Tax Cuts

Thousands of Marylanders face being cut off from unemployment benefits next month — just in time for the holiday season — as Congress remains undecided on whether to extend the payments in one of the worst job markets in decades. An estimated 2 million people nationwide are slated to lose benefits, including 14,000 in Maryland. And more than 30,000 laid-off Maryland residents will exhaust their benefits early next year. The phase-out is happening because a federally funded program that gave residents payments beyond the normal 26 weeks lapses on Tuesday.

Your recent editorial on European elections states that "the real lesson to be drawn from the rise ofFrance's Francois Hollande and others is that many in Europe are fed up with austerity measures" ("Rejecting austerity," May 9). Contrary to that assertion, the real lesson to be drawn from the European debt crisis is that a country cannot afford to be so deeply in debt that its prospective creditors are in a position to demand onerous loan covenants that are politically untenable.

I support the Obama administration's proposal to extend Bush tax cuts except the ones applying to the top 2 percent of earners, who average $8 million per year in earnings. To extend millionaires' tax cuts would cost the treasury over $700 billion in the next decade, an increase in national debt that would be unacceptable. Eliminating the tax cuts on the nation's wealthiest would return their tax burden to what it was under President Clinton, the last president who gave us job growth and a balanced budget.

The City Council on Monday approved Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's property tax reduction plan, which relies on projected revenue from gambling. “I want to thank Council President Bernard 'Jack' Young and members of the City Council for giving relief to city homeowners,” Rawlings-Blake said in a statement. Banking on income from a future slots location, the plan would reduce Baltimore's property tax rate by 20 cents by 2020 for Baltimore homeowners. According to the mayor's office, the plan would give an owner-occupied home, valued at $200,000, an annual tax reduction of $40 next year.

I was not surprised in theory that Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, said recently that "a million dollars was not a lot of money" in a disucssion at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He was responding to President Obama's plan to let Bush tax cuts expire for families making over $250,000 a year. I am surprised, however, that Mr. Steele had the nerve to say this out loud. Given that so many people are out of work, how could he say "a million dollars is not a lot of money?"

In the approaching fight between President Obama and the Republican leadership in Congress over the Bush tax cuts due to expire, did House Minority Leader John Boehner just blink? Here's what Mr. Boehner said Sunday to CBS News moderator Bob Schieffer on "Face the Nation" of the tax cuts President Obama wants to preserve for Americans earning no more than $250,000 a year while ending them for the rich: "If the only option I have is to vote for those at 250 and below, of course I'm going to do that.

Jack Neu, in his letter of Aug. 11. "Credit downgrade reflects realism," is only the latest supply side apologist to unwittingly make the case for higher taxes on the wealthy. More than a few letter writers complain about "the 5 percent of taxpayers who already pay 59 percent of the taxes. " Putting aside the obvious problem that wealth in our country is concentrated at levels not seen since the robber baron era and those at the top pay a lesser share of taxes than the percentage they control, the middle class would love to be able to pay more taxes.

I hope I am not the only reader who can see through the proposals to extend tax cuts for the rich. The logical problem is that if tax cuts stimulate small businesses and hardy entrepreneurship, wouldn't we have seen it by now? Like during the year 2010 when there was no estate tax whatsoever? How many dot-coms did the Steinbrenner heirs start? If cutting taxes for the rich is the way to grow the economy, then there would be no recession. For the record I don't think there should be a tax cut for anybody.

I've had it with the crocodile tears shed by conservatives over Social Security being a Ponzi scheme. Social Security has never missed a payment to any entitled beneficiary since its inception. Their payments to beneficiaries represent no more future indebtedness than veterans' benefits, salaries and pensions for federal workers or congressmen, or funds to fix highways. The only time the government might have defaulted on these was last month when the same conservatives held the government hostage over the debt ceiling in order to maintain Bush era tax cuts for the rich.

I urge fellow Marylanders to contact their senators and representatives concerning the Bush tax cuts. Extending them for the middle class makes sense because those dollars will be spent immediately for the basics of life. However, extending them for the wealthiest Americans makes no sense, especially since this only adds to our national debt. During our economic crisis, the wealthiest Americans have increased their income more than enough to offset the loss of having their tax cut ended.

