Republican lawmakers are increasingly abandoning Grover Norquist’s no-taxes pledge and declaring a willingness to raise tax revenues as part of a deal to avoid the severe austerity measures set to take effect in January. On the Sunday talk shows, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called for raising revenues by scaling back tax deductions and credits. “I would be very much opposed to raising tax rates, but I do believe we can close a lot of loopholes,” McCain said on “Fox News Sunday.” He said that could be achieved by imposing “a limit on the amount of deduction on charitable giving, a limit on the amount you can take on your home loan mortgage deduction.” Graham, who has previously spoken out against Norquist’s pledge, reiterated his position on ABC’s “This Week,” arguing that he will support higher taxes if Democrats agree to meaningful entitlement cuts. “I’m willing to generate revenue. It’s fair to ask my party to put revenue on the table. We’re below historic averages,” he said. “I will not raise tax rates to do it. I will cap deductions. If you cap deductions around the $30,000, $40,000 range, you can raise $1 trillion in revenue, and the people who lose their deductions are the upper-income Americans.”These two have jumped on the Saxby Chambliss bandwagon offering the President something similar to what Mitt Romney campaigned on – entitlement spending cuts with base broadening. But no increases in tax rates including no increases on those already very low tax rates on capital income. If we don’t eliminate the tax break for capital, then the notion that we are raising revenues from upper-income households rings hollow. This is the same old GOP trickery that strives to reign in deficits by socking it to the poor and the middle class. Excuse me but Mitt Romney lost the election. If elections are to have consequences, President Obama should reject this Trojan Horse.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Fiscal Cliff – Republican Senators Negotiating with President Romney
Sahil Kapur listened to Senators Graham and John McCain so we didn’t have to:
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3 comments:
While tax rates can be changed in an instant, it is virtually impossible to imagine the hornet's nest one would enter in order to tinker with deductions, each of which comes with its own Revolutionary Guard sworn to preserve and defend.
The Ryan Roadmap to Prosperity, signed onto by pretty much the entire economic right, holds it as a fundamental tenet that individual returns on capital should not be taxed at all. That is Ryan would eliminate all tax on interest, dividends, estates and capital gains generally. While this is sold as a "savings" plan ostensibly aimed at the middle class, it reduces effective rates for billionaires to zero with LESS tax break as you go down the income ladder to mere millionaires and then to pensioners. In so doing the Romney's and Lindsay's of this world literally subvert and invert the very concept of "rich".
Flat Tax and all forms of. "Broaden and Flatten" add upto Tax Freedom Days for Billionaires. The only odd thing is that the 96-99% ers blindly go along with the 0.1% folk. Iafter all even for the 99% of income folk there isn't THAT much room at the top of the top. But. Are willing to give the billionaires a free ride anyway.
While there are a couple of honest to God billionaires in elected office they mostly lean to the Center-Left. While Lindsay and Saxby (despite their tony names) aren't remotely up with Rockefeller and Kerry (more properly Kerry's wife and step-kids)
PGL: a minor quibble: that should be "rein in" deficits, not "reign in." I hope you don't bridle at this correction. Happy Trails! (-;
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