For a while there, I thought President Obama was going to embrace tax reform in his State of the Union address. Instead, following the lead of his predecessors, he offered a laundry list of new tax subsidies, bragged about some old ones, and said almost nothing about a top-to-bottom rewrite of the Tax Code. Here’s just a partial list of the targeted tax breaks Obama promoted: Tax credits for clean energy and college tuition, as well as tax cuts for small business that create jobs, domestic manufacturers, high-tech manufacturers, and companies that close overseas plants and move production back to the U.S.
Posts Tagged ‘president’
Capital Gains Taxes Are Going Up
January 24th, 2012 
admin The top tax rate on long-term capital gains is currently 15%.
Posted in News 
Tags: capital, effective, key-distinction, known-as-pease, president, rate-on-capital, rates-on-high, tax-rate, while-the-gop 
No Comments »Romney’s Tax Plan: Big Benefits for the Wealthy and Higher Deficits
January 5th, 2012 MisterX68048 A new Tax Policy Center analysis finds that Mitt Romney’s tax plan would cut taxes for millions of households but bestow most of its benefits on those with the highest incomes.
Posted in News Tags: alternative, average, bush, child, deficit, gift, highest, individual taxes, obama, president, president-obama, romney, tax policy center, tax-cuts No Comments »A Two-Month Payroll Tax Cut is Dumb, So Is How Congress Got There
December 20th, 2011 MisterX68048 House Republicans are right about one thing at least: Extending this year’s payroll tax cut for two months is ridiculous.
Posted in News Tags: democrats, economic stimulus, hardly-intended, jobs bill, john boehner, millionaire, past, payroll, payroll taxes, president, price, senate No Comments »Time to End the Budget Brinksmanship in Congress
December 16th, 2011 admin Sometime today, Congress will pass a bill to keep the government funded through September 2012. It will not reflect a careful and balanced assessment of the nation’s needs and priorities and how well government programs are meeting those needs. It will reflect the fact that government would shut down at midnight if legislators don’t act and the fact that our lawmakers really would like to go home for the holidays.
Posted in News Tags: brookings, budget, cnn, consequences, government, gridlock, holidays, jurisdiction, News, president, since-the-great, summer No Comments »Time to End the Budget Brinksmanship in Congress
December 16th, 2011 MisterX68048 Sometime today, Congress will pass a bill to keep the government funded through September 2012.
Posted in News Tags: budget, budget-calendar, calendar, cnn, dickensian, given-the-furor, holiday, holidays, News, president, senator, street, summer, timeline, year No Comments »How a Payroll Tax Cut Boosts the Chances for Tax Reform
December 8th, 2011 admin When Congress finally extends the payroll tax cut that is due to expire in a few weeks, it may also be taking another step down the road to tax reform—and perhaps even to big Social Security changes as well. Why
Posted in News Tags: brian-beutler, code, congress, government, harry reid, News, payroll tax cut, president, president-obama, social, tax-reform No Comments »Pick Your Poison: VAT or Higher Income Tax Rates
December 5th, 2011 admin With congressional deficit reduction efforts largely collapsed, the question remains: What are we going to do about the nation’s long-term budget mess? Since any realistic deficit reduction plan will require significant new revenues, is a Value-Added Tax a sensible way for government to raise those extra dollars? In an effort to find out, the Pew Charitable Trusts asked my Tax Policy Center colleagues Eric Toder, Jim Nunns, and Joe Rosenberg to set up something of a cage match: In the blue trunks, a broad-based VAT (think 9-9-9 only much less complicated).
Posted in News Tags: alternative, brian-beutler, code, congress, debt, eric toder, harry reid, income-tax, joseph rosenberg, office, president, social, vat No Comments »The GOP, Ethanol, and the No-Tax Pledge
June 15th, 2011 admin A majority of Senate Republicans yesterday took a symbolic but hugely important vote to eliminate $6 billion in tax subsidies for the production of ethanol . And, so far at least, they have not turned into pumpkins.
Posted in News Tags: budget, deeply-believes, energy, faith, gop, grover-norquist, joe biden, no tax pledge, point, president, senate, tax expenditures No Comments »What Would We Need for Persistent 5% Growth?
June 15th, 2011 admin Last week , I argued that Governor Tim Pawlenty’s aspiration for 5% economic growth over a full decade, is implausible since the United States has achieved such steady growth only once since World War II. Over at Economics One , Stanford economics professor John Taylor offers a more positive take, defending the goal and offering a recipe for achieving it: 1% from population growth, 1% from employment growing faster than the population, and 2.7% from productivity growth. Add it all up and you get 4.7% growth, a bit short of Pawlenty’s target but close enough for government work
Posted in News Tags: budget, council, economic-report, economy, employment, from-potential, great-recession, hope-it-happens, nonfarm, president, working No Comments »
