Agreement on Extending Tax Cuts Reached

[neomonkey]

WASHINGTON — Congressional negotiators late Wednesday approved extending popular tax cuts that benefit middle-income Americans, delivering to President Bush a victory on a centerpiece of his economic stimulus program that he can trumpet on the campaign trail in the final weeks before the election.

The Republican-controlled House is expected to vote as early as today to extend three tax cuts that are due to expire at the end of this year — an increase in the tax credit for families with children, an expansion in the number of taxpayers in the lowest 10% tax bracket, and tax relief for married couples.

MORE: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-tax23sep23,1,4897128.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[CityDem]

1. WTF is going on

How did this get past the senate? Can't we muster at least 50 votes to defeat this rich man's wet dream?

[w4rma]

2. This part of the tax program is good, I think. Its the part not mentioned

in this article that is bad and pretty much the rest of Shrub's program.

[sandnsea]

3. This is the Democratic tax cut

The Dems fought for it, along with Olympia Snowe and a few Republicans. Bush didn't want this part of the tax cut. It's amazing how much he gets credit for because too many Dems don't pay attention to what's really going on.

[54anickel]

4. No, I don't believe it is -Bid to Save Tax Refunds for the Poor Is Blocked

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43278-2004Sep22.html

Congressional negotiators beat back efforts yesterday to expand and preserve tax refunds for poor families, even as they added $13 billion in corporate tax breaks to a package of middle-class tax cuts that could come to a vote in the Senate today.

The House-Senate negotiations concluded last night with the approval of a five-year $146 billion tax cut, the fourth tax cut in as many years. By the end of this week, Republican leaders expect to pass extensions of three tax cuts primarily aimed at middle-income taxpayers -- a $1,000-per-child tax credit, tax breaks for married couples and a 10 percent income-tax bracket that was expanded last year.

snip>

Instead, they focused on a package of 20 expiring business taxes worth $13 billion, including a research and experimentation tax credit worth $7.6 billion through 2014, a $700 million tax credit for hiring welfare recipients, and smaller breaks to help Caribbean distillers, clean-fuel vehicle manufacturers, environmental remediation and wind energy, among others.

[sandnsea]

5. extensions

of the 2000 tax cuts, the three you mentioned were the ones Democrats fought for at the time. Look it up.

[Scootman78]

6. What about the single folks...

...with no kids?

How much is their tax credit relief? Zippadeedoodah like always?

Not that I qualify as being middle-class to George W., but I'd still like to know why he only cares about married couples and families with children. Most politicians don't care about the single people anyway, but George W. makes it well-known.

Maybe this is one of the reasons why a large number of single people aren't registered to vote.

Just a thought.

[Carolab]

7. Pandering to the suburban vote

is what this is. The AMT only affects them, as do the kiddy credits and marriage "relief". The question they always forget to ask is: how is this supposed to be paid for in the face of record deficits and the "war on terror" expenditures? They also forget to think about how their "cuts" are resulting in higher state and property taxes. Amazing how you can utter the words "tax relief" and they just fall into line.