As Democrats continue to push a renewal of the payroll tax cut included in last year’s deal to extend the Bush tax cuts, members of the Republican Party have reportedly grown concerned that if they do not go along with the proposal, they will lose their reputation as anti-tax zealots and get painted as defenders of the richest Americans. Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl (R), apparently, is not one of those Republicans.

Speaking on the Senate floor this afternoon, Kyl blasted the plan put forth today by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), which would partially pay for the extension by instituting a temporary surtax on Americans whose incomes top $1 million. Despite outlining his perceived problems with the plan, however, Kyl said he could be persuaded to vote for an extension — but only if Democrats agreed to again extend the 2003 Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans:

KYL: It was part of an overall agreement in which we said we will extend all of the existing tax rates — the so-called Bush tax cuts, that is the rates that have been in effect since 2001 and 2003, we would extend this temporary tax holiday from the payroll tax cut, we would extend all of those. And I supported that. That frankly was the right thing to do, to extend all of these existing rates. … Now if we can do that again, I’m all for it. I’ll support the extension of the payroll tax holiday.

Watch it:

The payroll tax cut extension as proposed by Democrats would ensure that, at a time when the middle- and working-classes are still inching toward recovery, the average household would pocket an extra $1,000 a year. Meanwhile, in Kyl’s home state of Arizona, the millionaires’ surtax used to pay for much of the extension would affect just 0.1 percent of all taxpayers — a whopping 3,173 people who bring home an average annual income of $3.5 million, according to a Citizens for Tax Justice analysis. And while proposals exist to pay for the extension, no such plan exists for the Bush tax cuts, despite a 10-year price tag topping $2.5 trillion and no meaningful job creation to show for the cost.

Kyl’s statement is a direct contradiction to comments he made just a year ago during debate about the Bush tax cuts. “My view, and I think most of the people in my party don’t believe that you should ever have to offset a tax cut,” Kyl told reporters in July 2010. Now that it is a Democratic tax cut on the table, however, Kyl not only opposes the Democrats’ attempts to offset the costs, he wants to ensure that the middle class doesn’t get a tax cut unless the wealthiest Americans — whose tax rates are already at historic lows — get one too.

Last week, GOP presidential primary candidate Newt Gingrich appeared at Harvard to talk about his campaign. At the conclusion of his speech, he fielded questions from students that were recorded and uploaded to YouTube. One student asked the former House speaker about the pay gap between men and women. Gingrich completely dismissed this gap, saying that the student will soon be worried about male inequality instead because women are overtaking their counterparts:

STUDENT: Hi, Speaker, I’m Holly Flynn, a freshman at the college. Two details of your film really stood out to me. One was Phyllis Schlafly’s commentary. And the other was the characterization of women winning World War II as a negative image. So I’d like you to clarify your stance on womens’ rights. And I’d like to know what you’d do to ensure gender equality in the United States. Given that even today, women make 77 cents to every man’s dollar.

GINGRICH: Well, the latter is going to change dramatically in the next generation because more women are going to college than men. And they’re doing better than men and entering professions more than men. In fact, if anything, you’ll be here in fifteen years wondering what we’ll do about men inequality and male unemployment. Because the people who had the deepest decline of income are males who don’t go to college.

Watch it:

There is a case to be made that, in some areas, women are now overtaking men — such as in college attendance. However, Gingrich is wrong to completely dismiss the wider issue of inequality that is keeping women from earning similar wages to their male counterparts. For one, college attendance is not the only factor that determines salaries. Women working in the exact same industries with the exact same jobs continue to be paid less than men, and even women working in the highest-paid jobs continue to earn less than men. And although Gingrich seems to point to the recession as lowering the pay gap between sexes, the pay gap has actually staganted during the poor economy. (HT: YouTube account TheAsianRepublican)

Several wealthy bankers, investors, and entrepreneurs have called for higher taxes on the rich as an important part of reducing the nation’s deficit, led most prominently by Warren Buffett. “It is mathematically impossible to invest enough in our economy and our country to sustain the middle class (our customers) without taxing the top 1 percent at reasonable levels again,” wrote wealthy entrepreneur Nick Hanauer in an op-ed last week. “Significant tax increases on the about $1.5 trillion in collective income of those of us in the top 1 percent could create hundreds of billions of dollars to invest in our economy, rather than letting it pile up in a few bank accounts like a huge clot in our nation’s economic circulatory system.”

Joining the list of those in financial positions of power that are calling for higher taxes on the rich is Morgan Stanley Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat who, as the Huffington Post’s Bonnie Kavoussi reported, said over the weekend that it’s “inappropriate” that income inequality in the country is continuing to grow while taxes on the rich stay low:

“The wealthiest can afford to pay more in taxes. That’s a part of the deal. That makes sense. I don’t know anyone that doesn’t agree with that,” Porat said. “The wealth disparity between the lowest and the highest continues to expand, and that’s inappropriate.” “We cannot cut our way to greatness,” she added.

