Tax Justice Digest stories about Federal Budget
Citizens for Tax Justice has released a new report explaining that the budget resolution approved by the House of Representatives last week deals with tax policy in a more responsible way than the version approved by the Senate. The differences between the two resolutions must be ironed out by a House-Senate conference committee that will negotiate a final version to be approved by both chambers.
The resolution approved by the House offers more responsible tax provisions in a number of areas.
First, the House budget plan uses “reconciliation instructions” that would make it easier to pass a bill to provide relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) without increasing the deficit. Any further increase in the national debt is likely to be borne, in the long-run, by the middle-class, so it would be unfair to take on debt to provide AMT relief, which mostly benefits families that are relatively wealthy. The Senate plan, unfortunately, does not use this approach because the Senate assumes that an AMT patch will be deficit-financed.
Second, the House plan does not emphasize cutting the estate tax the way the Senate plan does. CTJ’s data shows that the estate tax now affects fewer than 1 percent of estates. The Senate decided, however, to cut the estate tax for these few, wealthy families and to finance this tax cut with surpluses that may never materialize.
Third, the House plan would not cut taxes on better-off Social Security recipients. Such a tax cut, which the Senate plan includes, would only benefit those seniors who are well-off.
The House-Senate conference committee that takes up the budget resolutions should reject the choices that the Senate has made with regard to taxes and choose the more responsible path set by the House of Representatives.
The House and Senate both passed their budget resolutions on Thursday. The Senate budget plan (S. Con. Res. 70) was approved by a vote of 51 to 44, while the House budget plan (House Con. Res. 312) was approved by a vote of 212 to 207.
All 100 Senators showed up Thursday for what is often called "vote-a-rama," an avalanche of amendments that members offer each year to the budget. These amendments generally are not binding, but they put Senators on record as supporting or opposing key tax and spending policies. Lawmakers often offer them to force the opposing party to take votes that might be politically difficult.
Slashing the Estate Tax and Other Tax Cut Promises
The budget resolutions project surpluses in fiscal years 2012 and 2013, although the math used to project these surpluses is questionable. Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) offered an amendment which was adopted by a vote of 99-1 and which shows that the Senate intends to spend this "surplus" on extending parts of the Bush tax cuts that he describes as focused on the "middle-class." While these do include keeping the lowest income tax rate at 10 percent and keeping the $1,000 child credit, they also include a cut in the estate tax to benefit families with estates worth several million dollars.
The amendment, while not binding, puts the Senate on record as supporting a change in the estate tax that is understood to involve freezing in place the estate tax rules that are scheduled to take effect in 2009 (an exemption of $3.5 million per spouse and a top estate tax rate of 45 percent). Under current law, the estate tax rules get more generous each year until the estate tax disappears entirely in 2010, and then in 2011 revert to the rules that were in place during the Clinton years.
CTJ's recent figures on the estate tax show that it affected less than one percent of estates during 2005 and 2006. And those estates were subject to an exemption of $1.5 million per spouse. Now the exemption is $2 million and in 2009 it will be $3.5 million.
Throughout the day on Thursday, Democrats in the Senate used a strategy of countering Republican amendments to provide new deficit-financed tax breaks with very similar amendments that were equally regressive but deficit-neutral.
Alternative Minimum Tax
For example, Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) offered an amendment that would have repealed a change in the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) that was enacted in 1993. The 1993 law increased the AMT for some relatively well-off taxpayers, to correspond with increases in the ordinary income tax. The Specter amendment therefore would cut the AMT from its current level for those well-off taxpayers, and this cut would be deficit-financed. Before members were allowed to vote on this, the body voted on an amendment offered by Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) to do the exact same thing except with the costs offset. The Conrad amendment didn't specify just how those costs would be offset, and neither amendment would be binding. But apparently enough Senators felt that they would be credited with voting to "do something" about the AMT if they voted for the Conrad amendment, which was approved 53 to 46, instead of the Specter amendment, which failed, 49-50.
