Congressional and White House negotiators are currently trying to hash out a deal under which the United States will raise its debt ceiling, which is normally a non-controversial process that simply requires a vote on a clean bill to hike the limit.

Some obstinate conservatives have decried raising the debt ceiling, saying they will vote against any hike. Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) is one of these conservatives. Appearing on conservative radio host Martha Zoller’s show today, Broun not only pledged to vote against raising the debt ceiling, but he also shrugged off the potential loss of a quarter million jobs as a result of doing so. Claiming that these employees would largely be public sector workers, he told Zoller that they should get a real job, anyway:

BROUN: We have created this huge debt. […] We’ve got to stop the outrageous spending that’s going on. We hear the CBO says well if we don’t raise the debt limit, it’s going to put so many people out of work, I don’t remember then number, I think it’s 250,000 or something, are gonna be put out of work. Well those are gonna be government employees that are put out of work. There are a lot of government employees that need to go find a real job!

Watch it:

For what it’s worth, Broun should know that it won’t be just a quarter million government employees who would lose their jobs through no fault of their own if the debt ceiling isn’t raised. The entire global economy would be hit by the repercussions of such an event, and millions of people worldwide would have their livelihoods threatened.

Back in February, congressional Republicans allowed a key trade assistance program to expire, blocking tens of thousands of workers who have lost their jobs due to international trade from accessing benefits. President Obama, in turn has said that he will not submit new trade agreements to Congress until it revives the trade assistance program.

But Republicans are digging their heels in against reauthorizing a program to help the workers who inevitably end up on the short end of the stick when it comes to free trade deals. Today, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) went so far as to claim that trade assistance has no place in negotiations over free trade agreements:

This morning I’m calling on the administration once again to send us the three pending trade agreements that the president himself has said would create tens of thousands of American jobs and to leave Trade Adjustment Assistance out of it.

McConnell is not the only one utterly indifferent to the plight of workers who lose their jobs due to trade pacts. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said that trade assistance shouldn’t be reauthorized because “we’re broke.”

But while Republicans are content to demagogue trade assistance on the floors of Congress, back home is another story. Several Republicans lawmakers have sought help from the Labor Department or have supported constituent petitions for a program that the GOP allowed to expire. As The Hill noted, these GOP members “made a forceful case for petitions to the trade aid program.”

In a statement to ThinkProgress, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), a staunch supporter of trade assistance, said, “it’s unconscionable — and bad for our economic recovery efforts — to turn our backs on workers looking to retrain for new work after losing their jobs to unfair foreign trade with countries like China. Yet too many Washington politicians have obstructed extension of trade adjustment assistance, while arguing for more-of-the-same free trade agreements.”

Indeed, international trade pacts produce winners and losers, and the government has a responsibility to help those who lose their livelihood through no fault of their own. But the GOP wants only to talk about the positive aspects of trade, while pretending that the negative aspects simply don’t exist.

Our guest blogger is Michael Linden, Director of Tax and Budget Policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Earlier today, presidential candidate and former governor Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) outlined his economic policy “vision,” which included several major proposals to cut taxes. Pawlenty called for:

– Cutting the top individual income tax rate down to 25 percent;

– Having just two income tax brackets, 10 percent and 25 percent;

– Eliminating all taxation on capital gains, dividends, and estates;

– Cutting the corporate tax rate down to 15 percent

These proposals, taken together would bestow a massive tax cut on the wealthiest people in the country. They would also reduce overall federal revenues to a such a low level that even if Pawlenty’s draconian, radical spending targets were achieved, deficits and debt would still soar out of control.

All together, Pawlenty’s tax proposal would generate an average revenue level of just 13.6 percent of GDP from 2013-2021. That translates to a tax cut of $7.8 trillion, and that’s on top of $2.5 trillion cost of extending all of the Bush tax cuts (see below for details on how this estimate was calculated).

Pawlenty also says that he will balance the budget, and cap spending at 18 percent of GDP. Unfortunately for Pawlenty, his tax plan leaves him about $8.4 trillion short. Given that reality, he can either embrace a huge middle-class tax increase, or give up his claims to a balanced budget. If he doesn’t make up that revenue, deficits and debt will skyrocket, even if he does slash spending back to levels not seen in half a century.

