08.24.10
GOP idea of stimulus: Pay richest 120,000 taxpayers $3M each
Paul Krugman followed up yesterday’s blockbuster New York Times op-ed with a blog post today defending the fact that over the next decade, the GOP proposal to extend all Bush tax cuts, not just those going to the middle class as President Obama suggests, will line the pockets of the richest 0.1 percent of taxpayers with $3M each.
What’s at stake here? According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, making all of the Bush tax cuts permanent, as opposed to following the Obama proposal, would cost the federal government $680 billion in revenue over the next 10 years.
Krugman points out that the TPC estimates that most of the money will end up in the pockets of the rich.
Take a group of 1,000 randomly selected Americans, and pick the one with the highest income; he’s going to get the majority of that group’s tax break. And the average tax break for those lucky few — the poorest members of the group have annual incomes of more than $2 million, and the average member makes more than $7 million a year — would be $3 million over the course of the next decade.
Your choice in November is between a party that will responsibly navigate the country out of the financial wilderness created by decades of voodoo economics, and one that wants to open the doors of the United States Treasury to be looted by the wealthiest members of our society. Vote Democratic to continue down the path to recovery, or return to the policies of the Republican Party that led us into this mess.