Recently in Obama Tax Policies Category

Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) has joined forces with a broad coalition of organizations called Rebuild and Renew America Now (RRAN) to promote a simple message: Congress has a whole lot of options to raise revenue to pay for health care reform and other initiatives without unfairly impacting low- or middle-income people and without harming the economy.

These progressive revenue options include both the tax changes included in President Obama's fiscal year 2010 budget proposals as well as additional options formulated in a recent report by CTJ and endorsed by Health Care for America Now (HCAN) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). (See CTJ's report on the President's tax proposals and CTJ's report on additional revenue options to fund health care reform.)

RRAN is a coalition that engaged in education, communications and lobbying efforts in support of the President's budget and other progressive initiatives earlier this year and has mobilized advocates and activists all over the country. Many of the organizations involved are usually focused on particular public services or progressive reforms, but have realized that all public services and reforms are in danger if Congress can't bring itself to raise the revenue needed to pay for them.

RRAN has invited organizations (both national organizations and state organizations) to sign onto its two-page statement of principles for this new campaign for progressive revenue options. Signing does not commit an organization to do anything (although all are also encouraged to become active in RRAN's activities) but simply states support for efforts to pay for initiatives in progressive ways. Anyone who is authorized to sign on behalf of an organization can visit the website of the Coalition on Human Needs (CHN) or simply click here.

The statement lists three broad principles to guide Congress's efforts to find revenue:

1. Adequacy. The federal tax system should raise sufficient revenue over time to meet our shared priorities and invest in our common future.

2. Fairness. Tax preferences that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy and corporations should be eliminated, and individuals and businesses should contribute their fair share of taxes, based on ability to pay.

3. Responsibility. We should not saddle future generations with unsustainable levels of debt.

The statement also lists examples of the kinds of tax policies RRAN supports:

• raising revenues from upper-income households;
• assessing a significant tax on large estates;
• reducing abuses among corporations and individuals who shelter income in offshore tax evasion or avoidance schemes;
• closing financial industry, oil and gas, and other inefficient corporate loopholes; and
• reducing tax preferences for unearned as opposed to earned income.

For more information in the coming days, visit RRAN's website: www.rebuildandrenew.org

Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Everett Eissenstat told the Senate Finance Committee yesterday that the administration has put the Panama Free Trade Agreement on hold while the administration develops a "new framework" for trade. Some Democratic members of Congress have been pressuring the administration and Speaker Pelosi to delay approval of the agreement until a Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) has been completed with Panama, a known tax haven. TIEAs enable two countries' governments to exchange information necessary to prosecute offshore tax evasion (although arguably many of the existing TIEAs are so weak as to be useless). Panama and the U.S. began negotiations on a TIEA back in 2002, but Panama has never finalized it. The administration and Congress should, at very least, refuse to reward countries that are uncooperative with U.S. tax enforcement efforts with enhanced trading relations.

The national advocacy group Public Citizen issued a report on April 29th explaining the issues. Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch division said, "Members of Congress wouldn't vote to let AIG not pay its taxes or to give Mexican drug lords a safe place to hide their proceeds from selling drugs to our kids, but that's in essence what the Panama FTA does." She argued that the trade agreement directly conflicts with the goals of regulating finance and closing tax havens. Thankfully, the Obama administration seems to be listening.

On May 11, the Treasury Department released its "Green Book" containing new details of the tax changes included in the President's fiscal year 2010 budget proposal. In addition to extending the Bush tax cuts for all but the richest Americans and making permanent many of the tax cuts in the recently enacted economic recovery act, the President would also make many changes that would raise revenue by closing loopholes, blocking tax avoidance schemes and making the tax code more progressive.

A new report from Citizens for Tax Justice examines and describes the significant revenue-raising provisions that are sure to be debated fiercely in the months to come.

Read the report.

On May 4, President Obama proposed several measures to address overseas tax avoidance and tax evasion. As explained in two new reports from Citizens for Tax Justice, these proposals are steps in the right direction but could be stronger.

For example, the President proposes to limit the rules allowing corporations to "defer" their U.S. taxes on foreign income, but he would largely exempt technology and pharmaceutical companies from even the weak limits he proposes, instead of simply repealing "deferral" altogether. He proposes sensible steps to reduce abuses of the foreign tax credit and the "check-the-box" rules that allow multinational corporations to cause their subsidiaries' income to "disappear." His proposals to crack down on the use of secret accounts in offshore tax havens are also positive steps but could be stronger.

