WASHINGTON - Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI) issued the following statement today after Speaker Boehner threatened to again to take our economy to the brink and reiterated his support for a tax proposal that would dramatically cut taxes for the very wealthiest while raising taxes on middle- and lower-income Americans:
“Tax reform must not be a smokescreen for giving tax cuts to millionaires while increasing taxes for middle- and lower-income families. Yet that is the gist of the Speaker’s approach. What the Speaker loosely calls ‘underbrush’ includes tax policies relating to buying homes and paying for health care, education and pensions that benefit middle class families. Particularly glaring is that the Speaker and his party oppose ending what are clearly loopholes, such as subsidies for Big Oil, tax havens to shelter some from paying their fair share and preferred capital gains treatment for managing other people’s money.
“With respect to the debt limit, we saw the result of Republican brinksmanship on this issue last summer, and it is extremely disturbing that Republicans seem willing to do further damage to our economy and financial markets in order to appease the rigid ideology of some within their party."
BACKGROUND:
* The Republican tax plan would reduce the top tax rate for the highest earners from 35 percent to 25 percent, resulting in a tax cut of $265,000 - on top of the Bush tax cuts - for the average millionaire, according to the Tax Policy Center.
* In order to pay for such a proposal, Boehner reiterated today that Republicans would close deductions and credits (“remove the underbrush," as he put it). Two of the largest provisions that Republicans would almost certainly have to close are the mortgage interest deduction and the exclusion for employer-provided health care. Yet the benefits of those provisions flow overwhelmingly to middle- and lower-income families, according to a Joint Committee on Taxation distributional analysis that provides a breakdown - by income - of who benefits from various tax provisions.
* Employer provided health benefits and deduction for self-employed health
Below $100,000: 46%
$100,000-$200,000: 35%
$200,000 and above: 19%
* Mortgage interest deduction
Below $100,000: 31%
$100,000-$200,000: 39%
$200,000 and above: 30%