Read how we got our numbers after the jump. Read more

Our guest blogger is Sarah Ayres, a Research Associate at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the first round of the Bush tax cuts. Back then, proponents of the Bush tax package claimed it was necessary to create jobs, reduce the national debt, and spur economic growth. None of that happened. I put together the following charts to illustrate just how badly the Bush tax plan has failed to live up to its promises:

– No job creation — the employment population ratio has dropped from a height of 63.9 in May 2001 to its current level of 58.5.

– Ballooning debt — public debt has tripled in the years since the Bush tax cuts were enacted, from $3.4 trillion in 2000 to $9.7 trillion today.

– Stunted economic growth — U.S. GDP increased a mere 17% from 2001-2010, significantly less than the 40% growth of the previous decade.

For more on the legacy of the failed Bush tax cuts, see here, here and here.

When President George W. Bush came into office, he was facing a balanced budget and the real prospect of the United States paying down its national debt. In fact, in 2001, Bush promised to pay off all of the federal debt within 10 years.

Of course, that is not what happened. The debt and deficit ballooned under Bush, thanks to two wars, a financial crisis, and two rounds of unnecessary tax cuts.

Ten years ago today, President Bush signed the first of his two tax cuts, pledging that “tax relief will create new jobs, tax relief will generate new wealth, and tax relief will open new opportunities.” Instead, Bush’s tax cuts brought in a new era of red ink. Even with all the other economic catastrophes — including the wars and the financial crisis — the federal debt would be at a sustainable level today were it not for the Bush tax cuts, as CAP’s Michael Ettlinger and Michael Linden note:

Ten years ago today, the first round of Bush tax cuts became law. But what if they hadn’t? What would our fiscal situation look like if history had been different in just one respect: if we’d never implemented President George W. Bush’s eponymous tax policies? The short answer is that the debate over federal debt levels would be entirely different. In that alternate world, total debt as a share of GDP would be under 50 percent this year — instead of pushing 70 percent — and it would be expected to stay under 60 percent for the rest of the decade. That’s well below the levels causing such great consternation in Washington.

The Bush tax cuts ushered in the weakest economic expansion of the post-war period, as “growth in investment, GDP, and employment all posted their worst performance.” ThinkProgress’ Zaid Jilani noted that,
for the cost of the Bush tax cuts, the U.S. could have, among other things, given 49.2 million people access to low-income healthcare every year, provided 43.1 million students with Pell Grants every year, or provided 31.5 million children with access to Head Start every year.

Last week, during his presidential campaign announcement, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) said he supports capping federal spending at 20 percent of GDP. Today, during an economic address in Chicago, former Minnesota governor and 2012 presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty upped the ante, calling for a constitutional amendment that would cap federal spending at 18 percent of GDP (from his prepared remarks):

The best way, and possibly the only way — to ensure fiscal discipline is to put the Congress in a spending straightjacket. That’s why I support a constitutional amendment. That not only requires a balanced federal budget, but also caps federal spending as a percentage of our economy. Around the historical average of 18% of GDP. Only a constitutional amendment has the power to bind future Congresses to keep their promises. Force decision-makers to finally make decisions. And give statutory reforms a chance to succeed. But passing a constitutional amendment will take awhile. And the crisis that we face is here now. And requires immediate action.

To get a sense for how radical this is, the House Republican budget — which essentially eliminates Medicare and Medicaid — will result in spending at 20.25 percent of GDP in 2022 and 18.75 percent of GDP in 2040, according to the Congressional Budget Office. So Pawlenty’s plan would require even more draconian cuts than those that the House GOP endorsed.

A federal spending cap of the sort Pawlenty desires would likely force the government into approving hundreds of millions of dollars of cuts in Social Security and Medicare. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities pointed out, such a cap would also make recessions worse, by forcing the government to cut during a downturn, reinforcing the downward spiral. And at the end of the day, it doesn’t even guarantee a balanced budget, as it ignores revenue. The budget won’t be balanced if spending is consistently at 18 percent of GDP but revenue is consistently lower.

And Pawlenty plans to decimate federal revenues, as he is calling for huge tax cuts that will overwhelmingly benefit the very richest Americans and the very biggest corporations, adding trillions of dollars in deficits that will have to be made up elsewhere (likely by hiking taxes on the middle class). With his plan, Pawlenty really is doubling down on the failed economic prescriptions of the past, hoping that more and bigger tax cuts will, this time, lead to prosperity.

