January 25, 2005, The Red Sea (of ink)
The White House released its own estimates showing a budget deficit for fiscal 2005 in the range of, oh, well over $400 billion, a new record. The Congressional Budget Office predicts a 10-year deficit of around $800 billion, or so, which assumes that the GOP Congress WILL NOT "make the tax cuts permanent", and that the Iraq war ends in fiscal 2005. Good luck on both; more realistic guesses are $2.3 trillion with a T.
We're now talking about numbers so high that, well, our creditors in Tokyo and Beijing will themselves likely run out of money to finance our debt at some point soon.
My favorite part is the buried note about the $80B requestesd of which $75B will go toward army costs of improving combat capacity (nice to think about that as the war mires into its third year): a mention of the $1.5 billion earmarked for our embassy in Baghdad. You heard me: $1.5 billion for one embassy.
All I can say is it had better have luxury boxes and a retractable roof. Nothing like fiscal insanity at a time we can't afford to buy body armor for our soldiers.
Democrats: you have my tax proposal. You can brilliantly seize the initiative by lowering the top marginal rate, AND you can take away the Republicans' number one gift to K-Street (tax breaks for the rich) by taking away ALL TAX BREAKS FROM EVERYONE IN EXCHANGE FOR LOWER RATES. What could be more fair? Plus, we can take politics out of it, by setting the percentage of GDP the federal government spends as "the basic rate", with 5 points added to that for income over $100K and 5 or 7 points less than that for icem under $50K, and no tax at all for income under $10K, regardless of source, and all income, regardless of source, taxed at the same rate, and take politics out of taxation rates FOREVER. AND Bush would have to DEFEND why obnoxious heirs get a tax break while working men and women still have to pay taxes... Its win win for Democrats in so many ways... all they have to do is think big, instead of trying to please THEIR OWN K-Street lobbyist friends...
Good luck, as they say... It will be the Democrats who have most to benefit from this who will most likely see that it never happens... Too bad. We have an opportunity here. Hey St. Hillary of Chappaqua: instead of trying to pretend you can make common ground with the fundies on abortion, why not this? Oh yes... I know why...
Comments
I like it but it will never pass this administration unless they think they thought of it themselves. It might be an interesting platform for the DNC though. Maybe "Crazy" Howie Dean could stump for such a thing but when Steve Forbes tried talking about a flat tax people freaked out. Fiscal responsibility just isn't cool.
BTW did you see my man Byrd putting that Rice woman in her place. Racism, hell, he just hates Bush.
Posted by irisclara at January 26, 2005 6:42 AM
Tax inheritance? You've got more chance of Bush appointing Gore to the Supreme Court and Kerry as AG than you do of anyone making a whisper about taxing inheritance.
American's hate the Estate tax and that doesn't even affect most of them. Now try and sell that everyone is going to get taxed on what their dear old Aunt leaves them. Ha! Political suicide, lower rates or not.
Posted by Tom at January 27, 2005 5:02 PM
Tom--
It's never been phrased like this before, and it's never been a top rate of 27%; remember, inheritances have always been taxed at 50, sometimes 70% top rates. THAT seems unfair. The same exact 27% rate that working men and women have to pay on income over $100K? Much harder to jump out of.
We're going into a completely different approach to taxation: the theme has got to be-- its not THE DEAD GUY whose paying the tax-- HE'S DEAD-- its THE BENEFICIARY WHOSE PAYING THE TAX; the beneficiary HAS NEVER PAID TAX ON THE BEQUEST BEFORE (the usual "my Uncle Waldo paid taxes on this money all his life" bullshit, which is invariably not true; most great fortunes involve some level of tax avoidance, if not outright tax evasion.)
The other thing is: WE ARE PAYING FOR THE GOVERNMENT. The system that allows you to accumulate and then bequeathe property MUST BE PAID FOR.
I agree, though-- that if so much as one single "middle class tax break" (home mortgage interest, for example) is inserted in there, it ruins all possible arguments I have to stop the K-Street feeding frenzy (STARTING with large estates).
Didn't say it would be easy... but I would say that its DEMOCRATS that would make something like this IMPOSSIBLE; Republicans might actually be more willing to go along with it (it DOES cut that top marginal rate...)
Posted by the talking dog at January 27, 2005 6:07 PM