Statement by Robert Greenstein, Executive Director, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, on Misleading Claims that Congressional Budget Plan Calls for 'Largest Tax Increase in History'

Some claim that the budget plan of the conferees -- which the House and Senate are scheduled to consider this week -- would constitute "the largest tax increase in history." This claim is inaccurate,

The President's tax cuts expire in 2010 because their supporters deliberately designed them that way, in order to fit the tax cuts within the cost constraints imposed by the budget resolutions that Congress adopted in 2001 and 2003. While acknowledging that their real goal was to make the tax cuts permanent, supporters of those measures opted to "sunset" the tax cuts before the end of the ten-year budget window, partly to avoid recognizing the cost of permanent tax cuts. Now, a few years from the tax cuts' expiration, some of these same supporters are acting as though the tax cuts are already permanent and that any proposal to offset any portion of the cost of extending them is a "tax increase."

To extend the tax cuts without paying for them -- and to attack those who simply seek to require that Congress at least partially pay for any extension of the tax cuts -- further heightens the irresponsible fiscal nature of the original actions.

This statement is posted to: http://www.cbpp.org/5-20-08bud-stmt.htm.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization and policy institute that conducts research and analysis on a range of government policies and programs. It is supported primarily by foundation grants.

CONTACT: Michelle Bazie of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, +1-202-408-1080, bazie@cbpp.org

/PRNewswire-USNewswire -- May 20/

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Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Web Site: http://www.cbpp.org/

2008-05-20 19:06:46 0367203 PRNEWSWIRE