Read the two new reports:

Obama's Proposals to Address Offshore Tax Abuses Are a Good Start, but More Is Needed

Myths and Facts about Offshore Tax Abuses

A new report from Citizens for Tax Justice answers many of the questions that are frequently asked about taxes during this time of year and clears up the old myths that are still accepted by many as fact. Here is just a sample of some of the questions that are answered:

Question: Does President Obama plan on raising our taxes?

Question: There might be cyclical downturns and upturns in the economy that no one can control, but don't tax cuts help us climb out of downturns a little faster?

Question: What are "tax havens" and why are some people in an uproar over them?

Question: What does it matter to me if someone else is hiding their income from the IRS?

Read the report.

This week, Citizens for Tax Justice updated its recent report on the tax proposals in the President's budget outline to include estimates of the proposals' impacts on different income groups in every state. The new state figures examine the proposed cuts compared to current law and also compared to the baseline that the Obama administration uses in presenting its budget figures. The figures show that, whichever baseline is used, the vast majority of families in every state will get a significant tax break.

Read the report. (State-by-state figures are in the final appendix.

On February 26, President Obama sent to Congress the blueprint for what could be one of the most progressive federal budgets in generations. The budget calls for national health care reform, expanded education funding, a program to reduce global warming, and several improvements in human needs programs. As a new report from Citizens for Tax Justice explains, it would make the tax code considerably more progressive, and close a number of egregious tax loopholes.

There is, however, a flaw in the budget proposal: It does not raise enough revenue to pay for public services. Instead, its net effect is to cut taxes dramatically.

Opponents of the President have attempted to argue that the budget proposal calls for tax increases that could sink the economy, but this complaint is plainly unfounded. President Bush and his allies in Congress were adamant that lower taxes would lead to an explosion of prosperity, and they enacted tax cuts in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2006. Some allies of the former President argue that Congress is now insufficiently focused on tax cuts, but this view seems bizarre and incredible given the sad economic facts all around us.

Indeed, one might reasonably conclude that we could safely allow most of the Bush tax cuts to expire at the end of 2010, as they are scheduled to under current law, without any concern about how this will impact the economy. But President Obama actually proposes to keep most of the Bush tax cuts. Obama's largest proposed tax cut is to re-enact 80 percent of the Bush tax cuts that are scheduled to expire at the end of 2010. Most of this reflects re-enacting the Bush income tax cuts for married couples with incomes below $250,000 and others with incomes below $200,000 (or put another way, for about 98 percent of taxpayers), and permanently reducing the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). In addition, Obama proposes to re-enact close to half of the Bush estate tax cut.

On top of re-enacting most of the Bush tax cuts, the Obama budget includes a number of additional tax cuts for families and individuals. (These would be extensions of temporary tax cuts included in the recently passed stimulus law.) It also proposes some questionable business tax cuts.

Partially offsetting its tax-cut proposals, the Obama budget proposes some significant revenue-raising provisions. These include a cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon emissions, a limit on the benefits of itemized deductions for high-bracket taxpayers, and a number of corporate and high-income loophole-closing measures.

Read the Report

Special Alert about President Obama's Budget Proposal from Our Friends at the Coalition on Human Needs:

• Learn about this transformational budget during a FREE webinar this Thursday, March 5 at 2pm eastern time (more details below)
• Organizations that wish to support and build upon President Obama's priorities please SIGN a statement online. Read statement here.

FREE Webinar:

President Obama's Budget:
The Path to Rebuild and Renew America Now

When:

Thursday, March 5, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. eastern time

Register: www.bostonconferencing.net/chn

(Once registered you will receive instructions on how to log in, and explanatory budget materials via email. To participate, you need to be at a computer.)

This webinar will show how the President's budget would invest in health care, renewable energy, education, and more, laying a new foundation for growth that benefits us all. The budget makes an important - make that historic - down payment on renewing opportunities for Americans to join the middle class and be protected from poverty. The webinar will describe the transformational choices in the budget - a long-term plan to pay for the investments we need by raising revenues from those who can afford to pay and by cutting waste in the military and elsewhere. And it will describe a new campaign to support the President's responsible budget priorities - a campaign that needs your help.

