Jared Bernstein: $1 million Not Equal to $250K

[flpoljunkie]

$1m Not Equal To $250K

Oct 11, 2011

I get that the Senate D’s want to pay for the President’s jobs bill by raising a tax surcharge on millionaires and billionaires, and I understand the rationale.

I also get that red is the new black, or something to that effect.

But it’s very important that we don’t allow $1 million to become the new $250,000.

That is, when people talk about sunsetting the highend Bush tax cuts, we’re using $250K as a cutoff, not $1m. To switch to the higher number makes an already tight tax base too tight to raise the revenue we need. Remember, just above 2% of households, and about the same share of small businesses,* are above $250K, so the lower cutoff is not biting the middle class. And moving to the $1m cutoff loses you slightly less than half the revenue from the highend sunset.

*The majority of “small businesses” above $1m are law practices, hedge funds, self-incorporated consultants who are not going to hire anybody, etc…not mom and pop shops.

http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/1m-not-equal-to-250k/

[JuniperLea]

1. Isn't the 1 million figure...

An old Pubbie figure that Obama went back to? Seems to me this is one of the points that were used in the bill so he could say, look, this is the figure you proposes... so take it!