NEW REPORT: McCain Adopts ‘Entire’ Norquist Agenda, Will Double The Bush Tax Cuts
NEW REPORT: McCain Adopts ‘Entire’ Norquist Agenda, Will Double The Bush Tax Cuts
Our guest bloggers are Robert Gordon and James Kvaal, Senior Fellow and Domestic Policy Advisor, respectively, at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Everyone knows that John McCain has reversed himself on the Bush tax cuts, which he once said came “at the expense of middle-class Americans.” What’s not yet well known is that McCain has offered his own massive tax cuts, mostly for corporations, that are as costly as Bush’s tax cuts and even more regressive.
McCain has won the heart of far-right tax activist Grover Norquist, who only three years ago was calling McCain “the nut-job from Arizona” and a “gun-grabbing, tax-increasing Bolshevik.” But here’s what Norquist says about McCain now:
[John McCain] campaigned on being very good on taxes in this election cycle… that he will continue to make [the Bush tax cuts] permanent, that he will veto any tax increase, period, that he wants to cut the corporate rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, that he wants to have full expensing, that he wants to abolish the AMT …. In addition to being the Americans for Tax Reform’s entire agenda, that is a very pro-growth set of policies he has put forward, and he articulates why they are important.
The McCain plan may please Norquist, but what does it mean for middle-class families? According to a new analysis released today by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, McCain’s new proposals would do the following:
– Double the size of the Bush tax cuts, costing more than $2 trillion in their first decade.
– Do virtually nothing for the middle class: only 9 percent of the tax cuts will go to the bottom 80 percent of households, while 58 percent will go to the top 1 percent of households.
– Follow Norquist’s blueprint that’s been called a “stealth approach to tax reform” – and that aims to abandon progressive taxation in favor of a wage tax imposed mainly on low- and middle-income households.
Read the full report (pdf).
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3 Responses to “NEW REPORT: McCain Adopts ‘Entire’ Norquist Agenda, Will Double The Bush Tax Cuts”
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“In addition to being the Americans for Tax Reform’s entire agenda, that is a very pro-growth set of policies he has put forward,”
Ummm, so Bush’s “prow growth” tax cuts over the past 5-6 years which will now yield 0.2% and then 0% growth over the next to quarters weren’t pro-growth enough?
Ponies for everyone!Yay!
March 21st, 2008 at 12:59 pmkeep screwwing the middle class once again. Old man Johnny is quite the re-puke in that in January he said “I don`t know much about the economy”, but he has a great TAX PLAN for his rich cronyies in the REICH. This guy should not be voted in to the W.H. and push these unfair taxes through. The dems need to focus on oldman Johnny`s campaign issues such as this tax plan, Iraq and the economy, Hillary needs to stop and think about what she is doing to the DEM party.
March 21st, 2008 at 1:13 pmDare I say that the already weary nations around the world that continue to finance Bush’s folly are already pulling out of our markets and their willingness to continue to invest in a nation whose monetary system is going the way of the peso.
If McCain is elected, I would expect that a depression of proportions we haven’t seen will hit America toot sweet as our economy is already bringing down the world markets.
There is little confidence in the US Dollar and not much more in our markets. The corruption and lack of oversight has created a climate where foreign investors are no longer going to look towards investing here because, while there is always risk in the markets, there is ADDED and unacceptable risk when you know the system is corrupt.
When this happens, we will be doomed to being worse than 1929.
March 21st, 2008 at 4:50 pm