fiscal cliff deal gives $1.3 trillion in tax cuts to richest 5%

[hfojvt]

Last edited Sat Jan 5, 2013, 01:18 PM - Edit history (1)

tell me again how Republicans lost?

First of all, don't shoot the messenger.

I am just relaying the results of two reports from Citizens For Tax Justice

The first one shows that the betrayal (err, the "deal&quot was NOT a tax increase, it was a tax CUT

http://ctj.org/pdf/fiscalcliffdealrevenueimpacts.pdf

If all of the Bush tax cuts got extended that would have been a tax cut of $3.9 trillion.

Since only 85% of the Bush tax cuts were extended it means a tax cut of $3.3 trillion. Add to that the $369 billion in estate tax cuts which the White House is calling an increase in the estate tax. The total is $3.7 trillion in tax cuts.

We are supposed to cheer because the top 1% is gonna pay another $600 billion in taxes.

Okay, fine, but how is the $3.7 trillion in tax CUTS divided up.

That is in the next report http://ctj.org/pdf/bidenmcconnelldistribution.pdf Read it and weep.

The bottom 60% gets just 19% of the tax cut.
The same amount as the richest 1% gets.
The top 20% gets 65% of the tax cut - $2.4 trillion over ten years.

Say hello to more income inequality. $2.4 trillion in tax cuts for the top 20%. $700 billion in tax cuts for the bottom 60%. Plus $124 billion in recovery act credit provisions. Is still only $800 billion for the bottom 60%

Oh well, maybe those tax cuts to the top 20% will trickle down to the rest of us.

And we in the bottom 60% are supposed to believe that Obama is on OUR side? That the Democratic Party is on OUR side?

They will claim to be, but $2.4 trillion vesus $800 billion shows that claim is a lie.

Was it the best they could do? They did not even OFFER anything better to the American people. Our false choice was - keep 78% of the Bush tax cuts or keep 100% of them. No elected offical - not Tammy Baldwin, not Elizabeth Warren, not Dennis Kucinich, not Alan Grayson, not Sherrod Brown, not Sheldon Whitehouse, not Bernie Sanders, not Al Franken. None of them ever used their position to demand - let's keep ZERO percent of them and aim tax cuts at the bottom 60%.

All of those supposed progressives are apparently owned by the richest 20%.

[leftstreet]

1. And yet we're told we must work to elect more 'progressives'

Why fucking bother if the alleged 'progressives' are nothing but mascots?

DURec

[hfojvt]

8. maybe with a few more in office

some of them would find the courage or care enough to speak up?

Harkin did speak up at the 11th hour.

And he was joined by, uhm, nobody?

Kucinich maybe gave a decent speech (I did not watch the video) but then voted FOR the deal.

Grayson spoke out against the chained CPI and so did Durbin. But it seems to me the chained CPI was thrown out there to make us relieved that the final deal did not include it. It put the focus on the spending side rather than the tax side of the deal. The tax side was getting very little attention. Most people assumed, I guess, that tax cuts for people below $250,000 was GOOD for the lower classes. Even though it never was http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021880321

[AZ Progressive]

2. How can Americans know whats going on if these deals are very sneaky

with complicated math, deals that look good until you analyze the numbers more thoroughly? The American people (at least the bottom 80%) are played for suckers.

[hfojvt]

3. I think it could have been known before

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021880321

After all, CTJ did this analysis of Obama's $250,000 proposal way back in 2010 that showed it heavily favored the top 20% over the bottom 60%, and I have linked to it about 100 times on DU. http://www.ctj.org/pdf/taxcompromise2010.pdf

I kind of expect Senators and Representatives and Presidents to be at least as well informed as I am.

They should be, since they are actually voting on the legislation. It's their full time job, for God's sake. I have another full time job besides running for office, being President of Kiwanis and serving on the waterboard.

[sweetloukillbot]

4. Is this some strange parody of tax policy?

1) It's changing the goalposts from top 2%, which is what was originally targeted, or even top 1%, which is what the bill ended up affecting.
When has the top 20% ever been in discussion. How much is the income of the top 20%? 100K? 70K? 50K? What is the average income of the bottom 60? What about the missing 20% between bottom 60% and the top 20%?
And what are you asking for? Getting rid of all the tax cuts then claiming not enough tax cuts for lower income?

