For those who can’t wade through the hundreds of pages in the Gang of Six Plan,
* It prposes that government spending should be cut by $500 billion immediately as a start on the deficit reduction plan.
* It calls for marginal income tax rates to be lowered and an eventual abolition of the alternative minimum tax.
* Three new tax brackets — 8-12 percent, 14-22 percent, and 23-29 percent — would be introduced in a bid to raise $1 trillion in revenue, the part of the plan that is bound to anger many Republicans in the House.
In the meantime, Tom Coburn said he had returned to the gang because it had a proposal to cut entitlement programs, including slashing $116 billion from healthcare. He called that move “significant.”
What pages? There have been numerous threads today stating the "plan" is nothing but a framework, and won't be ready for a vote in time.
IMHO, “eventual abolition” of any tax = never.
Actually, we need to know what they mean by “immediately” since another report in the Washington Times says that $500 billion cuts will take place after 2012. The elimination of mortgage deductions is confined to mortgages balances exceeding $500,000.00
Another good way to describe this One Trillion in tax hikes is to explain that the Bush era “tax cuts” provided tax savings of approximately $550 Billion to all tax payers of which 85% went to households making less than $250,000. Look it up on CNN Money.
These increases are double the entire Bush Tax cut tax savings to individuals which still allowed overall revenues to grow.
The members of congress are criminally stupid.
Even this is fake cuts - the usual DC game of calling reduced increases "cuts".