Presenters:

• Human Needs Choices in the Budget:
  Deborah Weinstein, Executive Director, Coalition on Human Needs
• Environmental Priorities:
  Ivan Frishberg, Political Director, Environment America
• The Campaign - Rebuild and Renew America Now:
  Alan Charney, Program Director, USAction
• Donald W. Mathis, Moderator, President and CEO, Community Action Partnership

There will be time for questions!

This webinar is co-sponsored by organizations including the Coalition on Human Needs, ACORN, AFSCME, Center for Law and Social Policy, Citizens for Tax Justice, Community Action Partnership, Environment America, Food Research and Action Center, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Health Care for America Now, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, National Association of Social Workers, National Immigration Forum, National Women's Law Center, NETWORK: a National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, Public Education Network, RESULTS, United States Students Association, USAction, Wider Opportunities for Women, and YWCA USA (list in formation).

Revised March 4, 2009

On Thursday, President Obama sent his budget blueprint to Congress. While many of the details remain to be seen, it's the most progressive budget we've seen in years. It's also a more honest budget than the last administration ever proposed. For example, it doesn't pretend that the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) will expand its reach to tens of millions of additional taxpayers (which Congress never allows), and it includes the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars instead of pretending that they will end this year.

It goes a long way towards making the tax system fairer and more progressive. The tax portion of the budget would allow the Bush tax cuts to expire for the very rich and includes revenue-raising provisions that are progressive, environmentally friendly and which, in some cases, would make the tax code simpler.

But the budget blueprint does muddle the cost of extending the Bush tax cuts for all but the top 2 percent of individual taxpayers by using a baseline that assumes the Bush tax cuts have already been made permanent, when in reality they are scheduled to expire at the end of 2010. (In other words, the Obama administration is using a baseline that assumes John McCain won the presidential election and his allies swept both chambers of Congress and were able to enact his tax policies!)

Continuing the Bush tax breaks for 98 percent of taxpayers and providing AMT relief will cost $2.6 trillion over the 10-year budget period. That's a steep price to pay for tax cuts that have not delivered their promised benefits. As the budget moves through Congress, we hope that the goal of long-term deficit reduction will prevail and the Bush tax breaks will be reduced even more. This could mean, for example, further raising the rates on capital gains and scaling back the cut in the estate tax. These changes would help move us towards the day when the government actually collects enough revenue to pay for the services it provides.

In addition to extending a lot of the Bush tax cuts and providing AMT relief, the President's budget would also provide around $770 billion in additional tax breaks targeted to working class people, plus over $70 billion in tax cuts for business. These are offset with several revenue-raising provisions, including a "cap and trade" program to limit carbon emissions, cleaning up the international tax system and eliminating loopholes for energy companies and other corporations.

These provisions are all included in the tax portion of the budget proposal. Other parts of the proposal include other revenue-raisers. For example, the budget includes a new provision that would limit the benefit of itemized deductions so that they could not reduce taxes by more than 28 percent (instead of, say, 35 percent for people rich enough to be affected by the 35 percent income tax rate). This provision would raise revenue to offset new health care spending.

This budget may not be perfect, but it does take several steps to find revenue to invest in our future and support working class families.

Next week, CTJ will provide a more detailed analysis of the President's budget and its tax provisions.

Congress seems set to approve, before their Presidents' Day recess, a final economic stimulus bill that marks a victory for progressives and economists who argue that federal government spending and aid for working class families can kickstart the economy far more effectively than tax cuts for businesses or the investor class.

The agreement hammered out this week by a House-Senate conference, which is presumably the final bill, will cost about $787 billion. Around 40 percent of that will go to tax cuts, most of which will be in effect for two years. Almost half of these tax cuts are progressive breaks for families, including the refundable Making Work Pay Credit, an important expansion of the refundable part of the Child Tax Credit for low-income families, a modest expansion of the EITC, and a new partially refundable education credit (the American Opportunity Tax Credit).

According to the official cost projections from the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), the tax provisions categorized as "business" tax cuts (which does not count several provisions that do benefit businesses, like energy incentives and provisions relating to tax-exempt bonds) will only make up 1 percent of the total cost of the bill. Even if we define business tax cuts as including the energy incentives and other provisions that do benefit businesses, these only make up around 7 percent of the total cost of the stimulus bill.

