Middle Class Tax Cut?

This is less than a ringing endorsement...

Obama’s Tax Cut is Actually a Spending Increase, Says Non-Partisan Group

The Tax Policy Center is hardly Non-Partisan and the scientific community is united in that fact.

It is a joint project of the liberal Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, established by LBJ.

The Tax Policy Center says Obama would increase government spending by an average of $64.8 billion a year and effectively raise income tax rates for many Americans.

The problem with Obama’s characterization that his proposals are tax cuts is that refundable credits are calculated as outlays, or direct spending, not as reductions in tax rates, according to the Center. This means that, in budgetary terms, some of Obama’s tax cuts are actually spending increases.

Most of the benefits of Obama’s plan would go to the bottom 40 percent of wage earners, a group that, according to the Congressional Budget Office and the Tax Policy Center, pays zero percent of the nation’s income taxes.

In fact, Obama’s refunds get smaller as tax burdens get larger, which means that while it is true that 95 percent of workers will receive some form of tax refund from Obama, they will not all receive a full refund...

When compared with current law, people earning $20,000-$50,000 a year will see their effective tax rates -- the amount of money the taxpayer actually ends up paying the government -- increase on average under Obama’s plan, according to Tax Policy Center figures.

Most households making $30,000-$75,000 will not see a reduction in their taxes under Obama’s plan relative to current law, according to the Center. In fact, the only strata that will see a majority of its effective tax burden reduced under Obama are those making less than $30,000 per year and those making $75,000-$200,000 per year.

The median household income in Iowa...$48,075.