[hfojvt]

7. "When has the top 20% ever been in discussion?"

It has not.

And that is my point.

I make no bones about it. I stand for the bottom 60%.

That is a clear majority of the American people, but when are they ever part of the discussion? Instead they are just lumped in with the "middle class" and then "middle class tax cuts" are passed which give most of their benefits (65%!!!!1!!) to the top 20%. Yes, that certainly IS a parody of tax polcy. It's a Democratic version of Reaganomics, courtesy of Benedict Obama.

The 60-80% group? The other 20% that you are asking about?

Sure, they are part of the middle class - the better off part of the middle class. They are not rich, but they are certainly economically better off than the bottom 60%. Am I supposed to be happy that they got $0.6 trillion in tax cuts? When the bottom 40% only gets $0.37 trillion?

What I am saying is

1. Get rid of all the Bush tax cuts.

and

2. If the country needs tax cuts, they should be tax cuts that help the bottom 60% more than they help the top 20%. The poor and working classes should be the beneficiaries of progressive tax policy, NOT the rich.

and

3. Apparently NONE of the elected Democrats at the national level is very concerned about the bottom 60%. From Obama down to Kucinich. None of those cowardly traitors gives a damn about the working class.

[and-justice-for-all]

5. It is revolting to say the least..nt

[hfojvt]

14. the other revolting part

is how this fact got buried in all the celebrating of Obama and Biden's great "victory".

But the media has almost everybody focused on "my own tax cut" and ignoring the distribution of tax cuts.

[samsingh]

6. kick

[Egalitarian Thug]

9. K&R But nobody could've predicted...

Known unknowns and unknown unknowns and the dance goes on and on. The only thing that changes is the velocity.

[hfojvt]

10. well I was predicting it

and so was Citizens for Tax Justice

But without much of an audience.

[Egalitarian Thug]

11. Yeah, I know. There were a few of us shouting into the wind.

[hfojvt]

12. okay I was wrong to subtract the $600 billion

I basically double counted it. The $600 billion does not come out of the $2.4 trillion, it is basically created by looking at things backwards.

That is, reducing a $3 trillion tax cut to a mere $2.4 trillion tax cut is being called a $600 billion tax increase.

How Orwellian is that?

[TBF]

13. We need more than progressives - we need a new system

When one family (the Walmarts) control more wealth than 40% of the rest of the population it isn't difficult to see that capitalism isn't working for most of us. We need to challenge what these folks are doing - Congress couldn't care less about most of us as their bread is buttered by millionaires. They tax the working and middle class (who really cannot afford it), more freebies to the billionaires, and raise their own salaries. It's disgusting.

[hfojvt]

18. same thing on the Democratic side

remember when those rich and famous people like Clooney and Tom Hanks were all praising the greatness of Obama?

But my guess is that a lot of the DNC's bread is buttered, not by members of the top 1%, but by members of the top 20%, those making between $100,000 and $250,000. There are a whole bunch of them and they can afford to give thousands. Much more so than people making $40,000 a year can.

[TBF]

20. Absolutely -

it is the folks who view themselves as wealthy - and they most certainly are in that category because otherwise they couldn't afford to send donations. And they think they are going to be rich one day. I don't think they really understand how the billionaires of this world are so insulated that they might as well be on another planet.

[datasuspect]

15. it's called shilling the rubes

you can't bite the hand that feeds you.

but what ya do is this:

1. get a pool of a couple hundred million working schlubs.

2. hit 'em each for $10? $20? $50? out of their very first check of the year.

3. PROFIT - all those little people and those little slices add up.

4. rake in the campaign bucks

USA!!!!! USA!!!!!! USA!!!!!

[NashvilleLefty]

16. Spin. Yes, these are the Obama tax cuts. But one thing

all of us need to remember is that if the Bush tax cuts would have been allowed to expire completely it would have hurt the bottom 60% a LOT more than it would hurt the Rich. In fact,it probably wouldn't hurt the rich at all, whereas it would have been devastating to the rest of us.

