Is Obama Stimulus Plan Also the Biggest Tax Cut Ever?
By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Are the tax cuts in the stimulus bill the largest is U.S. history?
Yes, sort of.
Steven Waldman, a former U.S. News editor (well before I wandered these halls), makes an interesting case that the coming tax cut will indeed be the biggest ever.
The compromise stimulus plan includes $282 billion in tax cuts over two years.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Bush's first two years of tax cuts amounted to $174 billion. A second batch in 2004 and 2005 cost $231. And those were thought to be bigger than the tax cuts offered by Reagan, Kennedy, or others.
But wait, you say, wasn't Bush's 2001 tax cut, at $1.35 trillion (funny how the GOP didn't mind draining one trillion dollars from the government coffers then), the largest in history?
Yes, over the full 10 years of its existence. But over the first two years, as Waldman points out above, the price tag was much smaller. So the Obama stimulus tax cut would be the biggest ever for the first two years. Or something like that.
Steve Benen points out over at Political Animal that this means that Republicans will be voting against one of the biggest tax cuts ever. Democrats don't point this out very much, I suspect, because they are so busy arguing that spending will do more than tax cuts to stimulate the economy.
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Tags: economic stimulus | Obama administration
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Reader Comments
No Problem With Deficits
Tax cuts cause deficits. Deficits reduce the value of the dollar against other currencies. This is a good thing because a lower dollar means that American products and labor become more attractive on the world market. Thus, the more we spend the more jobs will eventually come our way.
The problem in this recession is that the dollar has actually come out stronger than a lot of other currencies. We need to spend spend spend in order to weaken the dollar and bring more commerce our way.
ahem.
Wow this guy is dirty; and he is a deputy editor? I guess I'll never buy US news and world report. This editorial is done in such a way as to trick people, that's pretty dirty and I hope this guy gets some help. I couldn't live with myself if I was actively trying to trick uninformed people with propagana like this. Robert must be disconnected from those types of feelings unless he truely is ignorant of the facts.
O rly?
Considering the spending increases, any "tax cut" is temporary, is code for a long-term tax-increase, and therefore BS :).
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