[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]
|
Status: Not Logged In; Sign In
United States News Title: Republicans Promising Cuts Deliver Policies That Would Raise U.S. Deficits Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. House Republicans, who swept into power promising to rein in the federal deficit, have proposed policies in their first week that would make the shortfall worse. Moves to repeal President Barack Obama’s health-care law and promises to extend Bush-era tax cuts and offer other breaks would add more than $1 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years, based on reports from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation. In one of their first votes, Republicans changed anti- deficit rules to allow for tax cuts that aren’t paid for by savings elsewhere in the budget. New spending would have to be offset with cuts elsewhere, though tax increases to fund new programs would be prohibited. “They are willing to increase the deficit if it comes as a result of things they want to do, specifically tax cuts,” said Stan Collender, a former congressional budget aide and now managing director of Qorvis Communications in Washington. “It’s a little disingenuous at best.” The new Republican exemptions to the so-called pay-go budget rules will be “dead on arrival in the Senate,” Senator Charles Schumer a New York Democrat, told reporters yesterday. Extending tax cuts for the highest-income Americans for just two years, as Congress did last month, will cost about $81.5 billion, according to a December report by the Joint Committee on Taxation. Extending lower rates on most capital gains and dividends will cost $53.1 billion over two years. A reduced estate tax rate will cost $68.1 billion. Over a period of 10 years, the cuts would add more than $1 trillion to the deficit, combined with a repeal of the health-care law. ‘Extreme Agenda’ Under current law, the tax cuts expire in 2012. House Republicans have pledged to make them permanent, and the rules they adopted this week would allow them to do that without being offset. “After all their talk about the deficit, Republicans didn’t wait one day before pushing an extreme agenda that will cost American taxpayers more than $1.5 trillion and put America’s health coverage at risk,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said in a statement. Some Republicans also say they will have to scale back a promise to trim spending this fiscal year. They say they intend to make about $60 billion in cuts, not the $100 billion they promised during last year’s campaign. Rallying Cry The U.S. had a $1.3 trillion budget deficit in fiscal year 2010, up from $459 billion in the fiscal year that ended in September 2008, four months before Obama took office. Republicans, including Tea Party-backed candidates, used the ballooning deficit as a rallying cry throughout the campaign, declaring in their Pledge to America that they would “stop out- of-control spending and reduce the size of government.” Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, said yesterday that Republicans are doing what voters demanded. “They want us to cut government spending and repeal Obamacare to help grow our economy, and we will,” Steel said. “The question is whether congressional Democrats will join us, or whether they will continue to ignore the people.” The Congressional Budget Office yesterday said repealing the health law, which extends medical-insurance coverage to 32 million people who lack it, would widen the deficit by $230 billion through 2021. The overhaul, enacted last March, is projected to cost $938 billion over 10 years while reducing the budget deficit by slowing the growth in government spending on health care, according to the CBO. ‘Budget Buster’ House Republicans plan to vote Jan. 12 to repeal the law, fulfilling another campaign promise. Democrats still control the Senate and have vowed to block any attempt to dismantle the measure. Republicans disputed the CBO’s findings on the repeal and have long questioned the original savings estimate, saying it didn’t account for the cost of a new, long-term medical- insurance program and an increase in compensation to doctors in the Medicare program for the elderly, among other items. Representative Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, called the health-care law a “budget buster.” He said estimates of its savings exclude $115 billion needed to implement the law and count twice certain payroll taxes and reductions to Medicare. Ryan also said Democrats stripped out some costly measures and passed them separately. “Hiding spending does not reduce spending,” the Wisconsin Republican said in a statement. Keeping Current Rates Brian Riedl, lead budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, which favors limited government, defended Republicans’ stance on extending tax cuts and the changes to the budget rules, saying the effort won’t add to the deficit because the cuts aren’t new. “The Republicans aren’t cutting taxes,” he said. “They are merely keeping current tax rates in place.” In their tally of Republican proposals that would add to the deficit, Democrats left out items they favor that would cost even more. Schumer said permanently indexing the alternative minimum tax for inflation so it doesn’t deny common deductions for tens of millions of families would cost another $1.1 trillion over 10 years. Yet Obama has included the proposal for the AMT, a parallel structure initially designed to ensure the wealthiest Americans pay at least some taxes, in his first two budget plans. Democrats also didn’t include the cost of making tax cuts for families earning $250,000 or less permanent, which would add another $1.3 trillion to the deficit, a move Democrats also back. Last month, Republicans and Obama agreed on the two-year tax-cut package, which will add $858 billion to the deficit by extending all the Bush-era income tax cuts and other breaks. In the Senate, 43 Democrats supported it. Schumer declined to comment on that, saying he was focused on House Republicans. “This is about them,” he said.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Brian S (#0)
this is the same party who idolizes Ronald Reagan, who tripled the debt on his watch.
Since January 3, 2011, Republicans have controlled the power of the purse.
|
|
[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]
|