Showing posts with label economic plan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economic plan. Show all posts

Friday, January 20, 2012

How The GOP Candidates Would Affect The People Of South Carolina, By The Numbers


By Tanya Somanader/Think Progress

Tomorrow, South Carolina will hold its First in the South primary to determine the state’s pick for the GOP nomination. But while most of the state’s focus is on who people will be voting for, what about those who are actually doing the voting?
With the state’s unemployment rate well above the national average and more than 18 percent of residents living in poverty, economic securityis certainly a driving concern for the majority of voters. But, given the GOP field’s stances, it doesn’t seem to be a concern candidates are taking to heart.
Here’s a look at how the GOP candidates’ positions would affect the vulnerable populations of South Carolina, by the numbers:
–Over 3,000,000: There are at least at least 3,380,000 eligible voters in South Carolina, but many students, seniors, low-income voters, and minority voters may find it difficult to actually cast a ballot thanks to the state’s new voter ID law. Rick Santorum called it a “common-sense anti-fraud” measure that prevents the vote of “people who probably shouldn’t be voting.” Newt Gingrich blasted President Obama’s rejection of the law as trying to “steal elections.”
–Over 200,000: There are at least 213,000 unemployed South Carolinianscontributing to the state’s 9.9 percent unemployment rate. While those receiving unemployment insurance actually work harder to find a job, according to studies, Gingrich equates joblessness with laziness and demands that any benefits come through a work-training program — or a drug test.
–Over 400,000: There were at least 408,000 veterans living in South Carolina in 2009. veterans increasingly need to be treated for traumatic brain injury, PTSD, and other health consequences of war. While Mitt Romney briefly flirted with turning the VA into a voucher system, Gingrich adopted the idea wholesale, stating we should “find a way to have a voucherized system for those who want it.”
–Over 650,000: In 2009, there were over 650,000 people in the state participating in the food stamp program, and the economic recession has no doubt only increased those numbers. Rather than address the need of vulnerable South Carolinians, Gingrich and Santorum traffic in “ugly, racial stereotypes” to justify calls to drug test recipients and cut funding for the needy.
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Thursday, January 12, 2012

Economists: Romney’s Economic Plan Fails To Deal With ‘Main Drags’ On U.S. Economy

By Travis Waldron/Think Progress
Picture from Stephanie Miller Facebook page

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R) economic plan has become the centerpiece of his presidential campaign. Though his proposals are often vague, analyses of the plan shows that it would provide huge tax breaksfor the wealthiest Americans while raising taxes on low-income families. And though Romney claims to be concerned about the federal budget deficit, his plan would add more than $6 trillion in deficits over 10 years.
Romney, who touts his experience as a job creator, has suggested laying off thousands of public sector workers. He wants to slash vital programs for the poor and middle-classes, repeal the Affordable Care Act, and gut Medicare and Social Security. His embrace of the radical Cut, Cap, and Balance plan pushed by House Republicans would, in effect, shrink the federal government to pre-Ronald Reagan era sizes.
But for all his talk about the plan on the campaign trail, economists surveyed by Reuters say Romney’s plan likely wouldn’t deal with the main drags on the American economy, while the cuts to vital programs would be “utterly draconian“:
These steps would shrink the federal government’s role more than even former president Ronald Reagan managed 30 years ago when he turned many social programs over to the states. That scenario concerns liberal economists.
“If applied, these fiscal measures would be utterly draconian. The attacks on Medicare and Social Security would throw large portions of the population into poverty,” said Jamie Galbraith, business professor at the University of Texas in Austin.
Mainstream economists worry more that neither Romney nor his Republican opponents are addressing the main drag on the U.S. economy – weak demand from American consumers still weighed down by debt.
Among the “main drags” highlighted in the Reuters piece is the housing crisis, which has placed “a big drag on consumer spending which drives two thirds of the U.S. economy.” But the GOP candidates have offered little in the way of solutions for the crisis, and Romney’s own prescription involves letting the housing market hit rock bottom — further damaging millions of homeowners. “Markets work,” Romney told moderators at a debate in November when asked what he would do to address the housing crisis.
According to former Wall Street economist Thomas Gallagher, addressing demand should be at the top of the list when it comes to speeding the recovery. Instead, Romney is focused on budget deficits and tax reform — the types of austerity measures that are pushing Europe toward another recession. Perhaps that’s why a survey of economics professors found that the Republican proposals were so bad, they wouldn’t pass an Econ 101 class.
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Monday, January 02, 2012

