Real Tax Cuts Of Obama Stimulus For Low & Middle Incomes Worked--Now Gone!

[mascale]

So The Ivy League Liberal Democrats at least came up with a plan that could work. One third of the Obama Stimulus was Tax Cuts, and here they are:

For Individuals
Tax Cuts

Making Work Pay Credit Expanded Earned Income Credit To Offset Payroll Taxes - 6.2 percent of earned income of the taxpayer, $400 ($800 in the case of a joint return) Phased out at $95,000 of individual taxpayer, $190,000 of joint return ETA JUNE
Child tax credit, Income threshold reduced to $3,000, provides credit of 15% on all earnings, up to $1,000

American Opportunity Education Credits w/ $2,500 credit for first four years of higher education expenses (increase income limitations), with credit partially-refundable (30% refundable); adds course materials to tuitions and fees, increases credit to taxpayers with $80,000 income or households with $160,000
Opportunity.gov Education Assistance Programs
Sales Tax Deduction on new car purchases, phased out on $125,000 income per earner.
Raises Exemption on AMT to 70,950 for joint filers and $46,700 for singles, expands applicable credits.
Remove repayment requirement on $8,000 first-time home buyer credit for homes purchased after 2008 and before termination of credit (June 30, 2009)
Extends tax credits through 2010 to make energy-efficiency improvements to homes, equal to 30 percent (capped at $1,500) of the amount they paid for energy-efficient furnaces, hot water boilers and other energy savings improvements.
30 percent uncapped tax credit for solar water heating property, small wind energy property and geothermal heat pumps
Tax credit for newly unemployed to cover up to 65% of COBRA. Tenured Workers over 55 can maintain COBRA until they are eligible for Medicare.

For Business
Tax Cuts

Bonus depreciation for capital expenditures and debt cancellation
5-year carryback of net operating losses for companies earning less than $15 million
Extension of increased small business expensing, $250,000 deduction direct from tax liability
Defer taxes five years on debt cancellation
Expand work opportunity tax credit for disconnected youth and unemployed, recently-discharged veterans
Prospectively repeal Treasury Section 382 built-in loss ruling, that helped the Wells Fargo acquisition of Wachovia.
New Small Business Size Eligibilities

For State and Local Governments
Tax Cuts

Allow financial institutions to purchase State and local bonds and other changes
Coordination provisions with new grant program for low-income housing being designed by the Financial Services Committee
Repeal AMT limits on new private activity bonds
Taxable bond option for governmental bonds
Clean renewable energy bonds
One year deferral of withholding tax on government contractors
Provide tax exempt bonds and tax credit bonds to "recovery zones." These tax exempt bonds and tax credit bonds can be used for a wide array of purposes to stimulate economic development, including job training and education. A "recovery zone" would be an area within a State, city or county that has exhibited high unemployment, foreclosures or poverty. These bonds would be allocated automatically to States and large municipal governments based on the number of unemployed individuals within that area.

For Energy Incentives
Tax Cuts - $20 Billion

Provides $20 billion in tax incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency
Three-year extension of the production tax credit (PTC) for electricity derived from wind, biomass, geothermal, hydropower, landfill gas, waste-to-energy, and marine facilities
Grants of up to 30 percent of the cost of building certain new renewable energy facility
Expands tax credits through 2010 for purchases such as new furnaces, energy-efficient windows and doors, roofs, cooling equipment and insulation.
Provides a tax credit for individuals to purchase plug-in hybrid vehicles, alternative-fuel vehicles, diesel vehicles with advanced lean-burn technologies, and fuel-cell vehicles of up to $7,500
New manufacturing investment tax credit for investment in advanced energy facilities and other innovative next-generation green technologies.

Boehner and McConnell were opposed to all that from the start. The Party of Abraham Lincoln only takes things away that have anything to do with lower and middle income white people. That is on their permanent record, to cheapen the value of all of labor, especially of freed labor.

"Crow, James Crow: Shaken, Not Stirred"
(Many White Eyes not see tax incentive for more firewater of Tennessee Bourbon whiskey-makers--which is Intellectual Property, even in NAFTA! Hmmmm!)

 

[Epsilon Delta]

Yes, a third were tax cuts (which are now expiring) and another third pretty much went towards offsetting massive layoffs and cutbacks in state and local governments, leaving less than $300 billion of any actual stimulus spending, for an economy of more than a dozen trillion dollars, to counter the effects of an $8 trillion bubble. It was basically a non-starter, and it's no wonder it didn't work.

 

[Oddball]

Refundable tax credits, poorly veiled welfare payments and fudging the withholding tables aren't tax rate cuts.

Too bad there's no expiration date to the intellectual and semantic dishonesty of the Boiking's regime and their media cheering section.

 

[waltky]

Economy groundin' to a halt...

Slow-moving economy runs into 'brick wall'
6/3/2011 : Job growth grinds to halt as consumers, employers lose confidence

Policymakers, investors and economic forecasters are hoping that a sharp slowdown in economic growth last month was only a speed bump on an already bumpy road to recovery. Because otherwise the ride could get a whole lot rougher. Friday's jobs numbers showed that the economy produced a meager 54,000 new jobs in May with weakness across all sectors. The data capped a week of reports pointing to a sudden, unexpected slowdown in the recovery. "It is now pretty clear that the economy ran into a brick wall last month," said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics. Prior to this week most data had been pointing to a slow but steady increase in the economy's momentum. What took the wind out of the recovery's sails so suddenly, and will the doldrums last?