(The amendment by Senator Specter seems to be part of a long-term strategy by the Republicans to convince opinion leaders and the public that the expanding reach of the AMT is due to policies enacted during the Clinton administration. To find out why that is NOT the case, read the post on our blog that addressed this last year.)
More Estate Tax
A similar pattern played out in more ominous ways when the Senate turned its attention back to the estate tax. Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) offered an amendment that would slash the estate tax further than the Baucus amendment would. The Kyl amendment would have put the Senate on record in support of raising the estate tax exemption to $5 million, or $10 million for married couples, and lowering the top rate to 35 percent. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out, this would cost about 77 percent as much as fully repealing the estate tax. Before members were allowed to vote on this, a vote was held on an amendment offered by Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) to make the exact same changes, but with the costs offset in some unspecified way.
Slashing the estate tax any further than it already has been would be an entirely unwarranted boon for America's richest families and is bad policy even if it is done in a deficit-neutral way. If less than one percent of estates were affected by the estate tax when the exemption was $1.5 million, as CTJ has found, it's very hard to imagine why the exemption would need to be raised to $5 million.
Disturbingly, the Salazar amendment got 13 more votes this year than an identical amendment offered by Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) last year. While the Salazar amendment failed this year, it failed by a vote of 38 to 62, whereas last year it failed 25-74.
Disturbingly, the Salazar amendment got 13 more votes this year than an identical amendment offered by Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) last year. While the Salazar amendment failed this year, it failed by a vote of 38 to 62, whereas last year it failed 25-74.
Even more disturbing, the Kyl amendment -- the amendment to slash the estate tax WITHOUT offsetting the costs -- nearly passed, with a vote of 50-50. This vote is a signal to organizations working on tax fairness that we must redouble our efforts to educate lawmakers and the public about the extremely regressive effects of repealing or greatly reducing the estate tax.
Social Security
As he has in the previous couple years, Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) offered an amendment to repeal the tax increase on Social Security benefits that was enacted in 1993. Bunning decided to offset the costs in his amendment with across the board cuts in discretionary spending. His amendment failed, 47-53.
The federal government began taxing a portion of Social Security benefits in 1984, and increased the amount that can be included in taxable income to a maximum of 85 percent in 1993. The idea was to treat Social Security benefits more like other retirement income, such as pensions and IRA distributions. For most retirees, the vast majority of Social Security benefits are income that has never been taxed. Most beneficiaries still pay no federal income taxes on their benefits, but above certain income levels benefits gradually become taxable. For the best off, 85 percent of benefits must be included in taxable income.
Repealing the 1993 provision would do nothing to help the majority of Social Security beneficiaries. Nonetheless, the Democrats offered an alternative amendment that would make the same change as Bunning's amendment, but which also called for some unspecified offsets. That amendment was approved 53-46.
Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives...
Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives...
Over in the House, the Republicans offered an alternative budget resolution that would make the Bush tax cuts permanent and eventually repeal the AMT. These measures would be paid for with large cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs, while increasing defense spending. This alternative failed, 157-263.
The Democrats' budget resolution in the House was approved by a vote of 212 to 207. One way the House version differs from the Senate version is the use of what is called "reconciliation." A budget resolution can include "reconciliation instructions" that instruct the relevant committees to write legislation to meet some fiscal goal, and this legislation could be passed in the Senate with only a simple majority of votes rather than the usual 60 needed to overcome a filibuster.
This year, the House plan includes reconciliation instructions to produce a couple revenue-neutral bills. One would delay a scheduled reduction in payments by Medicare to doctors while another would provide another year of relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), without increasing the budget deficit. Negotiations that will take place in conference will determine whether reconciliation instructions will survive in the final budget resolution.
Yesterday, the House and Senate budget committees both approved their respective versions of the federal budget resolution for fiscal year 2009 on party-line votes. Just as happened last year, both versions assume that the Bush tax cuts will expire at the end of 2010 or that, if they are extended, they will be subject to pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules. This means that the costs of any tax cut extension would have to be offset with increased taxes elsewhere or cuts in spending, so as to avoid an increase in the federal budget deficit. The House signaled that is it more committed to PAYGO, however, by including procedural protections for legislation to offset the costs of providing another year of AMT relief.
