Tag: federal budget

How to ensure long-term solvency for Social Security in one easy step

April 26, 2012 at 3:00 pmCategory:Uncategorized

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The big news for long-term Federal fiscal policy this week came with Monday’s release of the Trustees Report on the Social Security Trust Fund.  Based on the media coverage in the days since the report’s release, you could be forgiven for believing that Social Security—the primary income support program for the nation’s elderly—faces a profound fiscal crisis, with the program’s Trust Fund approaching insolvency sooner than expected and the irreversible loss of benefits for future retirees.

Fortunately, the truth about the program’s future is significantly less dire than reported—as long as officials in the White House and Congress make the necessary policy changes to address the challenges that actually face the program.  In short, Social Security is not “going broke” now, and can avoid going broke far into the future in one simple step that doesn’t involve cuts to beneficiaries—increase program revenues through lifting the cap on the amount of income subject to the Social Security payroll tax from $100,100 to include all wage income earned by the worker.

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Another conservative, “family values” proposal

April 26, 2012 at 9:53 amCategory:Uncategorized

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One area of right-wing obsession that continues to boggle the mind is that of school breakfasts and lunches. As we’ve noted on many occasions in this space, the local Pope-funded groups seem to have an almost bizarre fixation on the subject — especially the notion that (horrors!) some nine year old somewhere is getting a reduced price bowl of oatmeal even though her family income may have risen above the prescribed bureaucratic threshold. God forbid that we err on the side of getting children adequate calories!

Now, comes word of a parallel and strightforward attack on feeding kids at the federal level. This is from a report by the good folks at Think Progress:

“House Republicans recently proposed cuts to nutrition assistance that will kick 280,000 low-income childrenoff automatic enrollment in the Free School Lunch and Breakfast Program. Those same kids and 1.5 million other people will also lose their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly food stamp benefits) that help them afford food at home.

Ten years’ worth of these nutrition cuts could be prevented for the price of one year of tax cuts on 3,340 multimillion dollar estates that House Republicans are protecting in their budget.”

The bottom line: There’s lots of room for debate when it comes to federal spending on any number of items. And, like all programs involving humans, it seems certain that there is inefficiency in the school breakfast and lunch program. But, good grief! At some point basic humanity needs to kick in. How do these people look in the mirror every morning after having proposed to eliminate more than a quarter million kids from such a basic program?

U.S. House pays for increased defense spending by cutting food stamps

April 18, 2012 at 3:00 pmCategory:Uncategorized

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During last summer’s hard-won debt deal, President Obama and Congressional leaders agreed to a set of spending cuts designed to reduce the Federal budget deficit, including a $54.7 billion reduction in defense spending for FY2013.

Nine months later, however, leaders in the U.S. House are set to renege on this agreement by reversing the scheduled defense cuts and making up the resulting short-fall by making an additional $34 billion cut over the next ten years to the Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—otherwise known as food stamps—a program that was explicitly exempted from the spending cuts outlined in the original debt deal due to their disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable.

These cuts will prove devastating to low- and moderate-income families that rely on this assistance to adequately feed their families.  As Politico reports:

“An average family of four would face an 11 percent cut in monthly benefits after Sept. 1 and, even more important, tighter enforcement of rules would require that households exhaust most of their liquid assets before qualifying for help. This hits hardest among the long-term unemployed, who would be forced off the rolls until they have spent down their savings to less than $2,000 in many cases.”
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Failure of Buffett Rule highlights shortcomings of House budget

April 18, 2012 at 12:00 pmCategory:Uncategorized

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Despite winning majority support in a 51-45 vote in the U.S. Senate Monday night, the so-called Buffett Rule—an Obama administration proposal to ensure that millionaires pay at least the same tax rate as middle class families—failed to pass the chamber after a determined minority used Senate procedures to prevent the proposal from receiving a straight up or down vote.

As we detailed in this space yesterday, the Buffett Rule is an important proposal restoring tax fairness and providing new revenues in support of a balanced approach to deficit reduction.    Its failure suggests a strange choice has been made in who will contribute to closing the nation’s budget shortfall.

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Towards a fairer tax policy: U.S. Senate to vote on Buffett Rule

April 16, 2012 at 5:04 pmCategory:Uncategorized

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Later this evening, the U.S. Senate will vote on the so-called Buffett Rule, an Obama Administration proposal that seeks to ensure that households earning more $1 million a year pay at least the same tax rate as middle class families.  Introduced as S.2230, “The Paying a Fair Share Act,” by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), this important legislation promotes tax fairness, a balanced first step to deficit reduction, and long-term economic growth.

Under the current Bush-era tax levels, individuals earning more than $1 million per year face a tax rate of 35% for wage income, yet between a range of loopholes, deductions, and preferential treatment of investment income, many of these wealthy individuals are able to shield vast portions of their earnings from Federal income tax—thus reducing their effective tax rates to levels lower than the tax rates faced by middle class families.  One recent study showed that more than one-quarter of all millionaires pay less than 26.5% of their income in federal taxes, while 10 million Americans earning less than $100,000 pay more than 26.5% in taxes.

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