WASHINGTON -- President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are crafting a plan to offer about $300 billion of tax cuts to individuals and businesses, a move aimed at attracting Republican support for an economic-stimulus package and prodding companies to create jobs.
The size of the proposed tax cuts -- which would account for about 40% of a stimulus package that could reach $775 billion over two years -- is greater than many on both sides of the aisle in Congress had anticipated. It may make it easier to win over Republicans who have stressed that any initiative should rely more heavily on tax cuts rather than spending.
President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are crafting a plan to offer as much as $310 billion of tax cuts.
The Obama tax-cut proposals, if enacted, could pack more punch in two years than either of President George W. Bush's tax cuts did in their first two years. Mr. Bush's 10-year, $1.35 trillion tax cut of 2001, considered the largest in history, contained $174 billion of cuts during its first two full years, according to Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation. The second-largest tax cut -- the 10-year, $350 billion package engineered by Mr. Bush in 2003 -- contained $231 billion in 2004 and 2005.
If I were Obama, I would take a raincheck on this presidency. He's gonna be like Sean Penn on a boat trying to save New Orleans.
But as long as we're doing the whole straw man thing: Remember when Republicans wanted social security privatized? Boy, that would have worked out just great.
I really don't know what's going to happen for the next election. I can see it going either way: American stupidity coming to the forefront, not realizing that it's going to take a bit to fix this shit, or people still believing in his promises and witnessing his great planning and execution, regardless of the inevitable lack of immediate results.