While the budget document is not binding and merely spells out the tax and spending goals of Congress, it can provide for procedural rules that may make certain legislation affecting the nation's fiscal health easier or more difficult to pass. For example, the budget resolution could include what are called "reconciliation instructions" that would instruct the relevant committees to write legislation to meet some fiscal goal, and this legislation could be passed in the Senate with only a simple majority of votes rather than the usual 60 needed to overcome a filibuster.
Republicans demanded that the reconciliation process be used to extend the Bush tax cuts without offsetting the costs. While budget resolutions are not law and cannot, by themselves, raise taxes, Republican lawmakers have taken to claiming that the resolution includes the largest tax increase in history since it does assume an extension of the Bush tax cuts. They made this same claim last year.
Senate Ready to Cave on PAYGO and Alternative Minimum Tax; House Says 'Not So Fast'
While the Republicans want to use the reconciliation process to increase the budget deficit, the House Democrats want to use it to keep the deficit under control. Their budget plan includes reconciliation instructions to produce revenue-neutral legislation that would delay a scheduled reduction in payments by Medicare to doctors and revenue-neutral legislation that would provide another year of relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).
Congress will surely provide another "patch" to the AMT this year, meaning a temporary extension of the increase in exemptions that keep most people from having to worry about the tax. The question is whether it will be paid for or deficit-financed, as was the patch enacted at the end of last year.
Last year the House did pass a bill that would have paid for an AMT patch mainly by closing tax loopholes that allow managers of buyout funds to pay taxes at lower rates and shelter their income in offshore tax avoidance schemes. In the Senate, that bill did get the votes of all the Democrats (except the Presidential candidates, who were campaigning) but could not overcome the filibuster by Republicans. If such a bill was offered this year under the reconciliation process to protect it from a filibuster, its chances of passage would be greatly increased.
Despite this, many Senate Democrats are insisting that they not pursue the matter. Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus was quoted by Congressional Quarterly saying, “I think to cut to the chase, this Congress is not going to pay for AMT. I think it’s a waste of time to have AMT paid for.”
Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) told BNA that "My strong preference would be to have it offset. That was clearly not the will of the body last year and in our soundings, it's clearly not the will of the body this year."
Senate Democrats Plan to Spend "Surplus"
The budget resolutions project surpluses in fiscal years 2012 and 2013. Whether these surpluses will actually materialize is highly debatable. The budget assumes no more expenditures on Iraq beyond the $70 billion requested by the President. Further, the budget "baseline" used by the Congressional Budget Office, which assumes that the Bush tax cuts will expire at the end of 2010 as laid out under current law, does project a surplus in 2012 and 2013, but only if the Social Security surplus is included in the calculation. The Social Security surplus was not meant to be spent on other programs. It's not remotely clear that Congress can produce a surplus that does not include Social Security.
Nevertheless, Democrats in the Senate are planning to offer an amendment much like the one adopted last year that would show that the body intends to spend that "surplus" on extending parts of the Bush tax cuts that they describe as geared towards the "middle-class." While these do include the 10 percent rate and the child credit, they also include a cut in the estate tax to benefit families with estates worth several million dollars.
President Threatens Vetoes Over Small Differences in Spending
The Senate version calls for $18 billion above what the President has requested in discretionary spending (spending that must be approved each year) while the House version calls for about $22 billion over the President's request. This difference is relatively minor since the entire amount of discretionary spending requested by the President for fiscal year 2009 is $992 billion, and discretionary spending only accounts for around a third of all government spending. Nonetheless, the White House has signaled that the President is ready to veto bills that spend more on these programs than he has proposed, as he did last year. This raises the possibility that Congress could simply rely on continuing resolutions to keep the government running until the next president takes office.
President Bush’s proposed budget plan for fiscal years 2009 through 2013 envisions huge cuts in education, health, environmental and other programs. Most observers believe that such budget cuts are too draconian to ever be implemented. After all, Congress has rejected many of them before. However, as a new report from CTJ explains, they should be taken very seriously in one important sense: They are exactly the sort of public service reductions that would be necessary if the Bush tax cuts are extended.
