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You are here: Home / Archives for Budget & Taxes

Biden to Call on Congress to Suspend Gas Tax

June 22, 2022 at 6:14 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“President Biden on Wednesday will call on Congress to suspend the federal gas and diesel taxes for the next three months, the latest effort by the White House to provide relief to Americans struggling with record-high gasoline prices,” The Hill reports.

Wall Street Journal: “A suspension of the 18.4 cents a gallon federal gasoline tax would require congressional approval, so a move by Mr. Biden to throw his support behind the effort would be largely symbolic. Lawmakers of both parties have expressed resistance to suspending the tax, a move that would likely need bipartisan support to become law.“

New York Times: “Even if all of the benefits were passed on to consumers, the owner of a Ford-150 that gets 20 miles to the gallon driving a thousand miles per month would save about $9 if the federal gas tax were suspended — the cost, these days, of a decent ham sandwich.”

Jason Furman: “Whatever you thought of the merits of a gas tax holiday in February it is a worse idea now. Refineries are even more constrained now so supply is nearly fully inelastic. Most of the 18.4 cent reduction would be pocketed by industry–with maybe a few cents passed on to consumers.”

Filed Under: Budget & Taxes, Energy

How a GOP Megadonor Avoids Paying Taxes

June 21, 2022 at 5:17 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Billionaire Jeff Yass, who is one of the largest megadonors to right-wing causes, has managed to avoid at least $1 billion in taxes via “trading strategies that reduce his tax burden but push legal boundaries,” ProPublica reports.

Filed Under: Budget & Taxes

Any Deal with Joe Manchin Could Stall in the House

June 20, 2022 at 7:16 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“There’s lots of buzz about a possible reconciliation deal between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV). Discussions are ongoing, although there’s no deal yet, and there won’t be one this week,” Punchbowl News reports.

“What’s in a potential Democratic reconciliation package – and when it could come together – are enormously important. And of course, none of this is decided yet.”

“Yet we want to note this as well – we’re not entirely sure the reconciliation package being discussed on the Senate side could pass the House. Provided it gets through the Senate in the first place.”

Filed Under: Budget & Taxes

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New Covid Funding Deal Appears Dead

June 17, 2022 at 6:48 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“A congressional deal for billions of dollars in additional coronavirus funding appeared all but dead Thursday after Senate Republicans accused the White House of being dishonest about the nation’s pandemic funding needs,” the Washington Post reports.

“Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), who brought the Senate close to a bipartisan $10 billion covid funding deal in March, said the Biden administration had provided ‘patently false’ information about its inability to buy additional vaccines, treatments and supplies.”

Filed Under: Budget & Taxes

U.S. Won’t Hit Debt Limit Until Next Summer

June 14, 2022 at 2:26 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The United States isn’t at risk of breaching its more than $31 trillion debt limit until at least the third quarter of next year,” Politico reports.

“That deadline is expected to be a major stress point in the 118th Congress, likely shaping other fiscal negotiations, with more Republican sway following the November midterm elections.”

Filed Under: Budget & Taxes

Federal Tax Receipts Boom

May 25, 2022 at 3:32 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Politico: “The Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday it now expects federal revenue this year to jump by a whopping $800 billion — equivalent to the Pentagon’s annual budget.”

“That translates to a 19 percent increase, the biggest one-year hike in more than 40 years, and it comes on top of an 18 percent increase last year.”

“Total receipts will amount this year to 19.6 percent of the nation’s economy, CBO says, which would be the most since 2000 when the Treasury Department was swimming in cash thrown off by the dot-com bubble.”

Filed Under: Budget & Taxes

Oregonians Could Get Record Tax Kicker

May 24, 2022 at 11:56 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Oregon taxpayers are on track to receive a record $3 billion, personal tax kicker, in 2024 powered by “unprecedented” income tax returns, the Salem Statesman Journal reports.

Filed Under: Budget & Taxes

Democrats Will Miss Date for Deal with Manchin

May 24, 2022 at 6:20 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Democrats are set to blow through the soft Memorial Day deadline for reaching a deal with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) on a slimmed-down budget reconciliation bill to raise taxes, fight climate change and lower the cost of prescription drugs,” The Hill reports.

“Senate Democratic sources say there’s no chance of getting a deal this week but they argue that doesn’t necessarily mean the negotiations over a long-awaited budget reconciliation package are doomed.”

Filed Under: Budget & Taxes, Senate

States Turn to Tax Cuts as Inflation Stays Hot

May 10, 2022 at 6:46 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

New York Times: “A combination of flush state budget coffers and rapid inflation has lawmakers across the country looking for ways to ease the pain of rising prices, with nearly three dozen states enacting or considering some form of tax relief, according to the Tax Foundation, a right-leaning think tank.”

“The efforts are blurring typical party lines when it comes to tax policy. In many cases, Democrats are joining Republicans in supporting permanently lower taxes or temporary cuts, including for high earners.”

“But while the policies are aimed at helping Americans weather the fastest pace of inflation in 40 years, economists warn that, paradoxically, cutting taxes could exacerbate the very problem lawmakers are trying to address. By putting more money in people’s pockets, policymakers risk further stimulating already rampant consumer demand, pushing prices higher nationally.”