Some lawmakers felt a political need to keep the total cost of the bill below $800 billion. It is unfortunate that some of that was filled up with a $70 billion reduction in the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which is not likely to stimulate the economy (as explained in the following article).

But overall, the bill marks a bold and effective step by the federal government without funneling very much of the benefits towards corporate tax breaks. While the bill is not perfect, it's hard to complain about it.

For more on the stimulus package, see the following Tax Justice Digest articles:

Non-Stimulative Tax Cuts: A Big One Is Kept in the Final Package, But Many Others Were Significantly Scaled Back

Stimulative Tax Cuts: Included in Final Package (But Scaled Back Slightly)

Even a Pinch of Tax Reform: Stimulus Package Includes Provision to Rescind the Bush Treasury's "Wells Fargo Ruling"

Impact of Selected Tax Cuts in Final Economic Stimulus Bill, State-by-State

CTJ has long argued that some tax cuts could have a chance of effectively stimulating the economy -- if they are extremely targeted to poor and working class families. Several tax credits meeting this criterion were included in the House and Senate stimulus bills, although the details differed. CTJ released state-by-state fact sheets showing how families with children would be impacted by these tax cuts, and in many states families would gain between $800 and $1,000 in 2009 alone. The conference agreement does include these provisions, although some of them are scaled back somewhat.

1. Making Work Pay Credit (MWPC)

This was originally proposed by Barack Obama during his presidential campaign as a refundable tax credit of $500 for working people, or $1,000 for couples. Technically, the credit would be capped at 6.2% of earnings up to $8,100 (or twice that for married couples), meaning this credit would be the equivalent of a refund on Social Security taxes paid on that amount of earnings. The House and Senate bills both included this and only differed on the income limits and some other details. The conference agreement, however, limits the MWPC to $400 for singles and $800 for married couples. The credit will also be dribbled out over time through a reduction in withholdings, since some policymakers have decided that simply issuing checks (as was done with the rebate checks sent to households last year) results in families saving the money, which will not stimulate the economy immediately.

2. Expansion in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)

Currently, low-income workers with no children can sometimes receive a very small EITC equal to a maximum of 7.65 percent of eligible earnings, while the maximum EITC for families with children is 34 percent for those with one child and 40 percent for those with two or more children. Under the House and Senate bills, families with three or more children could receive a benefit equal to a maximum of 45 percent of eligible earnings. The maximum benefit under current law is phased out at an income level that is higher for married couples than for singles. The bills would increase that difference, further reducing the "marriage penalty" in the EITC. These changes are included in the conference agreement. The total cost of these changes to the EITC is about $4.7 billion, which is much less than the cost of other provisions and this probably accounts for their survival in the final agreement.

3. Making the Refundable Portion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) More Readily Available for Poor Families

Currently a parent who earns less than $12,550 in 2009 is too poor to benefit from the $1,000 per-child credit. People who pay federal payroll taxes but earn too little to pay federal income taxes do not benefit from a tax credit unless it is refundable. Currently the refundable portion of the CTC is limited to 15 percent of earnings above $12,550 in 2009 (this threshold is indexed for inflation). The House-passed bill would have removed this earnings threshold so that the refundable portion of the CTC would be equal to 15 percent of any earnings (the maximum credit would remain unchanged at $1,000 per child). The Senate-passed bill settled on a less generous provision retaining the earnings threshold but lowering it to $8,100.

Citizens for Tax Justice released a one-page fact sheet on Tuesday night showing how families in each state would be affected by the House and Senate provisions and how many more children would be helped by the House version compared to the Senate version. The conference agreement steers a little closer to the House version, setting the earnings threshold at $3,000.

President-elect Obama and Congressional leaders are discussing plans for economic stimulus legislation to be enacted in the coming weeks or months. The two-year package being discussed is said to cost around $775 billion and a surprisingly large $300 billion of that would go towards tax cuts.

A new report from Citizens for Tax Justice examines some of the major tax cuts that are being discussed as possible components of the stimulus proposal. Tax cuts are generally less effective in stimulating demand than direct government outlays. But tax cuts targeted to the people who are most likely to immediately spend any money they receive, namely low- and middle-income people, are more effective than upper-income tax reductions.