The rising compensation of executives and those in the banking industry is one of the major factors driving the nation’s income inequality. And at the same time that the rich have been getting richer, their tax rates have been plummeting. It’s refreshing to hear someone in the banking industry acknowledge these truths and want to rectify them, rather than decrying higher taxes on the rich as akin to the Nazi invasion of Poland.

According to a new report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, income inequality — which has sparked the Occupy Wall Street movement in the U.S. — is increasing all across the developed world, led by bankers and executives reaping bigger and bigger income gains. In the OECD countries, the richest 10th of the population makes about nine times as much in average income as the poorest 10th , a significant increase from the gap in the 1980s:

The gap between rich and poor is widening across most developed economies as skilled workers reap more rewards and top executives and bankers benefit from a global job market, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said.

The average income of the richest tenth of the population is now about nine times that of the poorest tenth, the Paris- based OECD said today in a report. The gap has increased about 10 percent since the mid 1980s.

Mexico, the U.S., Israel and the U.K. are among the countries with the biggest divide between rich and poor, while Denmark, Norway, Belgium and the Czech Republic are among those with the smallest gap. The earnings multiple is 14-to-1 in the U.S. and Israel, compared with about 10-to-1 in the U.K., Italy and Japan and 6-to-1 in Germany and Denmark.

In the U.S., “the rising incomes of executives and finance professionals account for much of the rising share of top income recipients.” The OECD recommends that the U.S. both increase taxes on high earners and boost benefits for low-income people, which average just 6 percent of household income in the U.S., compared to 16 percent across the developed world.

“The social contract is starting to unravel in many countries,” OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria said in a statement. “This study dispels the assumptions that the benefits of economic growth will automatically trickle down to the disadvantaged and that the greater inequality fosters greater social mobility.”

The Recovery Act of 2009 (i.e. the stimulus) has, according to the Congressional Budget Office, been employing more than 3 million people this year, while saving millions more from poverty through boosting programs like unemployment benefits. Though it was not large or targeted enough to deal with the depth of the Great Recession, the stimulus has been an extraordinary help to a struggling economy.

However, if Mitt Romney had been president in 2008, according to a campaign spokesman, he wouldn’t have passed the Recovery Act. Instead, he would have cut taxes for corporations and extended the Bush tax cuts, as well as opening up land for oil drilling:

Asked what President Romney would have done during his first days in office, in lieu of a federal stimulus, to address the market meltdown, Chen rattled off a few likely options: “Lowering the corporate tax rate. Enacting a permanent extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. Immediately ratifying our pending trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. In the energy sector, freeing up the necessary land to enable greater domestic production.” He did not make clear how Romney would have steered these boilerplate conservative proposals through a Democrat-controlled Congress.

According to the CBO, extending income tax cuts and cutting the corporate tax rate are two of the least effective strategies for boosting economic growth and employment. For extending income tax cuts, only 10 cents to 60 cents in economic activity is created for every dollar spent. It’s at most 30 cents in economic activity for every dollar spent on corporate tax cuts.

Meanwhile, steps that put money directly into the pockets of low- and middle-income families or directly create jobs, like cutting payroll taxes or spending on infrastructure, have far higher bang-for-the-buck. These are the sorts of policies that President Obama has proposed in his American Jobs Act, but that Republicans have filibustered over and over.

It was the slew of tax cuts that were added to the stimulus in a misguided attempt to win Republican votes that watered down its effectiveness in the first place. If Romney had been running the show, that ratio would have evidently been even worse. Of course, considering that Romney’s economic plan consists of nearly $7 trillion in tax cuts that overwhelmingly go to the rich and corporations, perhaps this shouldn’t be a surprise.

Politico’s Anna Palmer reports that K Street lobbyists are gearing up for a last-ditch effort to save a slew of “tax perks, credits and other goodies worth billions to industry.”

These special tax favors, encapsulated in a “tax extenders” package, have had little trouble passing in recent history. But this year “the price tag — about $30 billion over 10 years — makes them unpalatable when slashing spending is the agenda.” That’s why K Street’s lobbyists have mobilized themselves to defend these special tax breaks for industries such as real estate, energy, and automobiles. One lobbyist even likened passing the package of tax extenders to Luke Skywalker destroying the Death Star:

“I’m working on several tax extenders, and we’re working our butts off,” said Holland & Knight’s Rich Gold, who gave the package a 1-in-10 chance of passing this year. “I’ve also been telling my clients it’s a little bit of Luke Skywalker threading the needle to get to the Death Star.”

While there may be merit to some of the tax policy contained within the tax extenders package (particularly the renewable energy production tax credit), most of these tailored tax credits and tax breaks are a result of lobbying by a handful of industries. They are a prime example of how special interests utilize K Street’s lobbyists to craft public policy for their own benefit.