Congress Can Avert Dangerous Automatic Cuts & Protect Investments in Jobs by Closing Tax Loopholes

[Bill USA]

Congress Can Avert Dangerous Automatic Cuts and Protect Investments in Jobs and Education by Closing Tax Loopholes


http://www.americanprogress.org/press/release/2013/02/14/53455/release-congress-can-avert-dangerous-automatic-cuts-and-protect-investments-in-jobs-and-education-by-closing-tax-loopholes/

Washington, D.C. — Unless Congress acts, on March 1 automatic and indiscriminate spending cuts will hit key programs, costing our economy more than 1 million jobs and cutting essential services for millions of low- and middle-income families. But a new infographic released today by the Center for American Progress explains how Congress can act to avert these dangerous cuts and protect investments. The infographic, “Tax Loopholes for Corporate Jets or Investments in Jobs and Education?”, illustrates how through a balanced approach to deficit reduction—an approach that eliminates wasteful tax loopholes that only benefit a wealthy few—Congress can protect critical investments that create jobs and lift up the most vulnerable Americans.

“Congress has a choice to make. They can ensure that 600,000 women and children don’t go hungry, that 125,000 American families don’t lose their homes, and that 7,400 teachers and staff who support students with disabilities don’t lose their jobs, or they can protect an irresponsible tax loophole,” said Melissa Boteach, Director of CAP’s Poverty to Prosperity program. “This choice should be easy.”

Just by eliminating a loophole that gives special treatment to corporate jets, for example—at a cost to taxpayers of $3.2 billion over 10 years—Congress could avert cuts that would cost thousands of jobs, hurt millions of disadvantaged students, and force hundreds of thousands of vulnerable families to lose critical nutrition and housing supports this year. Here’s the math:

[Lefty Thinker]

1. Deficit reduction is, right now, a trap

We need to worry about jobs. We do not have a debt issue -- just look at Treasury yields. Even if "bond vigilantes" materialized, our government, being sovereign issuer of the American dollar, can still net spend. The deficit is not, to use the Republican terminology, "killing jobs" -- it is supporting them. Replacing some of the coming spending cuts with revenue increases is just rearranging the deck chairs as the Titanic goes down -- we need to increase net spending right now, not cut it. Going the austerity route right now is logically equivalent to saying that people are not working because they value their leisure more than income -- a completely supply side argument. Any plan to reduce the deficit is handing the Republicans the next election as our economy tanks and the Republicans claim it's because we didn't cut deeply enough. And more people will starve on the streets.