{"id":8558,"date":"2011-06-07T16:01:57","date_gmt":"2011-06-07T23:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bradblog.com\/?p=8558"},"modified":"2011-06-07T16:00:10","modified_gmt":"2011-06-07T23:00:10","slug":"on-10th-anniversary-of-bush-tax-cuts-what-we-could-have-had-instead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=8558","title":{"rendered":"On 10th Anniversary of Bush Tax Cuts, What We Could Have Had Instead"},"content":{"rendered":"

By way of marking today’s 10th anniversary of George W. Bush’s job-killing, society-crushing tax cuts for the rich — which we recently illustrated via one very clear chart<\/a>, as the largest factor, by far, in exacerbating our current public debt –here, courtesy of Think Progress<\/a>, is just a few<\/i> of the things this country could<\/i> have had for the same 10-year price tag as those tax cuts for rich people who didn’t need them…<\/p>\n

– Give 122.7 Million Children Low-Income Health Care Every Year For Ten Years<\/p>\n

– Give 49.2 Million People Access To Low-Income Healthcare Every Year For Ten Years<\/p>\n

– Provide 43.1 Million Students With Pell Grants Worth $5,500 Every Year For Ten Years<\/p>\n

– Provide 31.5 Million Head Start Slots For Children Every Year For Ten Years<\/p>\n

– Provide VA Care For 30.7 Million Military Veterans Every Year For Ten Years<\/p>\n

– Provide 30.4 Million Scholarships For University Students Every Year For Ten Years<\/p>\n

– Hire 4.19 Million Firefighters Every Year For Ten Years<\/p>\n

– Hire 3.67 Million Elementary School Teachers Every Year For Ten Years<\/p>\n

– Hire 3.6 Million Police Officers Every Year For Ten Years<\/p>\n

– Retrofit 144.6 Million Households For Wind Power Every Year For Ten Years<\/p>\n

– Retrofit 54.2 Million Households For Solar Photovoltaic Energy Every Year For Ten Years<\/b><\/div>\n

Well, that all might have been nice for all<\/i> Americans.<\/p>\n

So how are the current crop of GOP contenders for the 2012 Presidential nomination responding? Here is former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s economic plan, as outlined in a speech today, which promises to triple<\/i> the size of the existing Bush tax cuts…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Courtesy, once again, of Think Progress<\/a>, Pawlenty called today for [emphasis theirs<\/i>]:<\/p>\n

\n

“\u201c Cutting the top individual income tax rate down to 25 percent;
\n“\u201c Having just two income tax brackets, 10 percent and 25 percent;
\n“\u201c Eliminating all taxation on capital gains, dividends, and estates;
\n“\u201c Cutting the corporate tax rate down to 15 percent<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These proposals, taken together would bestow a massive tax cut on the wealthiest people in the country. They would also reduce overall federal revenues to a such a low level that even if Pawlenty’s draconian, radical spending targets were achieved, deficits and debt would still soar out of control.<\/p>\n

All together, Pawlenty’s tax proposal would generate an average revenue level of just 13.6 percent of GDP from 2013-2021. That translates to a tax cut of $7.8 trillion, and that’s on top of $2.5 trillion cost of extending all of the Bush tax cuts<\/strong> (see below for details on how this estimate was calculated).<\/p>\n

Pawlenty also says that he will balance the budget, and cap spending at 18 percent of GDP<\/a>. Unfortunately for Pawlenty, his tax plan leaves him about $8.4 trillion short. Given that reality, he can either embrace a huge middle-class tax increase, or give up his claims to a balanced budget. If he doesn’t make up that revenue, deficits and debt will skyrocket, even if he does slash spending back to levels not seen in half a century.<\/div>\n

Click here<\/a> to see how the Center for American Progress’ Director of Tax and Budget Policy, Michael Linden, arrived at those numbers.<\/p>\n

And, since you’ve read this far, in more “celebration” of the 10th anniversary of Bush’s tax cuts, here’s that chart again<\/a>, as originally published by TPM<\/a>, detailing the specific causes for our current federal debt…<\/p>\n

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By way of marking today’s 10th anniversary of George W. Bush’s job-killing, society-crushing tax cuts for the rich — which we recently illustrated via one very clear chart, as the largest factor, by far, in exacerbating our current public debt –here, courtesy of Think Progress, is just a few of the things this country could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,405,390,220,288],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-8558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountability","category-bush-legacy","category-economy","category-education","category-health-care"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8558"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=8558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}