Sustainability

As year-end approaches, the debate over the expiring Bush tax cuts is getting messy and harder to tolerate. Part of the reason is that there are more than just the usual suspects trying to advance clearly terrible proposals.

Sarabeth Guthberg at 1115.org had me squinting at her blistering critique of claims made by political advisor/economist Mark Zandi. (He had it coming.) As a key advisor to House Speaker Pelosi, Zandi is trying to rally support for permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts benefiting the "middle class," and a one-year-but-not-really extension of the tax breaks for those earning more than $250,000 per year (roughly the top 2%). He says it's necessary because the recovery is still too fragile, and that even the richest Americans "may be sensitive." (And, we wouldn't wanna make anyone cry, right?)

Experts from different sides of the board, including Paul Krugman and Alan Greenspan, have sounded off, saying the Republican proposal to permanently extend all of the Bush tax cuts is a bad idea. The tab for such a move would run up to around $3.7 trillion over 10 years. Read more >>

Photo h/t wsws.org

This August, President Obama signed into law a bill that would save more than 300,000 jobs in teaching and public service. Amidst this Great Recession, that seems like a no-brainer, but it turned out to be one of the more controversial bills of the summer. Republican demands that the bill be deficit-neutral led to the shifting of $26 billion (half the House's intended allocation) away from food stamp and green jobs programs to fund the initiative.

This resulted in an outpouring of negative media coverage: public employees called “fat cats” and federal aid to states labeled “another sloth-encouraging bailout." One headline even likened this effort to preserve teaching jobs to theft: “Robbing Renewable Energy to Pay Teachers.”

All this haggling was over $26 billion. $26 BILLION! That's, by any standard, a sizable amount. But, compared to the nearly $137 billion Congress has allocated to the largely unpopular Iraq and Afghan wars in this fiscal year, or the $680 billion it could cost to extend the Bush tax cuts for the top 2% of households over the next decade, it's peanuts. Read more >>

Brian Miller, Executive Director of UFE, likens the root causes of economic inequality to a game of Monopoly--sans the rule book.

Ralph Nader discusses a growing movement of wealthy people who are "revolting against their 'wealth fraternity,' noting that some are expanding their giving into advocacy for progressive social and economic policy as well.

Nevada is one of seven states that depend far too heavily on taxes that disproportionately hit low- and middle-income households. Alan Choate of the Las Vegas Review Journal writes about a new report by UFE's Tax Fairness Organizing Collaborative and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which posits that creating a state income tax and reducing the sales tax dollar-for-dollar would place more money in the pockets of Nevada's residents.

New Report: States Without Income Taxes Hike Residents' Federal Tax Bills by Billions a Year

Contact: Mazher Ali, 617-423-2148 x101, malifaireconomy.org

States have the option of reducing residents' federal tax bills substantially, but not all states do so. A new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and UFE's Tax Fairness Organizing Collaborative shows that if states without income taxes swap a portion of their sales tax for an income tax, they could return billions of dollars of federal income taxes to taxpayers each year and make their overall state tax structures more fair.

Karen Kraut of UFE's Tax Fairness Organizing Collaborative comments on the dangers of the "nationwide state budget cutting frenzy," and discusses an alternative and more responsible approach to closing states' recessionary budget gaps.

Virtually every state is groping for solutions to budget gaps of historic proportions. A new report from UFE's Tax Fairness Organizing Collaborative provides states a set of pragmatic Guidelines for closing their budget gaps while also enhancing economic recovery, long-term stability, and more widely shared prosperity.

MEDIA RELEASE – A new set of guidelines released today highlights the essential connection between progressive fiscal policy and the twin goals of state budget repair and economic recovery.