The Bush administration concedes that the budget deficit will top $400 billion for fiscal year 2009, but claims the deficit will be reduced thereafter. The President continues to assert, as he did last year, that following his plans will lead to a balanced budget in fiscal year 2012. It is therefore informative to examine how public services would be different in 2012 if Congress followed his advice.
Under the Bush budget proposal, federal spending on veterans’ benefits would be 9 percent lower in 2012, as a percentage of the economy, than in 2008. Education and social services would be a fifth lower, natural resources and environmental programs over a fourth lower, transportation a third lower and community development over 62 percent lower. Medicare spending in 2012 would be 9 percent lower than in 2008, as a percentage of the cost of maintaining current services.
Meanwhile, the President proposes to make permanent his tax cuts, which expire at the end of 2010. In 2012, according to the administration’s own numbers, those tax cuts will cost $249 billion, which is just over the $229 billion he wants to cut from domestic programs in that year. So his promise to "balance" the budget in 2012 even while his tax cuts are extended clearly involves a trade of massive reductions in public services in return for tax cuts.
The reality is that the President's tax cuts are actually more expensive than this, and there are many more problems with his budget projections, as explained in the CTJ report.
It has been reported in several news outlets that Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) was unable to get a majority of his committee's members to agree, at a meeting Wednesday, on how to pay for a temporary fix for the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). As a result, some Senators have suggested that they should waive the pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules that were reinstated at the start of this session and which are supposed to prevent Congress from expanding the national debt.
The Bush tax cuts increased the number of people subject to the AMT and the Republican-led Congress never permanently indexed for inflation the exemptions that keep most of us from having to pay it. As a result, 23 million taxpayers (17 percent of all taxpayers) will pay the AMT for 2007 if Congress makes no change to the law.
Not Worth Breaking the Bank
But the AMT is not exactly the greatest threat right now to the average American. Even if Congress does nothing (which is extremely unlikely) around 60 percent of the AMT would still be paid by the richest 5 percent of taxpayers. In other words, if there was ever a good reason to borrow billions of dollars and have to pay it back with interest, this is not it.
Several Measures Would Be Good Policy AND Could Pay for AMT
That is especially true because there are plenty of options that Congress can pursue to offset the cost of temporarily or permanently fixing the AMT. For starters, Congress could scale back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest people, who are reaping most of the benefits.
Congress could also close the loophole for "carried interest" paid to billionaires who run investment funds, and who are currently allowed to pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries. Several hundred organizations signed a letter in early September urging Congress to close this loophole. Congress could also crack down on tax avoidance associated with offshore schemes, stock options and misreporting of business income, and limit tax breaks for the deferred compensation of millionaire executives.
Early this year CTJ pointed out that one simple solution would be to close the loopholes within the AMT itself for capital gains and dividend income.
It's expected that a bill to "patch" the AMT for one year will be introduced in the House by Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel in the coming weeks and will likely include some combination of revenue-raising provisions to offset the cost. Rangel has, however, said members of the House may also disagree over how to do so. (Rangel also plans to introduce a larger bill to repeal the AMT entirely, and offset the costs, but that may not be acted upon until next year.)
Deficits Are Not a Progressive Solution
Congress should not waive PAYGO. The more money we borrow, the more we have to pay to make interest payments. Currently nine cents of every dollar we send to Washington goes just to interest payments -- just to pay for the privilege of borrowing. Besides that, budget deficits can endanger vulnerable families since the public services they depend on are often targets of cuts whenever conservative politicians decide it's time for "deficit-reduction" measures.
In 2003, then-Speaker of the House Republican Denny Hastert argued for the first major tax cut during a war in U.S. history, saying, "Nothing is more important in the face of war than cutting taxes." During that year, the centerpiece of President Bush's tax cut plan was enacted, the low 15 percent rate for capital gains and dividends. In 2005, this break cost about $92 billion and three fourths of it went to the richest 0.6 percent of taxpayers. Instead of asking Americans to make a sacrifice, the President guaranteed Americans that our economy depended on deficit-financed tax cuts aimed at the wealthy.