Filed Under: Budget & Taxes

Biden Touts Deficit Reduction

May 4, 2022 at 12:32 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“President Joe Biden on Wednesday said that the federal government will pay down the national debt this quarter for the first time in six years,” ABC News reports.

“His remarks on economic growth came ahead of the Federal Reserve announcing a hike in interest rates Wednesday afternoon in an attempt to manage soaring inflation.”

Said Biden: “Bringing down the deficit is one way to ease inflationary pressures in an economy, where a consequence of a war and gas prices and oil, food, and it all – it’s just a different world right this moment because of Ukraine and Russia.”

Filed Under: Budget & Taxes

Spending Money Is Not Popular If No One Notices

April 21, 2022 at 10:19 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

New York Times: “Unlike the New Deal, however, this $1.9 trillion federal investment in American communities has barely registered with voters. Rather than a trophy for Mr. Biden and his party, the program has become a case study in how easily voters can overlook even a lavishly funded government initiative delivering benefits close to home.”

Filed Under: Budget & Taxes

If You’re Getting a W-2, You’re a Sucker

April 18, 2022 at 7:40 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

ProPublica: “There are many differences between the rich and the rest of us, but one of the most consequential for your taxes is whether most of your income comes from wages.”

Filed Under: Budget & Taxes

America’s Highest Earners and Their Taxes Revealed

April 13, 2022 at 8:18 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

ProPublica reveals, for the first time ever, who makes the most income in America —and what taxes they pay.

To make it into the top 400, you needed to earn $110 million per year on average. A typical American making $40,000 would have to work for 2,750 years to make what the lowest-earning person in this group made in one.

Filed Under: Budget & Taxes

IRS Struggles to Rebuild

April 4, 2022 at 12:30 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Washington Post: “The IRS’s unprecedented backlog last winter of 24 million returns and taxpayer correspondence for the 2020 tax year was propelled by colliding crises: the pandemic decimated its workforce atop years of budget cuts and attrition, new stimulus measures added to the workload, and the agency remained crippled by the way it does business, processing the millions of returns it still receives on paper each filing season with red pen edits, manual data entry and clunky computer software that dates to the 1960s.”

“With technology upgrades on hold for now, the men and women gathered here off Interstate 15 represented one agency’s effort to reboot after a public health crisis that has left major functions of the federal government in disarray, with uncertainty about when it will return to a pre-pandemic normal.”

Filed Under: Budget & Taxes

Lawmakers Rush to Steer Money Home

April 1, 2022 at 1:23 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

New York Times: “Overall, Democrats brought home considerably more money for their states than Republicans, some of whom boycotted the process. Democrats secured more than $5 billion for their states, compared with less than $3.4 billion for Republicans. Just over $600 million of earmarks were bipartisan, secured by lawmakers in both parties.”

“The states that received the most money — California, Alabama, New York, South Carolina and Missouri — were either large and well-populated or had influential senators in leadership or on the committee that oversees spending.”

Filed Under: Budget & Taxes

Contrary to GOP Claims, Everyone Pays Taxes

April 1, 2022 at 11:59 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Josh Barro: “People will point at the burden of one specific tax — like Sen. Rick Scott complaining about the large fraction of Americans who don’t pay federal personal income tax — and use that observation to make a claim about how fair the whole tax system is.”

“Federal personal income tax only makes up about 30% of all the taxes collected by federal, state and local governments in the US. So, if you want to assess whether the overall system tax system is fair, you have to place that tax in context with all the other taxes that provide the remaining 70% of the tax revenue.”

“People in the bottom income quintile (that is, with household incomes less than $26,000) pay about 15% of their income in taxes, mostly to state and local governments. The largest chunk of that tax burden comes from sales taxes. People in the top 1% pay closer to 36% of their incomes in tax, with by far the largest component being federal personal income tax.”

Filed Under: Budget & Taxes

States Awash in Federal Funds as Biden Seeks Covid Aid

April 1, 2022 at 7:48 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

New York Times: “Therein lies a Washington controversy. The funds, which Congress approved at a moment when the pandemic was still raging, are allowed to be used for far broader purposes than combating the virus, including water projects like those in Kentucky. Most states will get another round of “‘fiscal recovery funds’ — part of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan — next month.”

“But in Washington, Mr. Biden is out of money to pay for the most basic means of protecting people during the pandemic — medications, vaccines, testing and reimbursement for care. Republicans have refused to sign off on new spending, citing the state recovery funds as an example of money that could be repurposed for urgent national priorities.”

Associated Press: Bipartisan deal near on trimmed $10 billion Covid bill.

Filed Under: Budget & Taxes, Health Care

Manchin Shoots Down Biden’s Billionaire Tax

March 30, 2022 at 11:21 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) “shot down President Biden’s new plan to raise $360 billion in revenue by imposing a 20 percent minimum tax on billionaires,” The Hill reports.

Manchin said he doesn’t support taxing unrealized gains: “You can’t tax something that’s not earned. Earned income is what we’re based on.”

But he added: “There’s other ways to do it. Everybody has to pay their fair share.”

Filed Under: Budget & Taxes

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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