-dependent losers."
THEY THRIVE ON CHAOS The disturbed Obamatons are creating a dysfunctional chaotic culture, The anti-social psychopaths recognize no moral and ethical boundaries----aggressively going after what they want, irregardless of the consequences. Para-military Dem liberals and progs, are aiding and abetting a cabal of hate-filled individuals----all of them lying in wait to harm conservative/Christian/Constitution-loving Americans. They are a cabal of ruthless predators w/ no empathy for others.
They have no concept of right and wrong---they live in the moment using situation ethics as their lodestar.
PERVERSE CORRUPT DEM THINKING IS REMINSCENT OF THE POST-CIVIL WAR ERA----Carpetbaggers---Northern invaders ----were prominent in Southern politics until 1875, but nearly all left under pressure from paramilitary organizations, then-described in history books as "the military arm of the Democratic Party."
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NOTE: Do not underestimate the wealth of federal cash the para-military Dems ---- the Ohaha/Chi-mob---- can come up with to rig elections. Remember, these are the kingpins of corrupt Chicago politics. At one time, conscientious FEC investigators verified money was coming from legal citizens....but Ohaha will not allow investigations. There are billions unaccounted for in Obama's "stimulus" packages (some used in the last election cycle).....the Ohaha kingpins had tons of money stashed away for 2012....and beyond.
Those “tax breaks” are things like being able to deduct your business expenses, taxes paid to state, county and city, the mortgage interest deduction and of course your 401K.
Yeah, that's the ticket. Spend our way out of debt. Just like the average American family does when the bills are more than the paychecks. Pure Wylie E. Coyote Genius speaking there.
argues the federal government loses $1.2 trillion a year because of various tax breaks’
It there was ANY truth to this statement, then why did Zero refuse to consider closing tax breaks instead insisting on tax INCREASES?
Nothing a liberal says can ever be considered true. Nothing.
Thay are like a wineo,you can never have to much.
Current spending levels are payment for past and future political support. Cutting anything at all pisses off somebody politically connected, and in an era of carefully staged 51-49 elections, that's just too much risk to ask our long-suffering politicians to bear. :)
There’s more defecates than ever in the District of Corruption.
How about the invisible tax called the Value Added Tax?
-——How about the invisible tax called the Value Added Tax?——
Sometime in December past, I saw a liberal on Fox News describing in fair amount of detail how Cap and Trade would be implemented. My view was he let the cat out of the bag. He was the only person to speak in terms of the tax being absorbed as cost and passed along to everyone.
Meanwhile, the other Eurocrat voices, and there were several, were simultaneously extolling the virtues of the environmental, clean air, life saving, yada, yada,yada of carbon tax.
My conclusion was that the decision was made and the program was underway to force Cap and Trade through. That is, it was the chosen vehicle for taxing the untaxed masses. A sales campaign was underway.
VAT may be second or third in line.
When you sort through all the clutter, the static, the obsfucation, the solution is pretty clear. Those who have sold their votes for no income taxation are where the money is. Their fair share is set at zero nd that cannot persist. They must be taxed without knowing it.
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