On top of the list is a surge in gasoline prices that has forced consumers to tighten spending on the rest of their household budget. Job growth in the retail, leisure and hospitality industries, which had been showing healthy advances, ground to a halt last month. Floods and deadly tornadoes shut down some businesses in the southern half of the nation last month and may have depressed the jobs count. Some analysts also pointed to a slowdown in U.S. manufacturing because of a shortage of parts as Japanese suppliers continue to rebuild after a devastating earthquake in March. The impact of those factors should dissipate in the summer and fall. Japanese suppliers are rebuilding faster than initial estimates suggested. In the past month, oil prices have fallen from a peak of $114 a barrel to under $100. Gasoline prices are beginning to ease off too; the average pump price is down 4 percent from a peak of $3.97 a gallon just two weeks ago.

Once those forces are no longer holding back growth, many analysts believe, the economy's underlying strength will restore momentum and get the recovery and job growth back on track. There are troubling signs, though, that the recovery faces more fundamental, long-term threats. That list begins with the failure of Congress to give the Treasury legal authority to borrow enough money to pay all the government's expenses. On Thursday, a second major credit rating agency warned Congress and the White House that if they don't agree on a way to raise the nation's borrowing limit, the U.S. government could lose its top debt rating. Such a downgrade would likely force up interest rates and raise borrowing costs, creating a headwind strong enough to increase the risk of another recession.

"We don't have a very positive outlook for job creation in the next few months," said William Dunkelberg, chief economist at the the National Federation of Independent Businesses, whose members this week reported in a monthly survey that they're cutting back on hiring plans. "The big issue for us is confidence. We don't have any confidence in the leadership that they're going to solve this problem." The solution itself could spell trouble. At roughly $1.5 trillion, the federal budget deficit represents about 10 percent of gross domestic product. Closing that deficit too quickly, with either deep spending cuts, tax increases or both, could send the economy back into recession. Spending cuts by cash-strapped state and local governments have already eliminated nearly 450,000 jobs since September 2008.

MORE

See also:

Why jobs no longer top Washington's agenda
6/3/2011 - With only 54,000 jobs added in May, political leaders still focused on deficit cutting

"Where are the jobs?" In Washington, it's a question that Republicans brandished like a sword during the first two years of Barack Obama's presidency and one that Democrats used when the GOP took control of the House of Representatives in January. For both parties heading into another campaign, the question remains the same, and the answers aren't any closer. While there are plenty of ideas about job creation, political realities make implementation unlikely. So a softening of the economy — reflected in Friday's dismal jobs data from the Department of Labor — doesn't mean Congress will pass a new stimulus program. Deficits and debt dominate the Washington agenda, not new ways to create jobs.

Only 54,000 jobs were added in May, and the unemployment rate, which had declined since last year, ticked up to 9.1 percent. It isn’t that Obama and congressional Republicans aren’t offering job creation proposals — they have been for months. And it isn’t that Obama hasn’t signed job creation legislation — he did last December. In an interview on CNBC Friday morning, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis emphasized the positive trend of the previous few months: "If you look back on the last four months, we've on average put (on) about 200,000 jobs each month.... And if you look at the past 15 months, it's well over 2.1 million private-sector jobs. We're on the right path. We knew all along we were going to have some bumps in the road."

During a visit to a Chrysler plant in Toledo, Ohio Friday Obama celebrated the revival of the American automobile industry and defended the bailout of Chrysler and General Motors which began in 2008. But he alluded to the lackluster employment data by saying, "I don't want to pretend like everything is solved. We've still got a long way to go, not just in this industry but in our economy: all our friends, all our neighbors who are still feeling the sting of recession. There's nobody here who doesn't know someone who's looking for work and hasn't found something yet."

Talking about the need for reliable jobs as anchors for cities such as Toledo, he cited the example of a woman working at the Chrysler plant whose mother, stepfather, uncle and husband also had worked or were working at the plant. "What would be life like here in Toledo if you didn't make these cars?" he asked. "Two years ago we came pretty close to finding out." It "would have been a brutal and irreversible shock" to the nation's economy to have allowed GM and Chrysler to be liquidated, he said.

More http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43259001/ns/politics/

 

[mascale]

In most of history, like in Matt 25:14-30, the rich get computed to be richer, and the poor don't have enough to begin with.

In the Refundable Income Tax, Schedule M, Credit: The upper middle ranges of the income scale were eligible for the credit, and the lower income ranges of the income scale were eligible for the credit.

The lower may have owed nothing, but got money back. The upper middle may have owed taxes, but owed less after the tax cut. That is a tax cut.

Since those lower incomes got a major relative boost in spending cash, then that would be said like a targeted tax cut stimulus.

Those were tax cuts: And the Splintered Minority, took that away. The Tsunami and the rest of the winter took May employement gains away. That was a gain, and was not a 700,000 person job loss: A gain of about 800,000--compared to what was happening only a few years ago.

"Crow, James Crow: Shaken, Not Stirred!"
(Abraham Lincoln took over $1.0 mil. away for Sanee Sioux: Owed them, in a time of soaring deficits. Then troops were sent in, and killed them.)