House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday there is “no justification” for extending tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, firing the latest salvo in a brewing battle over taxes.
The leading Democrat and Republican in the House dug in their heels on Thursday, but it will likely be the Senate that acts first on the tax legislation.
Senate Democrats may bring up the measure the week of September 27, according to a Democratic aide.
Democrats largely back President Barack Obama’s plan to extend lower taxes for the first $200,000 of an individual’s income, but a small minority favor renewing additional tax cuts for those earning above that level — the wealthiest 3 percent of taxpayers.
Republicans are insisting that the additional high-end income tax cuts be included in any extensions. The lower tax rates date to the Republican administration of President George W. Bush and they all expire at year-end unless Congress acts.
With only about six weeks before mid-term elections that will decide the fate of all 435 seats in the House and 37 of 100 Senate seats, Washington is riveted on tax policy.
If Senate Republicans mount a procedural roadblock to prevent a quick vote, as they have done dozens of times this year, Democrats could then argue that Republicans are effectively allowing taxes to rise for most Americans.
Some compromises have been floated, including a one-year or two-year extension for the top income groups, but Pelosi has stood firm against them.
“I see no justification for giving a tax break, going into debt with foreign countries to underwrite the subsidized tax cuts for the wealthiest people in America,” Pelosi told reporters.
Tax cuts “at the high end have not produced any jobs, they have only increased the deficit,” Pelosi said at her weekly news conference.
The Democratic plan freezes tax rates for individuals below an annual $200,000 income and for families below $250,000. Wealthier individuals would also benefit on that first slice of their income.
But under their plan, rates for the top two income groups would rise to 39.6 percent and 36 percent, from the current 35 percent and 33 percent.
Republicans continued to call for an extension of the lower rates for the upper income groups.
“Let’s freeze all current tax rates for two years,” House Republican leader John Boehner said on Thursday.
Boehner also noted that Republicans have asked Pelosi “to allow nothing short of an up or down vote on a bill to stop all of the current tax hikes.”
The Democratic plan would cost about $2.9 trillion over a decade; the Republican plan is about $700 billion more expensive than the Democrats’ proposal.
Both would pile onto fast-growing government debt and both have been criticized by fiscal hawks.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan this week repeated his view that the country cannot afford any tax cuts amid a projected $1.3 trillion budget deficit.
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This woman is completely out-of-touch with reality. There is a thriving underground economy in her State with people paying ZERO in taxes.
$250,000 for a family in California is really only middle class. What every happened to saving for a rainy day? I guess we are all going to wind up as wards of the State.
And who’s she going to over-tax then?
Even Fidel Castro recently said that communism doesn’t actually work.
The persistent rumour of Che Bloomers is confirmed,our secret agent is still foaming and incoherent from the ordeal.
I hate Pelosi with a passion but I believe she is right in this case. There is NO EVIDENCE that providing cuts and incentives to the very rich help this nation at all. In fact, there is no evidence to support that notion that all the incentives given to the rich have helped this nation. In fact all the rich have done is pocket the cash and continue to send job and money overseas.
The rich are not patriots. They are whores. The rich are IN FACT largely responsible for the mess we face today.
I do not hate people who HONESTLY aquire wealth, but most rich people have not honestly aquired their wealth. Just because man’s law allows the rich to throw their money at non-western nations, robbing our precious Saxon heritage and decimating our culture, it does not make it moral. It only means that the freaks in Western governments passing these laws, along with the rich who take advantage of them, are guilty of high treason, the punishment of which is jusfiably DEATH.
I do not like to talk in generalities, where economic classes are concerned, but the way in which most of the rich have robbed this and other Western nations, necessitates a drastic solution. The rich are just as guilty of playing the economic class warfare games as are the communists (although the communists are hypocrites about it). Meanwhile, the average White kinspeople are caught in the middle, desiring nothing more than an honest days wage for an honest day’s work.
Obviously the current governments of the West are not fit to lead and the rich are not fit for their ill-gotten status.
I think her wardrobe needs looking into,it would take a brave soul.