To Be or Not to Be ... a Tax Increase
I’m finally done studying for the hardest exam I’ve ever taken (note to self: do not take Real Analysis while in law school), so now I’m back to tax. I’ve been out of the loop with news lately, but to start things back up, here is a good article shedding some much needed light on the Democratic 2008 budget proposal.
The political parties could not be more different in their characterization of the plan.
The Democrats are asserting that the budget will not involve any tax increases, while the Republicans have labeled the proposal as a massive tax hike. The article introduces facts to the debate, and clarifies some of the political spin.
Personally, I have been anticipating this debate for a while. The budget proposal will in fact let some tax cuts expire, and quite obviously, eliminating a tax cut is effectively a tax increase, as the Republicans charge. On the other hand, had the original tax cut package been passed as permanent legislation, this would hardly be an issue, and language semantics would be irrelevant to the policy debate. In my opinion, this reflects a much broader problem with tax legislation, because temporary laws and fixes (like the AMT patches) place future legislators in a very precarious (and undeservedly difficult) position, as the current debate exemplifies.
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