We are in the middle of a very shaky recovery, and letting the UI extensions expire along with all of the Bush tax cuts would have extremely cut spending, which would have sent the economy into a nosedive.

Yes, it would have been nice if we could have extended UI payments, cut taxes only for those below 200/250k income, tightened the Estate tax, etc., etc. as Dems wanted to do. But Dems are not working in a vacuum. We got the Repugs to MOVE when they vowed to stand firm.

We got a lot from this deal. We didn't get everything we wanted, for sure. But we got a lot more than I would have expected.

[hfojvt]

17. no, the facts are the facts

your excuses for the facts are the spin

I am not gonna buy that permanent tax cuts that favor the rich were passed in order to help the poor or to help the economy.

That's the same crap Bush tried to sell when he first proposed his tax cuts.


I take issue with this "Yes, it would have been nice if we could have extended UI payments, cut taxes only for those below 200/250k income,"

No, it would not at all be nice to cut taxes for those below $250,000 in income. That was the bullshit proposal that favored the rich from the start. The middle quintile has average income of $45,200. THAT is where the focus should be, not way, way above $100,000.

That's part of the problem. Democrats original starting point favored the rich, and not a single progressive Democrat objected, except for Harkin at the 11th hour.

"We got a lot from this deal" only looks true to me if by "we" you mean "members of the top 20%", because THEY certainly did get alot from this deal.

[DogPawsBiscuitsNGrav]

19. You nailed it!

Our elected officials are paid to represent us. I have no one in the senate or congress representing me and my family. When the biggest part of us are given a little financial breathing room it trickles down because we are out of necessity forced to spend that extra few bucks. The top 20 percent move their extra to a Cayman Islands account where it won't be taxed or spent in the US. There's no trickle down there and we all know it.

[Laelth]

21. k&r for the truth, however depressing it may be. n/t

-Laelth

[KoKo]

22. Is THIS Post..What Yu Said?

fiscal cliff deal gives $1.3 trillion in tax cuts to richest 5%

Last edited Sat Jan 5, 2013, 12:18 PM USA/ET - Edit history (3)
tell me again how Republicans lost?

First of all, don't shoot the messenger.

I am just relaying the results of two reports from Citizens For Tax Justice

The first one shows that the betrayal (err, the "deal&quot was NOT a tax increase, it was a tax CUT

http://ctj.org/pdf/fiscalcliffdealrevenueimpacts.pdf

If all of the Bush tax cuts got extended that would have been a tax cut of $3.9 trillion.

Since only 85% of the Bush tax cuts were extended it means a tax cut of $3.3 trillion. Add to that the $369 billion in estate tax cuts which the White House is calling an increase in the estate tax. The total is $3.7 trillion in tax cuts.

We are supposed to cheer because the top 1% is gonna pay another $600 billion in taxes.

Okay, fine, but how is the $3.7 trillion in tax CUTS divided up.

That is in the next report http://ctj.org/pdf/bidenmcconnelldistribution.pdf Read it and weep.

The bottom 60% gets just 19% of the tax cut.
The same amount as the richest 1% gets.
The top 20% gets 65% of the tax cut - $2.4 trillion over ten years.

Say hello to more income inequality. $2.4 trillion in tax cuts for the top 20%. $700 billion in tax cuts for the bottom 60%. Plus $124 billion in recovery act credit provisions. Is still only $800 billion for the bottom 60%

Oh well, maybe those tax cuts to the top 20% will trickle down to the rest of us.

And we in the bottom 60% are supposed to believe that Obama is on OUR side? That the Democratic Party is on OUR side?

They will claim to be, but $2.4 trillion vesus $800 billion shows that claim is a lie.

Was it the best they could do? They did not even OFFER anything better to the American people. Our false choice was - keep 78% of the Bush tax cuts or keep 100% of them. No elected offical - not Tammy Baldwin, not Elizabeth Warren, not Dennis Kucinich, not Alan Grayson, not Sherrod Brown, not Sheldon Whitehouse, not Bernie Sanders, not Al Franken. None of them ever used their position to demand - let's keep ZERO percent of them and aim tax cuts at the bottom 60%.

All of those supposed progressives are apparently owned by the richest 20%.