REPORT: The Republican Candidates’ Economic Agenda For The 1 Percent


By Josh Dorner/Think Progress

This Tuesday, Iowans will officially kick off the process to nominate the Republican candidate for president.  A close examination of all of the GOP candidates’ records and policy positions reveals that Mitt Romney is not the only candidate who “represents the one percent.” All of the Republican candidates share at least one thing in common: an economic agenda that will benefit the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans at the expense of the other 99 percent.
Each and every Republican candidate has called for trillions of dollars in new tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and corporations — all while calling for ending Medicare as we know it and dramatic cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, and countless other programs and services that Americans depend on each day.
All of the candidates would take us back to the Bush-era policies that increased income inequality, resulted in the worst job growth in decades, exploded the deficit and national debt, and ultimately crashed the economy.  Indeed, the policies proposed by the candidates would not only embrace this failed economic agenda, they would take it even further.

 

Sources

Supports new tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans
Supports new tax cuts for corporations
Supports ending Medicare as we know it
Supports cuts to Social Security
Supports repealing Wall Street Reform Law (Dodd-Frank)
Opposes “Buffett Rule” to make sure millionaires pay at least the same tax rate as middle class workers
Opposes ending tax breaks for Big Oil
Perry: Grover Norquist Americans for Tax Reform pledge signer. Perry’s plan would merely eliminate energy subsidies as they come up for expiration — over a period as long as 20 years.  Most of the billions of dollars in annual tax subsidies for oil and gas companies — unlike those for clean energy, energy efficiency, and cleaner vehicles — are written permanently into the tax code (including some that have persisted for nearly a century). Eliminating these provisions would fall outside the scope of the Perry plan, as they would require an affirmative action to repeal and would thus violate the Grover Norquist ATR pledge.
Opposes ending tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas
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Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Pawlenty’s Economic Plan Cuts Taxes For Millionaires By 41 Percent



2012 presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty (R) yesterday laid out his economic “plan,” which is based around huge tax cuts that Pawlenty claims will spark a decade of 5 percent GDP growth, even though growth staying at that rate for that long has literally never occurred in America. As Michael Linden noted, Pawlenty’s tax plan would cost $7.8 trillion over ten years, triple the size of the Bush tax cuts.
During his speech introducing the plan, Pawlenty excoriated President Obama as “a champion practitioner of class warfare.” “I come from a working class background. I didn’t grow up with wealth. But I’ve never resented those who have it,” Pawlenty said. But as a new analysis from Citizens for Tax Justice shows, in addition to being outrageously expensive, Pawlenty’s tax plan is based on the Republican brand of class warfare — giving millionaires huge tax breaks:
– Taxpayers with incomes in excess of $1 million would enjoy an average cut in personal income taxes of $288,822, a 41.4 percent cut.
– Taxpayers with incomes in excess of $10 million would enjoy an average cut in personal income taxes of $2.4 million, a 46.3 percent cut.
– The cost of the personal income tax cuts just for taxpayers with incomes in excess of $1 million would be $141.8 billion.
And that’s just for Pawlenty’s income tax plan. He has also proposed eliminating the capital gains and estate taxes entirely, two moves which would overwhelmingly benefit the very richest Americans.
Pawlenty likes to point to his middle-class background while giving his economic pitch, but his tax plan implies either a huge tax shift, requiring the middle-class to pay for his massive tax cuts for the wealthy, or sky-high deficits in perpetuity. As part of the plan he introduced yesterday, Pawlenty also endorsed a spending cap that would require deeper cuts than the radical House Republican budget, as well as a cockamamie “Google test” that, if taken literally, implies that Pawlenty would be okay with eliminating the Pentagon.
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