Post by MacBeth on Jun 7, 2011 17:37:36 GMT -5
Jun 7, 2011 | By ThinkProgress War Room
Last week, we wrote about the House GOP’s bad medicine for the economy. Today, on the 10th anniversary of the Bush tax cuts no less, we have something far worse to present: former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s plan for the economy. Pawlenty’s plan wins the triple crown: it’s more radical than Ryan, costs three times more than the Bush tax cuts, and still means a tax increase on the middle class. Here are the main points of the Pawlenty plan, which he outlined in a speech this morning in Chicago:
* A hidden tax increase on the middle class
* A massive personal income tax cut for millionaires and billionaires; Citizens for Tax Justice estimates the plan cuts millionaires’ taxes by at least 41%
* A massive tax cut for corporations — including Big Oil — that would cut the corporate rate by more than 50%
* A complete elimination of the estate tax, capital gains tax, and tax on dividend income
* A cap on total spending that would necessitate severe cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs (except for defense, which Pawlenty has taken off the table in favor of slashing Social Security instead)
* The price tag for all of these tax cuts? More than triple the cost of extending just the Bush tax cuts: a whopping $7.8 TRILLION over 10 years, according to the Center for American Action Progress Fund’s director for tax and budget policy, Michael Linden. And that comes in addition to the $2.5 trillion that a full extension of the Bush tax cuts would also cost.
The early reviews for the plan have not been kind. On the progressive side of the ledger, Ezra Klein of the Washington Post wrote:
This plan isn’t optimistic. It isn’t a bit vague. It’s a joke. And I don’t know which is worse: The thought that Pawlenty knows that and went forward with this pandering, fantasy-based proposal anyway, or the thought that he doesn’t know it, and he really thinks this could work.
The Washington Post’s conservative blogger, Jennifer Rubin, also panned the plan:
I love tax cuts as much as the next conservative, but it takes a leap of imagination to suppose that the huge tax cuts are going to generate such growth as to come close to generating revenue sufficient even for a sharply pruned federal government. In sum, this may be an attractive pro-growth plan, but it is not a very serious budget policy.
Georgetown University Professor Adam Levitin put it pretty succinctly in his headline:
Tim Pawlenty’s Plan to Destroy the World
While Ezra Klein is right that the Pawlenty plan is entirely unserious, the impact it would have on everyday Americans is no laughing matter. There’s a lot in the plan, so let’s boil it down to what matters most: the middle class will pay more in taxes and won’t have anything resembling Social Security and Medicare to rely on, all while the very richest Americans and largest corporation will pay even less in taxes than they do now.
How egregiously slanted toward the richest Americans is the Pawlenty plan? Billionaire hedge-funders would pay virtually nothing in taxes thanks to the permanent exemption the plan would give to their income, they could pass on that wealth tax-free when they die, and those who inherited it could continue to live off of it — without ever paying any taxes on that income.
In short, if you thought the Ryan plan to end Medicare in order to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy and Big Oil didn’t go far enough, then you’ll love the much more radical Pawlenty plan.
ynative77.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/the-progress-report-tim-pawlenty%E2%80%99s-7-8-trillion-tax-cut-triple-crown/
Last week, we wrote about the House GOP’s bad medicine for the economy. Today, on the 10th anniversary of the Bush tax cuts no less, we have something far worse to present: former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s plan for the economy. Pawlenty’s plan wins the triple crown: it’s more radical than Ryan, costs three times more than the Bush tax cuts, and still means a tax increase on the middle class. Here are the main points of the Pawlenty plan, which he outlined in a speech this morning in Chicago:
* A hidden tax increase on the middle class
* A massive personal income tax cut for millionaires and billionaires; Citizens for Tax Justice estimates the plan cuts millionaires’ taxes by at least 41%
* A massive tax cut for corporations — including Big Oil — that would cut the corporate rate by more than 50%
* A complete elimination of the estate tax, capital gains tax, and tax on dividend income
* A cap on total spending that would necessitate severe cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs (except for defense, which Pawlenty has taken off the table in favor of slashing Social Security instead)
* The price tag for all of these tax cuts? More than triple the cost of extending just the Bush tax cuts: a whopping $7.8 TRILLION over 10 years, according to the Center for American Action Progress Fund’s director for tax and budget policy, Michael Linden. And that comes in addition to the $2.5 trillion that a full extension of the Bush tax cuts would also cost.
The early reviews for the plan have not been kind. On the progressive side of the ledger, Ezra Klein of the Washington Post wrote:
This plan isn’t optimistic. It isn’t a bit vague. It’s a joke. And I don’t know which is worse: The thought that Pawlenty knows that and went forward with this pandering, fantasy-based proposal anyway, or the thought that he doesn’t know it, and he really thinks this could work.
The Washington Post’s conservative blogger, Jennifer Rubin, also panned the plan:
I love tax cuts as much as the next conservative, but it takes a leap of imagination to suppose that the huge tax cuts are going to generate such growth as to come close to generating revenue sufficient even for a sharply pruned federal government. In sum, this may be an attractive pro-growth plan, but it is not a very serious budget policy.
Georgetown University Professor Adam Levitin put it pretty succinctly in his headline:
Tim Pawlenty’s Plan to Destroy the World
While Ezra Klein is right that the Pawlenty plan is entirely unserious, the impact it would have on everyday Americans is no laughing matter. There’s a lot in the plan, so let’s boil it down to what matters most: the middle class will pay more in taxes and won’t have anything resembling Social Security and Medicare to rely on, all while the very richest Americans and largest corporation will pay even less in taxes than they do now.
How egregiously slanted toward the richest Americans is the Pawlenty plan? Billionaire hedge-funders would pay virtually nothing in taxes thanks to the permanent exemption the plan would give to their income, they could pass on that wealth tax-free when they die, and those who inherited it could continue to live off of it — without ever paying any taxes on that income.
In short, if you thought the Ryan plan to end Medicare in order to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy and Big Oil didn’t go far enough, then you’ll love the much more radical Pawlenty plan.
ynative77.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/the-progress-report-tim-pawlenty%E2%80%99s-7-8-trillion-tax-cut-triple-crown/