Guiliani Puts $ In Your Pocket?
Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 03:53:59 PM PDT
The Republican's Playbook: Spread Fear, "Family Values" and Cutting Taxes.
Rudy is about to utilize the Tax Gambit in New Hampshire:
New Hampshire
What will he be proposing? According to his campaign:
- Reduce the corporate tax rate
- Make permanant the top personal tax rate of 35%
- Make permanant the $1000 child tax credit
- Eliminate the estate tax
- Link the AMT to inflation
- Let families deduct up to $15,000 if they buy their own health insurance.
More dough below:
OK, in a time of continued budget deficits under Republican Presidents just what we need is more tax cuts. Will he be able to sell this to the American public? Will the Public be tempted to drink more Republican Kool Aid? Will Rudy explain how he proposes to pay for all this while still maintaining a presence in Iraq and Afghanistan?
According to Rudy, he is still a believer in Supply Side Economics, also called voodoo economics by Bush Sr.
Rudy
While we wait we can ponder the current run up in the US debt as shown by the clock that had to be turned on again when Shrub became President...
Debt Clock
Or we can read about the trend in the deficit.....
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Under CBO’s new projections, if expiring tax cuts are made permanent, Alternative Minimum Tax relief is extended, and future costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan follow CBO’s most optimistic scenario, the deficit will climb to $245 billion (1.7 percent of GDP) in 2008 and to $409 billion (1.9 percent of GDP) in 2017 while never falling below $219 billion over the next 10 years (see figure and table below).
As a result of these deficits, debt will rise slightly as a percent of GDP during this period.
CBO also sees no real improvement in the longer-term budget outlook. The CBO report states that, "Over the long term, the budget remains on an unsustainable path." Further emphasizing that continuing current policies is not a viable option, CBO concludes that "Attaining fiscal stability in the coming decades will almost certainly require some combination of reductions in growth of spending and increases in taxes as a share of the economy."
Hey I'm all for adjusting the way the AMT is calculated. According to the Center for Tax Justice it tends to be paid more by folks in the Blue States, so why should BushCo really care about fixing this problem?
AMT
Same for helping folks with their health care.
The question remains, how will we pay for this? I am tired about hearing from "Conservatives" that we can balance the budget by cutting spending for PBS. After you pay the interest on the debt, social security, Medicare and Medicaid and Defense and Military Spending there just isn't that much left for everything else.
Bill Clinton and Al Gore and the Democrats in Congress vintage 1993 took the tough steps needed to balance the budget and start returning a surpluse to the Federal treasury. What we need in 2008 is another Democrat and a Democratic Congress who understands what it takes to balance the budget while not doing it on the backs of the Americans who don't make megabucks on income that is essentially sheltered (for example capital gains), who can't afford to hire a tax advisor or who can shelter their money in the Cayman Islands.
Hey Rudy, Take Your Tax Cuts and Put Them Where The Sun Don't Shine.
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