Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles.
Oh and Senator Durbin, any proposal that would lower the taxes on the richest Americans, real or “fictional” (highest income rate to 23% from 35% now, and the corporate tax rate to 26% from 35%) while cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, raising the eligibility age to 69 for Soc. Sec. (and possibly Medicare also) and eliminating the mortgage exemption is not “a starting point” for discussion.
Oh and they would raise the Federal gasoline tax, a regressive tax that would affect the middle class and the poor far more than the rich. Well we know that won’t happen. Big Oil has our back on that one (insert laugh track here).
For the corp shill mantra that the US has some of the highest taxes in the world this will be a bumper sticker winner. Of course, no R ever brings up that we also give corp the most aggresive tax breaks in the world and I don’t see those going away in this.
Company store here we come.b
Anyone going to say sorry to Jane Hamsher yet? She was out there blasting the Catfood Commission as soon as Obama created it. While this report is just from the two lead clowns, we’ll have to see what they actually vote on.
I agree with you Calvin. No apologies will be forthcoming I imagine. She was too stupid not to see the 11 dimensional chess game obama was playing.
Interestingly it puts alot on the table for the fight, and points to the type of cuts that face consideration to get back to Clinton’s budget after 2 Rep wars of choice and the Bush tax cuts.
I remember when Reagan dissed the tax credits for credit card interest and how everyone screamed, imagine the reaction when the topic of dropping mortgage interest comes to the table?
Obviously this was their pipedream. The question is what comes next. Because a lot of Bowles and Simpson’s report isn’t going to happen.
This was quite a beltway wankfest I see.
I can’t believe that will get many votes.
As a whole package I can’t imagine it would get any votes. It’s a combination of tax increases and tax cuts and service cuts that makes no one happy. Except maybe David Broder. Even his happiness I question.
As individual bits and pieces it might pick up some votes. Raising the income cap on Social Security taxes just got a might bit easier. Raising the retirement age probably just got a bit easier as well. Means testing for Social Security might have gotten a bit easier. Which is stupid for Dems to agree to – never, ever means test anything that is a general public good. If the working rich benefit from it then it becomes something they scream about if Republicans try to cut. If the only group that benefits from something are the middle class or the poor the Republicans have an easier time of cutting it. The more people benefit from something the harder it is to do away with.
That last bit is why the mortgage deduction, as one example, isn’t going anywhere. Not only do many, many taxpayers see an obvious benefit on their tax forms every year, the housing industry and the lending industry would both shit a brick if they thought it was going to disappear. You think the astroturf funding for the Tea Party was amazing, just wait until you see the “Concerned Homeowning Taxpayers” groups that would “spontaneously” arise with million dollar budgets to fight against that one…
If we had fighting liberals involved there would be some grounds for a compromise here: keep the mortgage deduction and raising the income cap, block the rest of the SS propositions. Trouble is, there are no liberals/Dems willing/able to make the case for a return to progressive taxes and MORE social spending as economic common sense. Even though it is.
Bottom line is, voters are not going to think any of this through, so it will just be Election part II, with moron-level argument from all sides.
Now we clearly see the agenda of the TeaBagger Treason folks. I’m glad that we are no longer playing around. Let’s get the cards on the table.
Wonder if any of the senile teabaggers are gonna notice this.
If the gas tax was raised to .35/gal, many jobs would come back to the US, since it would no longer be economically viable to import them.
That’s probably the only part of the proposal that Atrios would agree with. 😉
Deductible mortgage interest: socialist subsidy to the less-well-off buyers and those with gobs of cash for multi-million dollar pads; socialist subsidy to the banks so they can increase the number of mortgages sold; socialist subsidy to the real estate industry to keep up the prices of houses buy subsidizing sales. And partly paid for by the people can’t afford or don’t want to buy a house. Now, where are we coming from and where are we going. The Catfood Commission is a purely Obama creation.
Hmmm, let’s see. I agree with:
Eliminating the mortgage exemption.
Cutting the corporate tax rate (in theory)
That’s it. And I will only agree to cut the corporate tax rate when we have an effective rate that matches other countries, and when our CEO’s are paid their fair share.
Eliminating the mortgage exemption will boot many, many more people out of their homes and further reduce housing prices. I think a simplified tax code is great, but perhaps we could phase that one in once we have price stability.
Well I mean I would phase whatever in anyway, but that exemption pads the banksters, the wealthy and the elite far more than your average Joe Schmoe.
We promote home ownership too much in this country.
My ideal would be no exemptions period, but in that scenario you’d have a shit ton of public services that the poor wouldn’t have to worry about.
Which the “libertarians” should be all about, but will in the real world back away from in sheer horror. In a society with an attention span beyond that of a mushroom, that would be the end of the “libertarian” bullshit. Too bad thinking is so pre-Reagan.
The ‘libertarian’ thing will persist for as long as this makes sense to people:
“Regardless of your ideology, if you are going to be forced to pay stuff, you should be happy with the product/service you receive. The failures of the government in delivering on promises are so great it is not worth trying. So let’s keep out money and solve our problems some other way.”
I am afraid we will only see a rise in the popularity of this form of Utopianism until we have some reasonable stability in the economic/world order.
Richard Trumka has the narrative. The co-chairs of the Catfood Commission just told working Americans to drop dead. Well, that’s a paraphrase.
Perfect.
If you lower the corporate tax then the Google “Double Irish” loophole and the G.E., I don’t know, “Banana Breakfast Flip” loophole have to be abolished. Google and G.E. pay 2.4% and 3.6% respectively in corporate tax.
The tax game is so freaking complex that the average American (me) gets lost. We don’t have a chance, the corporations have rigged the game so thoroughly with incomprehensible tax dodges.
I think all taxes and deductions should be progressive in nature. Any other way and you are creating an oligarchy to be passed down generation to generation.
Deficit Commission Co-Chair Report – Draft
Read it through carefully (50 slides). It will give you a sense of the buzz words that you will be hearing from the bafflegabbing Congresscritters as they talk about whatever comes out of the Commission.
And look at how they are framing the tax shifting from the top 1% to ordinary folks. It’s subtle and requires that you know a lot about federal budgeting to detect it. Hint: It’s in the bar charts by income quintiles with the red and blue bars.
The draft proposal is simply unacceptable for the reasons that have been noted here and elsewhere. But we also need to make sure that it does not become the baseline for a “compromise” that does most of the damage of what is in the draft. So, call the Democratic members of the Commission and tell them that this is unacceptable.
Here is their contact information:
Max Baucus – (202) 224-2651
(406) 657-6790 (406) 586-6104 (406) 782-8700
(406) 365-7002 (406) 761-1574 (406) 449-5480
(406) 756-1150 (406) 329-3123
Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA 31) – (202) 225-6235
(213) 483-1425
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) – (202) 224-2043
(701) 852-0703 (701) 775-9601
(701) 258-4648 (701) 232-8030
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) – (202) 224-2152 –
(312) 353-4952 (217) 492-4062 (618) 351-1122
Alice Rivlin, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institute – (202) 797-6121
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL 9) – (202) 225-2111 – (847) 328-3409 – (773) 506-7100
Rep. John Spratt (D-SC 5) – (202) 225-5501
(803)327-1114 (803) 773-3362 (843) 393-3998