According to data from the International Monetary Fund analyzed by Tim Vlandas, there are at least 30 countries with unemployment benefits that are more generous than those that go to American workers. The University of Missouri-St. Louis’ Kenneth Thomas broke the data down:

The metric used is the gross replacement rate (GRR) the ratio of unemployment benefits to a worker’s previous wages. The United States gives, on average, a miserly 27.5% of previous wages in unemployment benefits, behind 17 OECD members, though ahead of 11 others (no data was given for OECD members Iceland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Slovak Republic, and Slovenia). Not only that, the U.S. falls behind 13 non-OECD members, including Algeria, Taiwan, and Ukraine, all of which have at least double the replacement rate of the U.S.

The U.S. does rank ahead of the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia, but trails Egypt, Azerbaijan, and Tunisia in terms of the amount of income replaced by unemployment insurance. And in the wake of the Great Recession, instead of fashioning a better unemployment insurance system, Republicans across the country have slashed benefits, even while some, such as Florida, have high unemployment rates. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers in Congress have blocked and voted against several benefit extensions.

But it remains the case that there are nearly four unemployed job seekers for every available job opening, making unemployment benefits a critical source of income for those who can’t find work through no fault of their own. And contrary to conservative claims that unemployment benefits are a “lifestyle,” those unemployed workers receiving UI stay unemployed less than two weeks longer than those who receive no benefits at all, according to research by the San Francisco Federal Reserve.

In 2009, average unemployment benefits were just $310 per week, with some states paying much less (like Mississippi, with its $192 weekly benefit). As the IMF data shows, that simply isn’t keeping up with the standard set by other developed (or not so developed) nations.

Today, the Senate is scheduled to hold a vote on the Buffett Rule, the Obama administration’s proposed minimum 30 percent tax on millionaires. Prior to the vote, several wealthy Americans have come forward to offer their support for the rule — and for raising tax rates on the wealthy in general — effectively asking Congress to increase their taxes.

Case in point, former investment banker Eric Schoenberg told MSNBC’s Chris Jansing today that he feels “it is ridiculous” that he’s able to pay a much lower effective tax rate than middle class families:

SCHOENBERG: I think my taxes are too low. In 2009, for example, I paid 1 percent of my income in federal income taxes.

JANSING: Legally, I presume.

SCHOENBERG: Completely legally. I put my tax return online. I wouldn’t have done that if I’d done anything improper…For 2010, I calculated my tax rate at about 16 percent…The fact is, the people who have benefited most from the economic policies of the last 30 years have also received substantially lower taxes as a result. It is ridiculous that I pay substantially lower taxes than the average working American. I really can’t fathom the logic that allows that to take place.

Watch it:

Schoenberg inherited some of his fortune from his father, who Schoenberg said, “was only able to accumulate the wealth that he did because he was doing it in a society that functioned. A society that provided security in the form of police, army, firepeople. A society that provided education so that those workers were capable of filling those jobs. A society that provided national transportation infrastructure that allowed him to address a national market.”

Meanwhile, as the Senate votes on the Buffett rule, the House will be voting on a bill authored by Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) that, while called a “small business” tax cut, would actually just be another windfall for millionaires.

During comments overheard by an NBC news reporter, Mitt Romney told a crowd at a private fundraiser last night that he might eliminate the Department of Housing and Urban Development, scale back the Department of Education, and eliminate some specific tax provisions. There are all details that he has refused to divulge on the campaign trail:

Romney went into a level of detail not usually seen by the public in the speech, which was overheard by reporters on a sidewalk below. One possibility floated by Romney included the elimination of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Cabinet-level agency once led by Romney’s father, George.

“I’m going to take a lot of departments in Washington, and agencies, and combine them. Some eliminate, but I’m probably not going to lay out just exactly which ones are going to go,” Romney said. “Things like Housing and Urban Development, which my dad was head of, that might not be around later.

Regarding taxes, Romney said, “I’m going to probably eliminate for high income people the second home mortgage deduction.” He also said that he would “likely eliminate deductions for state income and property taxes.” The campaign is already attempting to walk the comments back, with a Romney adviser telling CNN, “He was tossing ideas out, not unveiling policy.”

For starters, Romney’s tax ideas, while reasonable, would raise nowhere near enough money to offset the huge tax cuts that he has in mind. Those tax cuts would increase the deficit by $900 billion in 2015 alone. Meanwhile, eliminating the deduction for state and local taxes, one of the largest tax expenditures for the government, for everyone saves $72 billion per year, and saves far less if the elimination is limited to upper-income Americans.

Romney’s plan to eliminate HUD, assuming he didn’t shuffle its programs to other departments, would bring an end to critical programs like Section 8 housing vouchers and community development block grants. Eliminating housing assistance is even more problematic given the disproportionate percentage of veterans in the homeless population.

So while he’s happy to hand out tax breaks worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to the very richest Americans, Romney would at least contemplate eliminating housing subsidies for the very lowest income Americans, giving them little hope of putting a roof over their heads.

Our guest blogger is Seth Hanlon, Director of Fiscal Reform at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

With Tax Day approaching, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and the House GOP are pushing a $46 billion boondoggle they call the “Small Business Tax Cut Act of 2012.” As ThinkProgress has previously reported, the bill is really just a windfall for rich people, many of whom, like hedge fund managers, owners of sports teams, celebrities, lawyers, and lobbyists are not most people’s idea of “small businesses.” Cantor’s tax giveaway, half of which goes to millionaires, is also among the least effective ways to create jobs. (Our full analysis is here.)

So what do actual small businesses get? A big headache, according to a new “tax complexity analysis” of Cantor’s bill from the Joint Committee on Taxation (Congress’s nonpartisan tax experts) and the IRS. By adding a complicated new provision to the tax code, Cantor’s bill would mean small businesses would have more paperwork, more time wasted on tax filing, and more disputes with the IRS:

It is anticipated that small businesses that elect to apply the provision will need to keep additional records due to this provision, and that additional regulatory guidance will be needed…It is anticipated that the provision will result in an increase in disputes between small businesses and the IRS. [...]

The provision likely will increase the tax preparation costs for most affected small businesses. Small businesses will have to perform additional analysis concerning whether the small business has 500 or fewer employees and which income qualifies for the deduction allowed under the provision. For income that is determined to be eligible for the deduction under the provision, small businesses will be required to perform additional calculations to determine the amount of the deduction…[S]mall businesses will be required to undertake calculations to determine the amounts of costs that are allocable to domestic business gross receipts. In some cases, small businesses would not have been required otherwise to perform these calculations but for the provision.

Due to the detailed calculations required by the provision, it is anticipated that the Secretary of the Treasury will have to create a new form for qualified small businesses to compute the deduction and will have to make appropriate revisions to several types of income tax forms and instructions. In addition, the Secretary of the Treasury will have to issue guidance to carry out the purposes of the provision.

The IRS adds that the new tax form required by Cantor’s bill, Form 8903-A, “would be complicated.”

By creating a complicated new loophole, available to some business but not to others according to arbitrary rules, and favoring the very rich, the Cantor bill epitomizes everything that is wrong about the tax code.

Ironically, the House GOP just passed a budget bemoaning the tax code’s “labyrinth of deductions” and promising tax reform to close special loopholes and carveouts (though it did not identify a single loophole that it would close). In less than three weeks, House Republicans have done a complete 180, abandoning their showy commitment to tax reform and carving out a new $46 billion loophole. The Cantor bill is the “antithesis of tax reform” according to Rep. Sandy Levin (D-MI), the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee.

But at least the GOP budget and the Cantor bill are consistent about one thing – more windfall tax cuts for the rich.