The report explains that Obama's "Making Work Pay Credit," (a refundable $500 credit for each working spouse) could be sufficiently targeted if improved from its current form. The report also finds that improving access to the Child Tax Credit for poor families, which has also been discussed as a possible component of the stimulus package, would be much more effectively targeted.

The report also discusses why business tax breaks that are being considered as part of the package are unlikely to help stimulate the economy and mitigate the current recession.

Read the report.

Charges that Progressive Taxes Are "Socialism" Fail to Rally Support for Candidate McCain

Senator Barack Obama, who ran for president partly on a platform of ending George W. Bush's policies of cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans, will be our new president starting January 20, 2009. He will have the support of a House of Representatives and Senate led by opponents of the Bush tax cuts.

His opponent, Senator John McCain, tried several times to frame the tax debate in a way that would lead average Americans to support tax cuts for the very wealthiest taxpayers. None of these attempts succeeded. At one point, the McCain campaign tried to get the public to pay more attention to Obama's vote for a non-binding budget resolution than Obama's actual tax plan. Later, a McCain surrogate argued that allowing the expiration of tax cuts for the richest 1.4 million taxpayers would be a tax increase on 23 million business owners. Near the end, McCain made an argument implying that the EITC, and really any progressive income tax, was socialism. Americans were not impressed with these arguments.

The 2008 election has important lessons for lawmakers regarding taxes. Arguments that taxes must be lowered for even the richest Americans simply do not work. Americans don't buy it. Nor do Americans buy it when proponents of tax cuts attempt to blur the details about who would benefit the most. There has always been polling that shows Americans do not support any and all tax cuts, but it took an election to make this real for many lawmakers.

The Path Ahead

Some people may speculate about whether the new President will muster the support needed to enact the proposals dear to them. We also feel this uncertainty, but it is mitigated by the crucial fact that the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of 2010. To put it a different way, if Congress simply does nothing, we will return to the tax policies in effect during the Clinton years, when the economy performed better than it does now, and when Americans were generally more positive about the direction of the country. That would be fine with us.

We know that Congress is not likely to do nothing. Congress, with President Obama's leadership, may enact tax cuts, including extending the Bush tax cuts for those who are not rich. (Since such a gigantic share of the Bush tax cuts currently goes to the rich, Obama's proposal will lose much less revenue than would candidate McCain's proposal to extend them for even the richest families.) And Congress is likely to act on at least some of President Obama's proposals to enact brand new tax cuts for low- and middle-income Americans.

But those lawmakers who insist on extending the Bush tax cuts for the even the richest Americans have no cards left to play. Their cherished handouts for the rich expire in a couple years and the new president is not likely to sign any bill that extends this party for the most privileged.

Of course, a great many details must be worked out. Obama wants to repeal the Bush tax cuts before they expire for the very richest families, and some lawmakers will dig in their heels to oppose this. Another question is the extent to which new tax cuts will be paid for. While most analysts agree that balancing the budget is not a priority during a severe economic downturn, we certainly hope that Congress will not enact huge, permanent tax cuts without replacing most of the revenue -- revenue needed to fund health care initiatives and other investments that have been short-changed during the Bush administration. There are ways that Congress can raise revenue that go beyond what is included in Obama's tax plan, and we will be making these suggestions to the new administration. And of course there are some tax cuts that Obama supports that would benefit the wealthy -- like a partial extension of the Bush tax cuts for dividends and estates -- and we're going to have an interesting conversation about that.

But the most salient fact is that the surreal era of leaders telling us that taxes must be cut most dramatically for the wealthy is over. This is a sea change. We may have trouble explaining to future generations how such a bizarre ideology ever took hold. But we will have no trouble explaining that on Tuesday Americans looked at the long list of problems facing this country and decided that cutting taxes for the rich should not be considered a priority.

For eight years we have had a White House fixated on tax cuts for the rich, at the expense of all other priorities. Now, the millions of Americans who lack health insurance or who are underinsured, the newly unemployed, the families losing their homes, and Americans serving their nation in the armed forces all know that their struggles are finally back at the top of the agenda in Washington.

