|
|
Bob Casey on Tax ReformDemocratic Challenger for PA Senate |
CASEY: When it comes to the budget, what's missing principally is a lack of fiscal responsibility. [We should] repeal the tax cut for people making over $200,000 a year. That change, in addition to an estate tax change, could get you about $730 billion over 10 years.
Q: How does that balance the current budget?
CASEY: You can't balance a budget in one year. They've put us in such a fiscal hole, it will take many years.
Q: Well, give me a couple ideas.
SANTORUM: Changing the estate tax cut would cost money over the long term, not save money. The death tax snaps back to the old death tax in 2011, and it would cost $100 million just to do the changes that he suggested. I'm for not taking more people's money when they die.
A: The answer is simple when it comes to the top 1%. I said in front of 1200 business leaders in Philly: If there is an opportunity to repeal the tax cut to the top 1%, I'll do that. We can't afford it any longer, in a time of crises in health care, a time of staggering deficits, trade deficit, and national debt. But we can have tax relief for the middle class.
A: I don't think it's that stark a choice. When a governor faces a budget deficit, you have to prioritize where the dollars are going to go and where your focus is. But when you have just a 1 percent increase for schools, I think for me that's an easy choice. You can't even keep the lights on for 1 percent. I couldn't justify $5 billion in cuts. Cutting the education budget -- that's not the way to go.
Proponents recommend voting YES because:
This amendment repeals the AMT. Except for the telephone tax, the alternative minimum tax is the phoniest tax we have ever passed. The AMT, in 1969, was meant to hit 155 taxpayers who used legal means to avoid taxation, under the theory that everybody ought to pay some income tax.
This very year, more than 2,000 people who are very wealthy are not paying any income tax or alternative minimum income tax. So it is not even working and hitting the people it is supposed to hit. Right now, this year, 2007, the year we are in, there are 23 million families that are going to be hit by this tax. It is a phony revenue machine, over 5 years, $467 billion dollars. We are going to have to have a point of order this year to keep these 23 million taxpayers from paying this tax. We might as well do away with it right now, once and for all, and be honest about it.
Opponents recommend voting NO because:
The reality of the budget resolution is this may not have anything to do with eliminating the alternative minimum tax. The one thing it will do is reduce the revenue of the Government over the next 5 years by $533 billion, plunging us right back into deficit. Look, we can deal with the AMT. We have dealt with it in the underlying budget resolution for the next 2 years. There will be no increase in the number of people affected by the AMT for the next 2 years under the budget resolution, and that is paid for. Unfortunately, this amendment is not paid for. It would plunge us back into deficit. I urge my colleagues to vote no.
Proponents recommend voting YES because:
It is disappointing to many family businesses and farm owners to set the death tax rate at what I believe is a confiscatory 45% and set the exemption at only $3.5 million, which most of us believe is too low. This leaves more than 22,000 families subject to the estate tax each year.
Opponents recommend voting NO because:
You can extend all the tax breaks that have been described in this amendment if you pay for them. The problem with the amendment is that over $70 billion is not paid for. It goes on the deficit, which will drive the budget right out of balance. We will be going right back into the deficit ditch. Let us resist this amendment. People could support it if it was paid for, but it is not. However well intended the amendment is, it spends $72.5 billion with no offset. This amendment blows the budget. This amendment takes us from a balance in 2012 right back into deficit. My colleagues can extend those tax cuts if they pay for them, if they offset them. This amendment does not pay for them; it does not offset them; it takes us back into deficit. It ought to be defeated.
