Federal Budget & Tax

Federal Budget & Tax: News Blog Background

Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Announcement: Junior Budget Policy Analyst

OMB Watch is looking to hire a new person in our tax and budget group. Please feel free to circulate this job announcement to anyone who might be interested...

Announcement: Junior Budget Policy Analyst

OMB Watch, a nonprofit research, advocacy, and watchdog organization, is seeking to hire an entry level Junior Policy Analyst in our federal budget group. The Junior Budget Policy Analyst would undertake a wide range of activities in support of our work on federal budget and tax policy issues.

Posted by John S. Irons, 12:42:33 PM

Friday, June 25, 2004

House preserves $100,000 per person in tax breaks for millio
The House of Representatives has declined to limit the massive tax cuts on millionaires. The cuts for millionaires average $120,000 per person a defeated proposal would have cut that to $24,000.

Daily Report for Executives - House Kills Democratic Plan to Hike Taxes

The GOP-controlled House voted mostly along party lines June 24 to defeat a Democratic-drafted resolution revising the fiscal year 2005 budget resolution (S. Con. Res. 95) by raising taxes $19 billion on those making more than $1 million a year and funneling the funds to deficit reduction and domestic programs.

[...]

Democrats said their plan would ask the richest taxpayers to give up part of their tax cut for one year at a time of war and record deficits when more of the tight federal dollars are directed into defense and homeland security accounts, leaving priorities such as education and health care to feel the budget squeeze.

Specifically, the resolution offered by House Appropriations Committee ranking member David Obey (D-Wis.) would limit the tax cuts of those with adjustable gross incomes of at least $1 million a year in 2005 to $24,000 instead of what Obey said is the $120,000 tax break they would get under current law. Obey said even a lower $24,000 tax cut for the rich would be 24 times larger than the tax relief for those earning $50,000 a year.

"That's hardly an outrageous sacrifice," Obey said.

Reducing the tax cut for wealthier taxpayers would produce $18.9 billion in 2005, of which $4.7 billion would go to deficit reduction with the rest directed to eight priority areas such as health care, veterans' benefits, education, and increased homeland security efforts.

Posted by John S. Irons, 11:20:11 AM

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

Debt Ceiling
It appears that Congress is attempting to sneak in a debt ceiling increase into the defense authorization bill.

Currently, we are expected to hit the legal debt limit sometime before the election. However, in an effort to avoid a potentially embarassing stand-alone vote on the increase, it looks like they will try to slip the debt increase under the cover of another bill.

Of course, this is the direct result of the Congress' inability to adapt a fiscally responsible budget - or any budget at all for that matter. Holding out for yet another round of hundreds of billions in tax cuts for corporations (in the FSC/ETI bill) or for tax breaks for millionaires (such as estate tax) has created one gigantic mountain of a fiscal mess.

Posted by John S. Irons, 10:33:23 AM

Thursday, June 17, 2004

Estate Tax - Consequences of Reform Options
The Tax Policy Center has recently created an extremely sophisticated microsimulation model of the estate tax. A recent presentation to American's for a Fair Estate Tax highlights some of the important implications of various reform options.

A longer analysis will be produced by the Tax Policy Center in the Near Future, but the presentation gives some preliminary results.