How many times can the Republicans count the same money toward the budget?

[Omaha Steve]

http://nhlabornews.com/2013/03/how-many-times-can-the-republicans-count-the-same-money/

Posted by Liz Iacobucci

Back in 2001, the Bush Tax Cuts were supposed to be temporary. All the old tax laws were supposed to kick back in, starting in 2011. The fact that all those “old taxes” were going to come back into effect was what made the tax cuts “affordable”, back when Alan Greenspan was doing the math.

Fast-forward to January 2013, as the federal government goes over the Fiscal Cliff. The Republicans finally agreed to some “new taxes” – even though the “new taxes” were less than one-third of the “old taxes” which had been “temporarily suspended” by the Bush tax cuts. (The 10-year cost of the Bush tax cuts was $2.2 trillion. The Fiscal Cliff deal was $617 billion over 10 years.)



Now it’s March. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan just released his budget proposal. And gosh, there’s that money again — this time as “budgetary savings”. Here’s what The Hill had to say:

The Ryan budget counts the $600 billion in new tax revenue raised under the January “fiscal cliff” deal as budgetary savings. Ryan also counts hundreds of billions in additional revenue being raised due to rosier economic growth projections…

FULL story at link.