Vai America for Purchase: Republicans Scam Cause Americans to Pay Tax Bill for Rich

Posted on September 27th, 2010 by iwaller
Tax_rate_chart.jpg 

Republicans are hell bent on defending the massive Bush tax cuts and extending them for their Wall Street friends and rich Americans. If Republicans do not get their way they will stop tax cuts for 98% of American families. Even as poverty has soared in the Republican created recession with millions of people who lost their homes and young and senior Americans cannot find jobs, Republicans are standing firm for the top 2 percent of America’s wealthy.

Republicans continue to drive this ‘debate’ by deceiving American taxpayers and they now argue that even people whose annual incomes are $400,000 or more are not rich!   
During the worst recession in American history, the number of millionaires grew by 16%!  And what is more amazing is the income for billionaires in the U.S. grew a whopping 27%!As the new Forbes billionaires list, recently released, testifies, the richest Americans are getting richer, even as the country as a whole gets poorer. After 2005, under Republican leadership, income inequality in the U.S. ballooned.

Americans should not forget Republican President George W Bush presented Wall Street millionaires and billionaires with an entitlement of Middle Class tax money in the amount of a $700 billion taxpayer funded check with no strings attached in late 2008.  Yet Republicans and their Teabagging supporters want to cut American family ‘entitlements’ of Social Security and Medicare.

Extending tax cuts for the rich would add $3.2 trillion to the backs of American families in deficit spending, which is more money the U.S. would have to borrow from China, and Republicans have NO plans to pay for it.  Republicans John Boehner and Mitch McConnell said “Why did all of sudden (tax cuts) become something we have to pay for.”  

We must remember the tax legislation enacted under President George W. Bush from 2001 through 2006 cost the U.S. Treasury $2.48 trillion over the 2001-2010 period.  President Bush and Republicans in Congress never even attempted to replace the revenue lost as a result of their enormous tax cuts. The Bush tax cuts were deficit-financed, which increased the national debt and resulted in greater interest payments on that debt.  Republicans in 2010 and 2010 want to add more to the deficit by extending the tax cuts for the rich.  This includes the revenue loss of $2.11 trillion that results directly from the Bush tax cuts as well as the $379 billion in additional interest payments on the national debt that we must make since the tax cuts were deficit-financed.

Tax cuts for the richest Americans would only increase slightly, on average 3.6%.  Under Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, the top tax rate was 91%. Under Republican President Richard Nixon, it was 70%, and the tax rate under Republican President Ronald Reagan was 50%.

President Obama simply wants to increase the tax rate to up from 35% to 39.6%. Perhaps this is too liberal, and America should follow the lead of former ‘conservative’ Republican Presidents and increase the tax rate to 50%, 70% or even 91%.

Who deserves a tax cut more: the top 2 percent whose incomes have soared but who slashed jobs and wages and nearly destroyed the American economy, or Middle Class families who actually fund the U.S. Treasury?  Republicans and the Tea Party support the top 2%, the Middle Class be damned.

Republicans continue to deceive U.S. workers claiming that minute tax increases would punish the wealthy and jobs would be cut.   WHAT?  Wall Street has not created any jobs during their greedy initiated recession.  Record job creation occurred under President Bill Clinton when the tax rate was a few points higher, the tax rate President Obama wants to reinstate. 

Looking at the Bureau of Labor Statistics from January 2001 to January 2009), the Bush Administration created in 8 years only 1,950,000; compared to the Clinton Administration January 1993 to January 2001 which created 22,744,000, which disproves the Republican claim a small tax increase on the rich would destroy jobs.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell says President Barack Obama wants to subject half of all small-business income to a tax increase, a move that he says would strike a blow at the U.S. job-creation engine.

The tax legislation enacted under President George W. Bush from 2001 through 2006 cost $2.48 trillion over the 2001-2010 period.

The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation reports extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans will add billions to the deficit immediately. From the Washington Post:
A Republican plan to extend tax cuts for the rich would add more than $36 billion to the federal deficit next year–and transfer the bulk of that cash into the pockets of the nation’s millionaires, according to a congressional analysis released Wednesday. 

New data from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation show that households earning more than $1 million a year would reap nearly $31 billion in tax breaks under the GOP plan in 2011, for an average tax cut per household of about $100,000. 

But a picture is worth a thousand words–Ezra Klein posted this chart comparing the average tax cut per taxpayer under President Obama’s plan (protected under statutory pay go) and the Republican plan:

Bush_tax_cuts_for_richest_americans.gif

How much did American families donate to Bush’s tax cuts for the rich?  About $50 a Week, for 8 years, that is $21,000 per taxpayer!  The Bush Tax Cuts reduced Americans’ income by $2.7 trillion!

For more information read the 10 Republican Lies About the Bush Tax Cuts.

Recently the Census Bureau reported (NYT) that another four million Americans fell below the poverty line just last year, with trends showing it will probably grow. 44 million Americans, one in seven Americans are now trying to make it on $10,830; $22,050 for a family of four.   Last year was also the same year the number of millionaires grew by 16% and income for billionaires in the U.S. grew a whopping 27%. 

Republicans have consistently opposed tax relief for small businesses and the middle class, justifying their obstruction with phony, hypocritical arguments about spending. Republicans have tried to block extensions of unemployment benefits and aid for homeowners to prevent foreclosures.  

The result of the extending Republican tax cuts from the Bush era is right in front of all Americans, poverty will continue to grow, wealth will become more concentrated for the top 2%, the country will fall further behind and into more debt, and American families will have to live with the consequences of unaffordable health insurance, reduced or eliminated Medicare, Social Security given to Wall Street casinos, elimination of unemployment benefits and children who cannot afford to attend college. We have lived through a decade of failed conservative policies yet Republicans and their Tea Party supporters want to repeat this failure.

Republicans have a clear agenda: to serve corporate special interests. They want to take back Congress but it was their policies that sunk our economy in the first place, policies that encourage the outsourcing of jobs, allow Wall Street greed to go unchecked and punish middle and working-class families.

Americans cannot put these people in charge again.

If Republicans are successful in extending tax cuts for their rich Wall Street friends, and take control of the U.S. Congress, Americans can be sure of one thing.  

As Paul Krugman wrote in the NY Times called “The Angry Rich“:
“And when the tax fight is over, one way or another, you can be sure that the people currently defending the incomes of the elite will go back to demanding cuts in Social Security and aid to the unemployed. America must make hard choices, they’ll say; we all have to be willing to make sacrifices. But when they say “we,” they mean “you.” Sacrifice is for the little people.”

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