May 23, 2013

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Those "Best-for-Nothing" Bush/Obama Tax Cuts
Monday, September 13, 2010 - 3:44 PM

The media is buzzing about how House Minority Leader John Boehner and President Obama might be ready to "compromise" on what to do about the Bush tax cuts.  From a story by Shailagh Murray and Lori Montgomery in Monday's Washington Post:

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) surprised Democrats on Sunday when he said he might not oppose President Obama's plan to extend the cuts for all but the wealthiest households, although he reiterated his preference for keeping the lower rates in place for all income groups.

Boehner's comments, made on the CBS program "Face the Nation," altered the landscape of the tax debate by suggesting that Republicans might not obstruct Democratic efforts to raise taxes on the top earners - a move advocated by Obama and many other Democrats as necessary to lowering the record deficit.

But read on in the same story.  Boehner did not say he would support letting the top-end cuts expire.  He said he wouldn't oppose extending all the rest of the tax cuts that President Obama is already proposing to extend:

"If the...

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Getting Outside the "Deficit-Financed Tax Cuts Box" on Tax Policy
Sunday, September 5, 2010 - 9:54 PM

The Obama Administration is now considering a new set of tax cuts, primarily aimed at businesses, to further stimulate the economy.  It's reported that a permanent extension of the research and experimentation tax credit is one of these new proposals.  This is just the latest sign that the Administration is stuck in its own "deficit-financed tax cuts box."

My first complaint about these new ideas for tax cuts is that they're not really new at all; they're repeats of essentially permanent tax cuts that are repeatedly renewed.  They are "temporary" in name only. The administration seems to have adopted the mindset that many policymakers in Congress (and not exclusively those from one side of the aisle) have long had -- that the prescription for any kind of economic ailment should be more deficit-financed tax cuts.  But given the fiscal and economic outlook, and how the CBO explains they interact over the longer term (large deficits reducing economic growth), there's no justification for deficit financing permanent tax cuts. That's true even for tax cuts that may be good for longer-term growth (via the supply side of the economy) like the research tax credit.  Deficit-financing is only justified for policies that are designed to effectively and immediately boost...

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Budget and Appropriations Update
Monday, August 2, 2010 - 10:58 AM

Below are several developments we have been following since the last edition of the Washington Budget Report (sign up here) was published.

FY 2011 APPROPRIATIONS:  Prior to departing for the August recess, the House passed the first two FY 2011 appropriations bills. The Military Construction-Veterans Affairs bill passed by a vote of 411-6 and the Transportation-HUD bill passed by a vote of 251-167. House subcommittees reported the...

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Budget and Appropriations Update
Monday, July 26, 2010 - 10:14 AM

Below are several developments we have been following since the last edition of the Washington Budget Report (sign up here) was published.

COMMITTEES REPORT ADDITIONAL FY 2011 APPROPRIATIONS BILLS:  Last week the House Appropriations Committee continued to make progress on the FY 2011 bills.  The full committee reported the Military Construction-Veterans Affairs bill as well as the Transportation- Housing and Urban Development bill.  Both bills are expected...

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Budget and Appropriations Update
Monday, July 19, 2010 - 10:34 AM

Below are several developments we have been following since the last edition of the Washington Budget Report (sign up here) was published. 

2011 APPROPRIATIONS PROCESS MOVES FORWARD AS TIME STANDS STILL FOR THE 2010 SUPPLEMENTAL: Last week the House Appropriations Committee continued to make progress on the FY 2011 bills. House subcommittees reported the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs; Energy and Water; and...

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Budget and Appropriations Update
Monday, July 12, 2010 - 10:22 AM

As Congress returns from its July 4th recess, below are some of the budget stories we have been following since the last edition of the Washington Budget Report (sign up here) was published. 

