Bloomberg: "Republicans Set Aside Middle-Income Tax Cuts to Focus on Rich"

[flpoljunkie]

Getouttahere! The greedy bastards!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aUuyWDCDyRIk

Republicans Set Aside Middle-Income Tax Cuts to Focus on Rich
By Ryan J. Donmoyer

May 8 (Bloomberg) -- Republican lawmakers, facing the prospect that their power to cut taxes may soon be curbed, plan to extend breaks that mostly benefit the wealthy and Wall Street at the expense of reductions for middle-income households.

Six months before elections that may return a Democratic majority in at least one house of Congress, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois are focusing on extending the 15 percent rate on investments and repealing the estate tax. They won't push extensions of lower rates for all taxpayers and expanded breaks for married couples and families with children, which expire after 2010.

"In politics, timing is everything; you do what you can when you can, and this is what's queued up right now," says Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, the No. 4 Republican in the Senate. Given the federal budget deficit, it would ``be hard to generate public support overnight'' for making permanent the other tax cuts, he says.

Democrats say the Republicans are favoring tax breaks that do little for middle-income Americans; 50 percent of all U.S. households earn between $26,859 and $120,100, according to the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research institution in Washington.

"Even in an election year where they are losing popularity nationwide, they've chosen to pander to their base of rich donors and leave the middle class behind,'" says Representative Charles Rangel of New York, the senior Democrat on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.

more...

[TahitiNut]

1. Taxing labor and rewarding indolence. Despicable.

Plantation economics. Tax the workers and benefit those who profit from the labors of others. It's morally criminal!

At the same time that wage and salary income for the "bottom 90%" (the payroll tax base) is declining, they shift the burden of income taxation to those same people. Recipients of capital gains and dividends are privileged in a Repukelicker regime.




To the degree a weakness exists in the Social Security system, it's the declining payroll base, upon which the system depends. First and foremost, an increase in the Federal Minimum Wage is essential.

[jsamuel]

2. tsk tsk tsk

[Cobalt Violet]

3. Ha Ha.

Since the middle-income Americans don't favor Democrats, I have very little sympathy for them.
They elected Bush and the Repugs, so let them live with the consequences.

Why did they vote against their own interest?

:sarcasm:

[jsamuel]

4. yeah, well 40% of them didn't support Bush

Thanks for throwing the baby out with the bathwater...

[seafan]

5. Who says Republicans don't politicize EVERYTHING. While Americans suffer.

David Keating, executive director of Club for Growth, a Washington-based organization that helped lobby for Bush's tax cuts, says Republicans believe that Democrats would extend the middle-income tax cuts if they win control of Congress. Republicans are focusing on the capital gains and estate tax measures this year because they don't want to give Democrats a middle-class tax cut to tout before the elections.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aUuyWDCDyRIk

[flpoljunkie]

6. Republicans...champions of the filthy rich!