If members of Congress didn’t have to worry about being re-elected, would it change today’s stalemate on budget talks? THE FLIP SIDE to the Plan B tax hike was to eliminate the child tax credit for families who don’t make enough to pay federal income taxes as well as let expire an expansion of the college tuition tax credit — two programs that directly affect the poor and the middle class, that is, most of us here in Allen County, and indeed the state of Kansas. THE INABILITY of the House to agree on a budget plan is a slap in the face to its majority, the Republican Party, and shows how deeply divided it is as a party. Supposedly the party that best represents big business, Republicans are putting the United States’ credit markets in jeopardy by causing a grossly dysfunctional government. THE IRONY is that perhaps now a chance truly exists for bipartisan compromise. Ultra-conservative Republicans have weakened the party’s bargaining power to the point that Democrats and moderate Republicans will now have a much greater say in how a budget can be construed.
Stupid question.
Thursday night the House of Representatives failed to hold a vote on its Plan B, a combination of tepid tax increases and brash cuts.
Stalwarts such as Kansas’ Tim Huelskamp said the plan had “a pretty big tax increase in there. And it’s always been a long principle of mine, as most in the Republican Party, that we don’t raise taxes and that we look at the spending side.”
Yes, the plan increased taxes on those who make $1 million and more from 35 percent to 39.6 percent. That’s one-fourth of 1 percent of the U.S. population.
Another silly question: Could it be Huelskamp has job security in mind in his refusal to raise nary a tax?
For the most recent campaign, Huelskamp received $298,033 in campaign contributions. Among his biggest supporters is Koch Industries of Wichita, along with 15 other contributors who gave the maximum allowed.
Plan B also kept intact the “death tax,” the erroneously named measure that allows the heirs of multi-millionaires to receive their inheritances tax-free. It truly has been a ploy by the super-rich to rename this tax the “death tax,” making us all feel we’re going to lose the family farm to big government.
Well, no.
The tax begins at estates worth $5.125 million, at a 35 percent rate. Just 10 years ago, the estate tax began on inheritances of $1 million at a rate of 49 percent. You’d think there would be a little wiggle room there.
Governing is doing what is best for your country, not to advance your personal career, or those of your donors’. People like Huelskamp — in fact the entire Kansas delegation — are sabotaging the country’s financial security by this obstructionist attitude to compromise.
Pundits say Congress doesn’t take the situation seriously. That they’re willing to take the country over the “fiscal cliff” — where $500 tax hikes and across the board spending cuts await us in only seven days — just to be able to stand their ground that they never raised a single tax or cut a single dollar from the defense budget.
The most that can be expected over the next few days is a vote to delay defense and domestic spending cuts until Congress resumes after the first of the year for when a less-polarized Senate can tackle it again.
The crime, of course, is that we have a Congress that feels no shame in creating this hysteria.
To each, a lump of coal.
— Susan Lynn