Starting in July, Baltimore homeowners can expect to see their tax bills get a little lighter. That's when Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's property tax reduction plan goes into effect, resulting in a 2-cent cut per $100 of assessed value next fiscal year. Under the measure, approved Monday by the City Council, taxes on an owner-occupied home valued at $200,000 will drop by $40 next year. The reduction is scheduled to grow to $400 by 2020, though the continued cuts are contingent on approval each year by the city's Board of Estimates.

Critics of the so-called "Buffett Rule," President Barack Obama's proposal to impose a minimum income tax on the wealthy, would like to have their gilded cake and eat it, too. On the one hand, they contend that the proposal would have a minimal impact on closing the deficit, and on the other, they claim that it would greatly discourage investment. Clearly, it can't be so small as to have a negligible effect on tax revenue while simultaneously so big as to have a ruinous impact on the economy.

If Republicans are getting ready to turn an election-year corner, settle on a presidential nominee and begin broadening their political message beyond the reality-challenged segments of the GOP base, Rep. Paul Ryan clearly didn't get the message. The $3.5 trillion spending plan the House budget chairman released Tuesday morning is a great deal like what Mr. Ryan and his tea-party-endorsed colleagues in the House offered last year - with a bit less detail in areas that got him and his party in so much trouble last year, like cuts in Medicare benefits for senior citizens.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's proposal to reduce the city's property tax rate for homeowners by 20 cents by the year 2020 was introduced Monday to the City Council. The proposal, which is dependent on revenue from the planned slots casino, would gradually lower property tax rates for owner-occupied homes over the next eight years. The city's property tax rate is more than double that of the surrounding counties. "In order for us to grow the city, we need to improve public safety, public schools as well as the property tax rates," Rawlings-Blake said Monday.

Banking on future income from slots, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake plans to formally introduce legislation at Monday's City Council hearing that would reduce Baltimore's property tax rate by 20 cents for homeowners by 2020. The plan rewards owner-occupied properties through a homeowner's tax credit program funded with projected revenue from future slots machines to be installed in Baltimore. In a news release about the proposal, the city characterized it as "responsible. " Property taxes were a hot issue during last year's mayoral campaign, when several challengers proposed alternative tax reduction plans.

Years ago, I remember thinking that former Gov. Parris Glendenning was wrong to cut taxes because the surplus wasn't really there to sustain our state into the future. Pay now or pay later, but it always costs more to play catch-up by paying later. It turns we should not have cut taxes after all. In the best-case scenario it only costs more money, while in the worst case bridges collapse, cars are damaged on poorly maintained roads and health care, education and environmental protection are all underfunded.

Finally, a sign that Congressional Republicans may have some flexibility after all. House Minority Leader John A. Boehner's recent disclosure that he'd be willing to vote for President Barack Obama's proposed tax break for families earning $250,000 or less demonstrates that a compromise over Bush-era tax policy is possible. It appears Mr. Boehner has recognized that outrage and extremism only gets you so far. The GOP's all-or-nothing approach to tax cuts — reminiscent of the party's oppose-at-all-costs philosophy toward the president's agenda generally — wasn't going to play well with working class Americans.

In your recent editorial ("Compromise possible on tax cuts", Sept. 13), you claim that "Democrats want to preserve the cuts for the middle class but oppose extending the tax break to the wealthy, and rightly so. What was a mistake in 2001 would be just as great a mistake today. " You fail to explain is why this is "rightly so" and why this would be a "mistake. " Is it because you believe the oft-repeated fallacy that tax cuts have to be "funded," or because you actually believe your own rhetoric about the GOP only caring about tax breaks for the rich?

While it's ill-advised to read too much into any weekly or monthly report on the nation's jobs outlook, the latest unemployment numbers are heartening, not merely because weekly applications for unemployment benefits fell to a four-year low but because that news follows an unmistakably positive trend. An increase in the rate of economic expansion - estimated at nearly 3 percent in the final three months of last year - has given rise to the improvement. But that's not exactly cause for celebration, as the U.S. unemployment rate remains relatively high at 8.3 percent as of last month (and that's not counting those who have given up looking for work)