House Votes to Change Rules on Sequestration

[amanda choate]

For over two years, facing mounting deficits, members of both parties have limited the context of the discussion on how to deal with our debt and deficits. Unable to reach a compromise last summer, they enacted triggers,sequestration, that went after programs both sides held sacrosanct, to engender co-operation and soltutions. These triggers were designed to impact programs dearly held by both parties. Now the House has voted to change the rules. It doesn't want the triggers designed to effect the Pentagon to go into effect.

So will they reach a compromise with the Senate to erase the triggers that go against Democratic programs so to effectively end both triggers? These triggers were designed to create a solution, and if not pain to great to be endured. The House has started down a slippery slope where there will be an effort to compromise these triggers. wed must not allow them this option. Either find a solution or let the heavens fall.

There were sixteen representatives that voted to put deficit reduction ahead of party politics. They deserve tremendous credit. To wit:

The Republicans who did not support the measure were Reps. Justin Amash (Mich.), Roscoe Bartlett (Md.), Charlie Bass (N.H.), John Duncan (Tenn.), Michael Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Christopher Gibson (N.Y.), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Jaime Herrera Beutler (Wash.), Tim Johnson (Ill.), Walter Jones (N.C.), Raul Labrador (Idaho), Steven LaTourette (Ohio), Frank LoBiondo (N.J.), Todd Platts (Pa.), Ed Whitfield (Ky.), and Frank Wolf (Va.). Rep. James Sensenbrenner (Wis.) voted present.

If deficit reduction is really important, then call on Florida's congressional delegation and let them know we will burn the village in order to save it.

Federal Income Taxes Have Declined Significantly in Recent Decades

Federal income taxes on middle-income families have declined significantly in recent decades.  In 2000, the year before the 2001 tax cut enacted by President Bush and Congress, the median-income family of four paid 8.0 percent of its income in individual income taxes, according to Tax Policy Center estimates — a smaller share than in any year since 1967 (except for 1998 and 1999).[4]  

The Bush tax cuts further reduced middle-income tax obligations.  This year (i.e., when people pay income tax on 2011 income) the Tax Policy Center estimates that the median-income family of four will pay 5.6 percent of its income in federal income taxes.

The 5.6 percent rate (as well as the other rates discussed here for both 2011 and other years) is the effective tax rate, or the percentage of its income that a family pays in taxes.  It is well below the 15 percent marginal tax rate — the rate paid on a filer’s next dollar of income — that a family of four in the exact middle of the income spectrum faces.  A family’s effective tax rate typically is significantly lower than its marginal tax rate, because the family takes the standard deduction (or, in some cases, itemized deductions), personal exemptions, and tax credits such as the child tax credit, and because a portion of the family’s taxable income is taxed at lower rates.  (For the median-income family, some of its income is not taxed, some is taxed at a 10 percent rate, and some is taxed at a 15 percent rate.) 

It is not criminal to consider a tax hike that we pay to pay off debt so that our children will not be force to pay it off later.