CHART OF THE DAY: The Regressive Tax Plan Super Committee Dems Shot Down

[ProSense]

CHART OF THE DAY: The Regressive Tax Plan Super Committee Dems Shot Down

Brian Beutler

A new Democratic memo rips apart a GOP Super Committee proposal — offered by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) — that would have reduced, and made permanent, Bush-era tax rates. Many of the key details of the plan remain undisclosed, even to Democrats, but they’ve included a table laying out all of the lower rates the GOP has proposed, and deduced from what’s known that the changes would significantly reduce the progressiveness of the tax code.

Here’s how. The GOP claims the plan would raise $300 billion in revenue, and also make the newer, lower Bush tax rates permanent. To accomplish this, simple arithmetic implies he’d have to raise a ton of tax revenue elsewhere. But since he objects to raising taxes on capital income, that would require him to slash deeply into credits and preferences that benefit lower and middle income taxpayers.

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To simplify, the GOP proposes to slash benefits for low and middle income taxpayers to pay for a big tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits the rich.

When all’s said and done, this would raise most people’s overall tax burden, while increasing after-tax income for wealthy people. Here are charts laying out that impact for the analogous plan described above, which - again - contained less extensive rate cuts.





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No wonder the RW WSJ editorial board is calling it a "super offer," a plan that cuts taxes for the rich and raises revenue, albeit from low- and middle-income Americans. Score for the Greedy Old Party and their campaign to protect and serve the rich.