Four years later, has anything changed? On Tuesday, Congressman David Obey (D-WI), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee proposed a surtax to raise $145 to $150 billion a year to pay for the war in Iraq. Under his proposal, low- and middle-income taxpayers would see a two percent increase in their federal income tax bills, while wealthier people would see a 12 to 15 percent increase.
"Some people are being asked to pay with their lives or their faces or their hands or their arms or their legs," Obey told the Washington Post. "If you're going to ask for that, it doesn't seem too much to ask an average taxpayer to pay 30 bucks for the cost of the war so we don't have to shove it off on our kids."
Even though such temporary taxes have been used to fund wars in the past, the anti-tax establishment pounced immediately. White House press secretary Dana Perino said, "Well, we've always known that Democrats seem to revert to type and they are willing to raise taxes on just about anything. There's no need to increase taxes." When asked to compare the President's refusal to fund an expansion of SCHIP with his willingness to spend hundreds of billions of deficit-financed dollars on the Iraq war, she called the Democrats "completely irresponsible" for wanting to raise taxes to pay for children's health care and the war.
In other words, the White House's fun-house mirror version of fiscal realities has not changed since the outset of the war. In their eyes, the responsible thing to do is have tax cuts and a war that are both deficit-financed, while paying for these things would be "completely irresponsible."
Meanwhile, Congress just raised the limit on the amount of debt the federal government can rack up for the fifth time since Bush took office.
A new short paper from Citizens for Tax Justice examines the debt accumulated under President Bush in light of the Senate Finance Committee's vote to raise the national debt ceiling again. President Bush has added $3 trillion to the national debt so far, despite inheriting a balanced budget when he took office in 2001. Since then, Congress has been forced to raise the statutory limit on the total amount the federal government is allowed to borrow four times - in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2006.
On Wednesday the Senate Finance Committee approved legislation to raise the debt limit a fifth time, to an unprecedented $9.815 trillion, to prevent the federal government from defaulting on its debts and being unable to borrow any more. In contrast, when Bush took office, the debt limit was $5.950 trillion - $3.9 trillion less than the new amount.
What has caused the budget deficits over the past six years? The largest cause is the cuts in federal income taxes enacted by President Bush and Congress. The total cost of the Bush tax cuts, including interest on the money borrowed to finance them, has been just over $1.4 trillion so far — about half of the total increase in the national debt under Bush so far.
The Administration has reduced its economic growth projections but is still arguing that its tax policy is stimulating the economy. President Bush is now touting projections that the federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2007 will be only $205 billion as proof. The projections came Wednesday in the Mid-Session Review from the Office of Management and Budget. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities rightly points out that revenues have increased, reducing the deficit from its high of $413 billion in 2004, but that always happens in an economic recovery, and usually revenues increase by more (by around 12 percent, as opposed to the 3 percent increase that we've seen since the beginning of this economic cycle in 2001). What's more, revenue increased by 16 percent in a similar period in the economic cycle during the 1990s after taxes were increased. Finally, the Administration actually reduced its growth forecast for this year from what it projected back in February.
The only thing we would add is that the real deficit is bigger than $205 billion. The Mid-Session Review clearly indicates (on page 32) that the Administration will borrow $180 billion from the Social Security Trust Fund this year to keep the total deficit as low as $205. Social Security is projected to collect $180 billion more in payroll taxes than it will pay out in benefits this year. Social Security was changed back in the 1980s to collect a surplus that would make it easier to pay benefits later on, when the baby boomers retire in large numbers and more Social Security benefits must be paid out. The Social Security Trust Fund is essentially the accounting mechanism that keeps track of this, and it was never intended to be used to make budget deficits appear smaller than they really are. Not counting the Social Security surplus, this year's budget deficit is really $385 billion.
