Obama Knifes GOP Plan To Avoid Rate Hike
When President Obama spoke at a small business in Hatfield, Pa., on Friday, he subtly knifed the GOP’s best hope for avoiding the expiration of Bush tax cuts on top earners.
“It’s not acceptable to me, and I don’t think it’s acceptable to you, for just a handful of Republicans in Congress to hold middle-class tax cuts hostage simply because they don’t want tax rates on upper-income folks to go up,” he said. That sounds a lot like most of Obama’s campaign trail riffs about taxes and the wealthy. But his emphasis on the word “rates” on Friday was a key tell.
A number of Republicans — negotiating in earnest with, but at a distance from, the White House — have argued that Obama accept about $1 trillion of new revenues, almost all from wealthy earners, not by raising their rates, but by limiting the extent to which they can benefit from tax expenditures, i.e., the deductions, credits and loopholes which have become as American as apple pie. The most visible of these proposals comes from Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) — by way of, yep, Mitt Romney — to cap the value of itemized deductions at $50,000. The plan nets over $700 billion, almost all from high earners, without touching rates.
Sounds like a straightforward compromise, right? Well, it turns out that Republican and Democratic concerns about the impact of such a cap would likely weaken it enough that it would ultimately raise much less revenue. And with Obama’s comments Friday, he is now quite publicly casting the idea as inadequate, arguing it falls short of his demands.
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many donations got to positive organizations which help others. Then there are the political donations which should be CAPPED.
I see the rich just cutting back on their donations and running with the money.
We should hold the line and if the tax rate increases this will be the result of the GOP screwing the public. Either everyone loses or 2% lose the tax fight. This monkey is on the back of the GOP which is a group of people who are out of touch with the public, but they do walk lock step as required by their masters.
