Citizens for Tax Justice For release on June 23, 1997

CTJ Compares Three Competing Tax Plans

GOP bills bust budget, favor wealthy

House Democrats offer bigger tax cuts to most families

Citizens for Tax Justice today released an updated side-by-side distributional comparison of the three tax plans now pending in Congress: the bill approved by the House Ways and Means Committee on June 13; the bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee and the House Democratic alternative plan crafted by the Democratic members of the Ways and Means Committee.

Each of the plans ostensibly lowers government revenues by a total of $85 billion or less over the next five years. The two GOP plans, however, rely on a variety of subterfuges to pretend to meet this target. Fully effective, they will cost $57-72 billion a year (in today's dollars), far beyond the amount affordable under the budget deal. In contrast, the House Democratic plan, at $20 billion a year fully-effective, stays within the budget constraints over the long term.

Despite its dramatically lower cost, the House Democratic plan actually succeeds in granting larger tax cuts to most families, with those in the bottom three-fifths of the income scale noticeably better off under the Democratic plan than under the GOP proposals.

More information on the House Ways and Means Plan

Information on the Senate Finance Plan

More information on the House Democrat Plan

Explanation of Difference Between CTJ and Ways and Means Distributional Tables

How the CTJ/ITEP Analysis of the Congressional 1997 Tax Plans Compares to Treasury's Analysis.

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