Paul Krugman: Keeping Bush Tax Cuts For Rich Like Giving 120,000 People $3 Million Each
Paul Krugman puts the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in proper perspective today.
For months that has been the word from Republicans and conservative Democrats, who have rejected every suggestion that we do more to avoid deep cuts in public services and help the ailing economy.
But these same politicians are eager to cut checks averaging $3 million each to the richest 120,000 people in the country.
When the Bush tax cuts were passed they were done with nine, rather then ten year projections to avoid numbers that would show how harmful they are to the deficit, and to allow the law to pass via reconciliation, a process demonized when Democrats use it.
According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, making all of the Bush tax cuts permanent, as opposed to following the Obama proposal, would cost the federal government $680 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. For the sake of comparison, it took months of hard negotiations to get Congressional approval for a mere $26 billion in desperately needed aid to state and local governments.
In spite of the bellyaching of middle-class Republicans, most of the benefits go to the richest one-tenth of one percent of the population. While the right wing complains about benefits for the needy or protecting jobs of teachers and firefighters, they stay silent about the outrage of continuing these tax cuts.
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