Tag Archives: middle-class tax cuts

The GOP-led House rejects Obama tax cuts, will recess until September

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“Bain Capital is the kind of small business that our Republican colleagues are trying to protect.” — Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)

The Huffington Post reports that the House will recess this week — until September — without coming to an agreement on the Bush tax cuts and the wealthiest incomes: “The Democratic bill resembled President Barack Obama’s tax plan, which calls for letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire for incomes of more than $250,000 for couples and $200,000 for individuals. The Republican measure would extend all the Bush-era tax cuts for all income levels, but end breaks passed in 2009 that help about 25 million middle-class households.”

“Each side made stark arguments, with Democrats casting the issue as protecting the middle class, and Republicans countering that they were safeguarding small businesses and jobs.

“”The president wants to raise taxes on the so-called rich,” said House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). “Well, let me tell you who the so-called rich are. About a million of those people that you want to increase taxes on are small business owners.”

“”Their priority is cutting taxes of the very wealthy in this country,” countered Rep. Sandy Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. “They want to give households that earn more than $1 million a year a tax cut –- on average –- of $160,000 next year.”

“[...] Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) derided the policy as “supply-side voodoo,” echoing criticism first made by George H. W. Bush. Pascrell noted that since the George W. Bush cuts were passed in 2001 and 2003, the income gap in America has grown.

“”To those members concerned with tax fairness, today, wealth concentrated with the top 1 percent is at the same level as the period immediately preceding the Great Depression,” Pascrell said. “So you shrunk the middle class with your great economic ideas between 2001 and 2008, and what you did, what you did is made the rich richer. I salute you.”

“[...] “These are not mom-and-pop businesses,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), arguing that only 3 percent of businesses with fewer than 500 employees would face tax hikes. “Bain Capital. Bain Capital [is] the kind of small business that our Republican colleagues are trying to protect.”

“Democrats also argued that with the expiration of the 2009 cuts — the child tax credit, a bigger earned income tax credit and a break on college tuition — middle-class families would face on average a $1,000 tax hike.

“[...] The failure of Congress to agree on taxes on the remaining 2 percent of Americans guarantees that the argument will be carried through to the campaign trail over the summer, and will be a prime debating point in the fall when Congress returns from its summer break.


Obama Plan Is 39.4% Just Saying… (via: randomactsofchaos)

And that’s 39.4% on the one percent!

Chuck Schumer proposes ending tax cuts to millionaires only — the GOP says, “No way.”

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“All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.” — George Orwell, Animal Farm, 1946

Republicans from across the conservative spectrum are swatting down a proposal from Democrat Chuck Schumer to resolve the tax cut dispute by ending tax cuts to millionaires only.

“The answer is no,” said Sen. John Thune (R-SC) — the fourth ranking Republican in the Senate — on Fox News last night. “What you want to do if you believe the best ways to grow jobs and to grow the economy in this country is to keep taxes low and to allow small businesses…to get out and do that, then the worst thing you can do is raise taxes on them, which, if you raise them on those higher-income levels is what happens.

[...] In any case, if it was Schumer’s goal to get Republicans on the record defending tax breaks for millionaires, he got his way.

Read more: Republicans Defend Continued Tax Breaks For Millionaires

Republicans continue this fictional argument that ending tax cuts to millionaires will hurt “job creation” and “small businesses.” Yeah,  I can see how we’d miss ALL THOSE JOBS the top income earners have created for us over the past 9 years. And, sorry, but only about 2% of small business owners would see tax increases if Bush’s tax cuts were to expire.

Also, here’s where the GOP lines up when it comes to the middle class:  GOP’s Top Tax Guy: Republicans Will Block Permanent Middle-Class Tax Cut.

As Bill Maher said about all the non-millionaires who voted for Republicans in the last election: “People are struggling all over this country and they came out and voted for the party that says right out front that they will suspend your unemployment benefits and repeal healthcare. To go against your self-interest more, you’d have to literally go fuck yourself.”
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