While presidential candidate John McCain has promised to make permanent the Bush income tax cuts for all Americans, his opponent, Barack Obama, promises to make them permanent for almost all Americans. A new analysis from Citizens for Tax Justice shows that only a small percentage of the taxpayers in each state would lose a portion of the Bush income tax cuts if Obama's plan is enacted. For these very rich taxpayers, Obama would repeal most of the Bush income tax cuts before their expiration date at the end of 2010. For everyone else -- for 97.5 percent of taxpayers nationally -- all of these tax cuts would be made permanent.

Obama proposes to make all of the Bush income tax cuts permanent for married couples with adjusted gross income (AGI) below $250,000 and unmarried taxpayers with AGI below $200,000.

Nationally, we find that only 2.5 percent of taxpayers will fall above the $250,000/$200,000 AGI threshold in 2009. The state with the largest percentage of taxpayers above this threshold is Connecticut (5.1 percent) and the state with the lowest is West Virginia (1.0 percent).

"Senator Obama wants to extend the Bush income tax cuts for 97.5 percent of taxpayers, and then enact more tax cuts for middle-income families," said CTJ director Robert McIntyre. "Obama even wants to extend a portion of the Bush income tax cuts for that richest 2.5 percent of taxpayers. Senator McCain defines a 'painful tax increase' as any plan that does not continue Bush's policy of giving huge tax cuts to these very richest taxpayers and having future generations of average Americans pick up the tab."

Citizens for Tax Justice has recently released several reports on the tax issues being debated during this presidential election season.

1. The Tax Proposals of Presidential Candidates John McCain and Barack Obama

Last week CTJ released this 15-page report on the tax plans offered by the two candidates. The report includes estimates of the distributional and fiscal effects of both candidates' plans in 2012, a year when almost all of the provisions of either plan would be in effect if enacted. These estimates include the effects of making the Bush tax cuts permanent (partially, in Obama's plan, and almost entirely, in McCain's plan) as well as their proposed changes to the AMT, corporate tax, and the other tax changes they propose.

The report finds that Obama's tax plan would give a larger tax cut, on average, to taxpayers in the bottom 60 percent of the income distribution than McCain's plan. Interestingly, while Obama's plan would give a small tax cut, on average, to the richest one percent, McCain's plan would give this group an average tax cut that is 43 times as large.

2. Obama and McCain Propose New Stimulus Plans, Including More Tax Breaks

In addition to the tax plans that both candidates have been promoting for months, McCain and Obama both have recently proposed new, temporary tax cuts as a way to stimulate the economy and help people avoid the consequences of the downturn in the market. As this report explains, neither of the candidates' tax cuts seem very promising when it comes to helping Americans who are genuinely struggling, but McCain's proposals are particularly alarming because their benefits would be heavily targeted to the rich. He proposes to slash the capital gains rate, which would further bias the tax code against work and in favor of people who live off their wealth, and we estimate that over three fourths of the benefits would go to the richest one percent.

McCain also proposes that withdrawals of up to $50,000 from 401(k)s and IRAs, which are currently taxed as ordinary income, be subject to a top income tax rate of 10 percent. This obviously does nothing for a senior whose income is too low to trigger income tax liability or whose taxable income does not exceed the 10 percent bracket. But it would be a real boon for a very rich senior who would otherwise pay income taxes at a rate of 35 percent on such a withdrawal.

3. McCain's Proposal to Increase the Tax Loophole for Capital Gains Would Be Unfair and Counterproductive

This report explains in more detail why lawmakers should not take up McCain's proposal to expand the existing loophole for capital gains, and why they should move in the opposite direction and start taxing investment income just like any other income. Anyone who thinks that doing away with the lower rates for capital gains and dividends is too radical an idea is reminded that Congress has done it before -- under the leadership of President Reagan.

4. Does Joe the Plumber Need a Tax Break?

No discussion about this presidential race would be complete without some mention of Joe the Plumber, the man who asked Obama about how he would be affected by Obama's tax plan if he became a small business owner. Obama responded that someone like Joe needs a tax cut now, when he's working his way up and saving money, rather than later on when he's joined the ranks of the very richest Americans. We also note the oddity of McCain professing to be worried about a tax code that punishes this man's hard work while proposing to expand the very loopholes that bias the tax code against work.