Republican 2012 presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty is delivering an address in Chicago today where he will lay out his campaign’s official economic plan. Despite the fiscal woes that he left behind after his tenure as governor of Minnesota, Pawlenty has been banking on an economic message to help him in the GOP primary.

Pawlenty’s economic plan, according to excerpts from his speech that were released to the media, will include plenty of red meat for conservatives, including calling for the privatization of Amtrak. Pawlenty will also call for a massive slew of tax cuts:

We should cut the business tax rate by more than half. I propose reducing the current rate from 35% to 15%…On the individual rates we need a simpler, fairer flatter tax system overall. I propose just two rates: 10% and 25%. Under my plan, those who currently pay no income tax would stay at a zero rate. After that, the first $50,000 of income – or $100,000 for married couples – would be taxed at 10 percent. [...]

In addition, we should eliminate altogether the capital gains tax, interest income tax, dividends tax, and the death tax.

Pawlenty’s corporate tax cut is actually deeper than that favored in the House Republican budget, while he envisions the same massive income tax cut for the rich that the House Republicans desire. National Journal’s Tim Fernholz called the tax cuts “breathtaking,” noting that “Pawlenty’s variant would attract even less [than 16 percent of GDP in revenue]. With government spending standing at about 25 percent of GDP this year and averaging about 20 percent, the balanced budgets Pawlenty promises imply massive spending cuts.” The Tax Policy Center found that the House Republicans’ less audacious (but still radical) tax plan would cost about $2.9 trillion over ten years.

As if a huge rate cut weren’t enough, Pawlenty endorses further giveaways to the rich via eliminating the capital gains and estate taxes. Currently, about 68 percent of capital gains taxes are paid by the richest one percent of Americans, and about 90 percent are paid by the richest ten percent. Meanwhile, less than one-quarter of one percent of the richest households will see any estate tax liability. Eliminating these taxes is nothing but a giant windfall for the rich.

Pawlenty is basically doubling down on the failed economic policies of the last Republican administration, only going for tax cuts that are much bigger than anything President Bush ever got through Congress.

Today marks the 10th anniversary of former President George W. Bush signing into law his 2001 tax cuts (he passed a second round in 2003). While doing so, Bush promised prosperity and growth, but the nation got neither.

The cost of these budget-busting 2001 and 2003 tax cuts was, as estimated by Citizens for Tax Justice, roughly $2.5 trillion through 2010. But America didn’t have to go down this route of cutting taxes and hoping for growth to miraculously appear. There were other policy options available to policymakers.

ThinkProgress, using data on various social spending projects from the National Priorities Project — which does these calculations for the cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars — has estimated ten other possible policies we could’ve paid for at the same $2.5 trillion price of the Bush tax cuts. While not all of these policies are currently performed by the federal government, they do represent an accurate calculation of the monetary tradeoffs, and each one individually would cost the same as the Bush tax cuts. Here are ten alternatives we could’ve pursued instead:

- Give 122.7 Million Children Low-Income Health Care Every Year For Ten Years

- Give 49.2 Million People Access To Low-Income Healthcare Every Year For Ten Years

- Provide 43.1 Million Students With Pell Grants Worth $5,500 Every Year For Ten Years

- Provide 31.5 Million Head Start Slots For Children Every Year For Ten Years

- Provide VA Care For 30.7 Million Military Veterans Every Year For Ten Years

- Provide 30.4 Million Scholarships For University Students Every Year For Ten Years

- Hire 4.19 Million Firefighters Every Year For Ten Years

- Hire 3.67 Million Elementary School Teachers Every Year For Ten Years

- Hire 3.6 Million Police Officers Every Year For Ten Years

- Retrofit 144.6 Million Households For Wind Power Every Year For Ten Years

- Retrofit 54.2 Million Households For Solar Photovoltaic Energy Every Year For Ten Years

The tradeoffs paint a stark picture. For the same price as the Bush tax cuts, which did little to help the economy, we could’ve sent tens of millions of students to college, retrofitted every household in America with the capacity to generate alternative energy, hired millions of firefighters and police officers, effectively ended our national shame of having kids who lack health care coverage, or put millions of more teachers into classrooms. But instead, Congress passed budget-breaking tax cuts, and then went on to pass even more in 2003. In 2010, Congress then went on to renew the Bush tax cuts for an additional two years, and the political will for the sort of public investments listed above appears to have dried up.