Tax Cut Balls

You rarely see a good tax cut graph that illustrates the "what balls!" reaction to the enrich-the-already-wealthy crowd so literally, but WaPo has done it.


Yes, it's exactly what it looks like: the giant balls of tax cuts go to those who already have giant balls of income. And though it won't fit in the graph, those tax cuts for the wealthy all add up to a grossly humongous Ball of Deficit.

Steve Benen:

Regardless, in the coming months, one of the key political battles will be over what, exactly, officials should do about the Bush-era tax policies that, by Republicans' design, are due to expire at the end of the year. President Obama and most Democrats are touting the same plan presented in the 2008 campaign: keep the lower rates for the middle class, while allowing the top rates for the rich to expire on schedule. For Republicans, that's not good enough -- those millionaires and billionaires need champions, and GOP leaders intend to fill the role.

The Washington Post has a good report, with an incredibly helpful chart, on just how much the GOP approach would cost: "A Republican plan to extend tax cuts for the rich would add more than $36 billion to the federal deficit next year -- and transfer the bulk of that cash into the pockets of the nation's millionaires, according to a congressional analysis released Wednesday."

The study, completed by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, only looked at the effects for 2011, and they're pretty striking -- Republicans want to give millionaires and billionaires an average tax cut per household of about $100,000, every penny of which would be added to the deficit.

Read the whole thing.

Then call or email your members of Congress and tell them No Tax Cuts for the Rich.