Yesterday, Congress passed the final budget resolution for fiscal year 2008 which foresees $2.9 trillion in spending, including $954 billion for annually appropriated programs. This is $21 billion more than requested by the President's plan, which was criticized by many Democrats and advocates for short-changing human needs services.
PAYGO Rule Revived, But Plans to Waive It for Some Tax Breaks
The effect of the budget resolution on future tax cuts is a little confusing to people who are not budget experts. The budget revives the "pay-as-you-go" rule, or PAYGO, which creates a point of order in the Senate against new entitlement spending or tax breaks that are not paid for. (This can be waived with 60 votes.) At the same time, the budget does assume that Congress will agree to waive PAYGO to spend $180 billion over 5 years on extending some of the Bush tax breaks that are being called middle-class tax breaks (even though they include estate tax reduction for very large estates).
Also in the $180 billion tax cut package are extensions of the child credit, marriage penalty relief, the 10 percent tax rate and a one-year "patch" for the Alternative Minimum Tax (which essentially extends the exemption that keeps most people from paying for the AMT for another year). (Click here for a list of all the Bush tax cuts.) This tax break language originated in the Senate at the behest of Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-MT). The budget plan projects that if Congress followed PAYGO for the next five years, a surplus of $156 billion would appear in fiscal year 2012, but the tax breaks in that year alone would whittle that surplus down to $41 billion.
A "trigger" provision applies to the House, which adds another point of order (besides PAYGO) against tax breaks if the surplus is not still projected to appear a couple years into this five-year period. The Senate was adamant that this provision should not apply to them, apparently because they want to vote for tax breaks regardless of whether there is a surplus that can be used to pay for them. Even if the surplus appears in 2012, it is calculated to include the Social Security surplus, which was never intended to be used to finance tax breaks and should not be seen as money available for that purpose.
Resolution Does Not Raise Taxes
Republican opponents of the budget resolution have been quick to say that it raises taxes. As CTJ has pointed out, the resolution does not raise a cent of taxes but says that any tax cut must be paid for under PAYGO. (Even Baucus's extension of "middle-class" tax breaks would require a waiver of PAYGO). The Republicans are complaining because when they held the majority in Congress they structured their tax breaks to expire after 2010. They know they cannot extend them without increasing the federal budget deficit, which PAYGO is geared to prevent.
Most Responsible Budget in Years
PAYGO is one reason why this is the most responsible budget we've seen in six years. The President has no role to play in the budget plan because it's a resolution (not a law) that Congress uses to set the overall spending level and to create procedural rules that will guide them as they craft bills to meet the targets spelled out in the resolution. However, the administration has threatened that the President may veto individual spending bills that implement the higher spending goals.
House and Senate leaders are hoping to overcome some disagreements so that they can appoint conferees and finalize a budget plan before the middle of May. Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate initially proposed budget plans that would supposedly produce a budget surplus by 2012. The Senate plan was amended before it was passed, at the urging of Max Baucus (D-MT), to spend that alleged surplus on tax breaks and, to a much lesser degree, on expanded children's health care.
Members of the House passed their plan without any such amendment. Now the two budget proposals must be reconciled and the House must decide whether to accept the Baucus amendment in the final budget plan. Few have noted that the surplus they're talking about doesn't really exist. The "surplus" money that would be spent on tax cuts and so forth would really be taken from funds that are supposed to be used to shore up Social Security.
In 2012, the Social Security surplus, which is supposed to be separate from the rest of the federal budget, is projected to be $248 billion. The Senate budget plan, as initially proposed, would produce a surplus of $132 billion in 2012 — but that includes the Social Security surplus. So clearly the federal government is relying on the Social Security surplus to stay in the black. If the Baucus amendment is adopted in the final budget, that would essentially mean the Social Security surplus is being spent, mostly on tax cuts.
Of course the House and Senate budget plans are far more responsible than the President's since at least they revive the "pay-as-you-go" rule, or PAYGO, which helped us balance the budget in the 1990s. But the Baucus amendment, if adopted in the final budget, will be a pledge to waive PAYGO to spend the projected "surplus" that's supposedly coming in 2012.