  • Before the recess, the House of Representatives passed a deeming resolution by a vote of 215-210. (For background material on deeming resolutions, a Congressional Research Service report can be found here and a Concord Coalition blog entry can be found here).  The deeming resolution was included as part of the...
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Congress might pass a bill to increase the deficit by over $4 trillion
Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - 3:46 PM

Imagine if Congress held a vote in the next few months on a bill that cut nearly $3.7 trillion in income taxes, added $350 billion worth of loopholes and deductions to the tax code, and increased Medicare spending by $236 billion.

There might be quite an uproar. After all, we are experiencing the largest deficits in history with increasing awareness of our clearly unsustainable long-term outlook.

Yet, this bill is effectively being passed by Congress, sometimes in decisions made on a month-to-month basis and sometimes annually, through multiple bills that contain Medicare doctor payment "fixes," extenders, Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) patches, and through the big upcoming push to extend some or all of the Bush tax cuts. Members from both parties have voted time and again over the last 10 years for this bill.

Today's release of the Congessional Budget Office (CBO) long-term outlook highlights the deleterious effect of these decisions on the budget outlook both over the short term and the long term. In it, CBO constructs a baseline of where current law would take us and a baseline of...

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How and when to get "Back in Black"
Thursday, June 24, 2010 - 10:00 AM

A Washington Post editorial today sums up a bunch of different strands of thinking about the federal budget that Concord has been writing about and talking about a lot recently. One is that the country can "walk and chew gum" at the same time when it comes to short-term actions to help the economy that may involve increased deficits and long-term planning to confront the nation's real fiscal challenges. Another is that the current debate in Congress over the cost of tax-extenders is failing to focus on their merits while the overall fiscal challenge continues to go unexamined. A third is that we generally do know what actions need to be taken to reform federal programs over the long run -- but that members of Congress lack the political courage to act, and hopefully the President's fiscal commission can begin to...

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Kill the Extenders!
Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - 1:23 PM

Debate on the so-called “extenders” bill has focused on the size and duration of unemployment benefits, health insurance assistance for those who recently lost their jobs, Medicare physician payments, state aid for health care and various offsets to mitigate the overall effect on the deficit.

Conspicuously missing from the debate is any scrutiny of the extenders themselves. It’s a missed opportunity to raise needed revenue while simplifying the tax code and broadening the tax base -- goals that economists of all ideological stripes have long advocated. 

Both the House and Senate versions of the extenders bill contain more than 60 narrowly targeted tax breaks that expired last year. Extending them just through this year will cost about $32 billion. The long-term cost runs to over $350 billion. That cost will add to the debt unless it is offset by corresponding tax increases or spending cuts that may prove more harmful to the economy than failing to renew some, or all, of the extenders. 

At a time when the President is commendably urging all federal agencies to identify their lowest priority and least effective items, Congress should devote the same level of scrutiny to the tax code. The extenders would be a good place to...

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Efforts to Reduce Structural Deficits Must Mean More Than Rigging the Scorecard
Monday, June 7, 2010 - 4:34 PM

Public concern about the nation’s rising debt burden is beginning to have an impact on the legislative agenda.  

That much was evident as the House passed a scaled back “extenders” bill (H.R. 4213) on May 28 by a slim margin. Originally estimated to have a gross cost of $192 billion and a net deficit increase of $134 billion, the final bill carried a gross cost of $114 billion and a net deficit increase of $54 billion.

While this cost reduction was a victory for House Democrats -- mainly Blue Dogs -- who objected to the deficit impact of the original bill, much of it was accomplished by timing shifts rather than a change in policy. For example, shortening the extension period of certain unemployment benefits “saved” about $8 billion and sunsetting an increase in the Medicare physician reimbursement rate (the “doc fix”) after 19 months “saved” almost $40 billion. 

It remains to be seen whether concerns about the immediate deficit, which is largely driven by economic conditions, will be translated into hard choices on the long-term structural deficit. 

In that regard, it is worth noting that the policies extended in the extenders bill carry large long-term costs whether they become visible now or in the...

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