“It’s time to let the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans – folks like myself – to expire.  The money we’re spending on these tax cuts for the wealthy is a major contributor to our deficit.”
~President Obama 

Letting the tax cuts expire for the rich is worth about $80 billion a year (source) … just remember that number when you hear about all the various programs that Republicans are trying to cut.  Republicans want to cut all of the following programs because we “can’t afford it”, but every single elected Republican has voted to extend tax cuts for the rich worth $80 billion a year and almost every single Republican has voted to cut the following programs in order to pay for it.

They ACTUALLY have voted to cut:

• Free lunch and assisted lunch programs for low income kids affecting over 22 million kids (source)
• Tax credits for low income families affecting 5.5 million kids (source)
• Child care assistance for over 4 million kids (source)
• Child abuse prevention and intervention for 640,000 kids (source)
• Foster care programs for over 450,000 kids (source)
• Cut $2 Billion a year out of Food Stamps for people making less than $18,500 a year for a family of three.  That could impact 1 million families or more who will not be able to feed their family. (source)
• Cut Medicaid by 40% or $81 Billion a year which primarily benefits children, the poor, disabled and elderly (source)
• Cut spending $46 Billion a year on Pell Grants for college students and other mandatory spending (source)
• Raise taxes on the bottom 50% of Americans who are not paying INCOME taxes currently (source)
• Block any increases for minimum wage laws (source)
• Increase spending on military spending to levels not seen since WW2 (source).
• Americans would not qualify for unemployment benefits unless they exhausted everything but $2,000 in their life savings (source)
• Cuts in funding for Headstart and other early childhood education programs (source)

31 Republicans in the Senate voted against the Violence Against Women Act because “it cost too much”.  You can read all about what’s in the bill HERE; apparently – those 31 Republican Senators who voted for the Bush tax cuts didn’t think we could afford $455 million a year to EXTEND existing law for rape crisis centers, domestic abuse services, legal assistance for victims of abuse etc.  THAT was too expensive.  Look at the vote HERE.

And to add insult to injury – they want to pass ADDITIONAL tax cuts for millionaires equal to $265,000 a year for a person making $1 million a year (source).  They don’t just want

And that’s just the stuff I can think up off the top of my head.

President Obama vows to veto a bill which provides an extension on “tax cuts” for the wealthiest Americans because “we can’t afford it”.  Coincidentally – those billionaires he is really targeting here … they’re spending hundreds of millions to make sure their taxes do not go up.  Watch him below:

Allowing the Bush tax cuts for anyone making $250,000 or more to expire would generate $829 billion in revenue between 2013 and 2022, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

As Gallup notes … Americans support increasing taxes on individuals making more than 250k a year and large corporations by eliminating loopholes. (source)

Paul Krugman explains the ACTUAL economic impact as opposed to what conservatives keep spouting off about HERE:

So, imagine a Romney supporter named John Q. Wheelerdealer, who works 3000 hours a year and makes $30 million. And let’s suppose that he really does contribute that much to the economy, that his marginal product per hour — the amount he adds to national income by working an extra hour — really is $10,000. This is, by the way, standard textbook microeconomics: in a perfectly competitive economy, factors of production are supposedly paid precisely their marginal product.

Now suppose that President Obama has reduced Mr. Wheelerdealer to despair; not only does the president waste money by doing things like feeding children, he says mean things about some rich people, which is just like the Nazis invading Poland, or something. So Wheelerdealer decides to go Galt. Well, actually just one-third Galt, reducing his working time to just 2000 hours a year so he can spend more time with his wife and mistress.

According to marginal productivity theory, this does in fact shrink the economy: Wheelerdealer adds $10,000 worth of production for every hour he works, so his semi-withdrawal reduces GDP by $10 million. Bad!

But what is the impact on the incomes of Americans other than Wheelerdealer? GDP is down by $10 million — but payments to Wheelerdealer are also down by $10 million. So the impact on the incomes of non-Wheelerdealer America is … zero. Enjoy your leisure, John!

Here is some of what President Obama said at his speech today:

We should all agree to extend the tax cuts for the middle class. Let’s agree to do what we agree on. Right? That’s what compromise is all about. Let’s not hold the vast majority of Americans and our entire economy hostage while we debate the merits of another tax cut for the wealthy. We can have that debate. But let’s not hold up working out the thing that we already agree on.

In many ways the fate of the tax cut for the wealthiest Americans will be decided by the outcome of the next election. My opponent will fight to keep them in place. I will fight to end them. That argument shouldn’t threaten you. It shouldn’t threaten the 98 percent of Americans who just want to know that their taxes won’t go up next year. Middle class families and small business owners — they deserve that guarantee. They deserve that certainty. It will be good for the economy, and it will be good for you.

Mitt Romney’s response courtesy of Greg Sargent:

Moments ago, Mitt Romney’s campaign rolled out its response:

“President Obama’s response to even more bad economic news is a massive tax increase. It just proves again that the President doesn’t have a clue how to get America working again and help the middle class. The President’s latest bad idea is to raise taxes on families, job creators, and small businesses. Almost half a million fewer Americans are working today than the day Barack Obama took office, and we’ve just come through the worst job creation quarter in two years. Unlike President Obama, Governor Romney understands that the last thing we need to do in this economy is raise taxes on anyone.”

And if you haven’t already read “Deconstructing the lies of conservatism” – you should.

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