Comment & Debate
Center for American Progress’ Pat Garfalo wrote, ‘Extending just the cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Americans will cost $830 billion over ten years.’ He quotes colleague Michael Linden, ‘to put that figure in perspective, $830 billion is enough to pay for all veterans’ hospitals, doctors, and the rest of the Veteran’s Affairs health system, plus the United States Coast Guard, plus the Food and Drug Administration, plus the operation and maintenance of every single national park for the entire 10-year period — with more than $100 billion left over.’[1]
Paul Krugman. “Now that’s rich.” New York Times. August 22, 2010: “What’s at stake here? According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, making all of the Bush tax cuts permanent, as opposed to following the Obama proposal, would cost the federal government $680 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. For the sake of comparison, it took months of hard negotiations to get Congressional approval for a mere $26 billion in desperately needed aid to state and local governments.”
Kent Conrad said in August of 2010, extending all of the Bush tax cuts permanently, as Republicans propose, “would be a disaster for the deficit, it would be a disaster for the debt, it would be a disaster for the economy.”[2]
Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Sunday’s Meet the Press that extending the Bush tax cuts without offsetting the costs elsewhere could end up being “disastrous” for the economy. “I’m very much in favor of tax cuts but not with borrowed money and the problem that we have gotten into in recent years is spending programs with borrowed money, tax cuts with borrowed money.”[3]