Tax Cuts

Support, don't destroy, peace process The op-ed "Aim to promote human rights of the Palestinians" (Sunday) regarding the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel conference at the University of Pennsylvania, is typical of the attempts of the global BDS campaign to malign and delegitimize Israel. This conference will be a one-sided polemic against Israel. No mention will be made of the devastating abuses of the Syrian and Iranian regimes, much less the despotism of Hamas and Hezbollah - both dedicated to the elimination of Israel, a vibrant center of modernity in a sea of repression.

ON THE ISSUE of President Bush's motives for creating the Iraq war, I'm puzzled why no one in "government" has looked at this mammoth issue through the lens of the simultaneous tax cuts for the rich. If a war is truly just, then all are asked to sacrifice. The tax cuts and continuing efforts to make them "permanent" are proof that this whole production is a sham. Mitch Deighan Philadelphia

WASHINGTON - The Republican Party is catching flat-tax fever, setting up an election-year fight with Democrats over whether wealthier Americans should pay more taxes or get tax cuts. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney became the latest to punch the tax button Wednesday, telling a Virginia audience that he will soon update his economic proposal to spell out how to flatten the tax code. A day earlier, rival Rick Perry proposed an optional flat 20 percent tax on income.

IN HIS letter "The snake oil of tax cuts" (Nov. 29), municipal union chief Tom Cronin offers a skewed view of our city's fiscal condition, blaming pending layoffs on Philadelphia's desperately needed tax-reduction program. But spending for the city administration's pet projects - not tax cuts - is forcing the current municipal belt tightening. In recent years, the city exhausted a $300 million surplus with hundreds of millions of dollars of new spending for the Eagles stadium and Phillies ballpark, for blight removal programs, for police overtime, for the school takeover deal and for the increased costs of raises for the city's union workforce.

After decades of jacking up taxes in Philadelphia, this is no time to undo the important steps taken by former Mayors Edward G. Rendell and John F. Street in chipping away at the onerous wage and business taxes. But now that the economy is faltering, there is some talk at City Hall of halting the tax cuts. That's the worst message Mayor Nutter and City Council could send to workers, businesses and residents. Ending the meager wage- and business-tax cuts already on the books - as well as failing to push ahead with the business cuts proposed by the mayor - would signal that the city is headed in the wrong direction.

Please explain a rather mysterious idea in your editorial "Bush's good week" (March 1) that "Clinton's careful budgets. . .reduced the federal deficit created by Reagan's tax cuts. " The budget deficits of the Reagan years were not caused by tax cuts. As tax revenues went up - not down - after Reagan's tax cuts, the cuts couldn't have caused the deficits, could they? CAMERON KELLEY, Philadelphia SAT and minorities Daniel Saras (letter, Feb. 28) says the SATs should deny minorities spots that can go to more deserving students.

The White House, showing signs of indecision over how to stimulate the economy, backed away yesterday from recommending new tax cuts and raised the possibility that it may not propose an economic recovery plan. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater indicated that President Bush wanted to assess new economic data before deciding on a course of action, despite increasing calls on Capitol Hill from Republicans and Democrats for immediate steps to jump-start the nation's economy. The caution contrasts with White House statements earlier in the week suggesting that an economic recovery plan could be unveiled by week's end. The mixed signals reflect disagreement within the administration over economic policy, with some officials pushing for tax cuts and others contending that the economy is recovering from the recession on its own. Yesterday, Vice President Quayle predicted that economic statistics due out next week would show the economy getting better, and he urged Americans to go out and buy new automobiles and other goods.

Maybe it was a Freudian slip. Or maybe it was one of those few times when a politician says what he really thinks. Rep. Bill Richardson (D., N.M.), explaining his party's middle-class tax cut plan to the news media recently, lapsed into plain English: It's "a political document," he said. "Long-term economic policy is needed in this country," Richardson said. "But the fact that we have an election supersedes that. " It may be crass politics and bad economic policy.

In the United States, if you're wealthy or a land-rich farmer and you want your heirs to avoid paying taxes on your estate, plan to die in 2010 - not before, and certainly not after. That's the only year when you can avoid estate taxes entirely, according to the 2001 tax-cut law in a provision once derided by Sen. Rick Santorum (R., Pa.) as "pro-suicide. " It is a bit of legislative gimmickry designed to squeeze a big tax cut into a small budget box. Now, as Congress fashions a new 10-year tax-reduction plan, it's using the same kind of legerdemain.

Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is a gooey confection of seasonal sentiment. It also is an economic manifesto. It concerned a 19th-century debate that is pertinent to today's argument about immigration. Last week, a disagreement between two conservative think tanks erupted when the Heritage Foundation excoriated the immigration reform proposed by a bipartisan group of eight senators. Heritage's analysis argues that making 11 million illegal immigrants eligible, more than a decade from now, for welfare-state entitlements would have net costs of $6.3 trillion over the next 50 years.

WITH JUST one day until their self-imposed sequestration deadline kicks in, Washington lawmakers have resolved to hold their breath until they turn blue in the face. The sequestration agreement they locked themselves into a year ago is poised to start hacking an $85 billion hole in the federal budget. As their robo-knife threatens programs neither side wants to cut, the people we elected to handle our business in Washington declare themselves at an impasse. Depending on whom you believe, this is either Apocalypse Now or just another full-throated chorus from the little boy who cried wolf.

By Sharon Ward Gov. Corbett and his staff have crisscrossed the state over the past few weeks, previewing the state budget to be unveiled Tuesday. The change in style is welcome for a governor who has seemed reluctant to explain his priorities or defend his positions. Pennsylvanians also appear to be clamoring for a change in substance. A recent Quinnipiac poll shows that only 36 percent of Pennsylvanians approve of Gov. Corbett's job performance - while 46 percent disapprove. It's not a mystery that the governor's popularity tumbled after last year's budget debate: An on-time spending plan is not enough to compensate for a budget out of step with Pennsylvanians' priorities.

Connoisseurs of democratic decadence can savor a variety of contemporary dystopias. Because familiarity breeds banality, Greece has become a boring horror. Japan, however, in its second generation of stagnation, is fascinating. Once, Japan bestrode the world. Now the Japanese buy more diapers for adults than for infants. America has its lowest birthrate since at least 1920; family formation and workforce participation have declined in tandem. But it has an energy surplus, the government-produced overhang of housing inventory is shrinking, and the average age of Americans' cars is an astonishing 10.8 years.

Thanks to an ultraconservative congressional faction, many Americans now view the Republican Party as extremist, petty, and irresponsible. You need look no further than the ridiculous, drawn-out drama over the so-called fiscal cliff to see the GOP's inability to negotiate reality. But while its brand is damaged, the GOP has maintained its mystique as the party of fiscal restraint. Shortly before the election, a Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that, by a margin of 51 to 43 percent, Americans believed Mitt Romney would do a better job on the deficit than President Obama.

WASHINGTON - The bill was 153 pages long. It was written only the day before, by Washington insiders working in the dark of night. It was crammed with giveaways and legislative spare parts: tax breaks for wind farms and race tracks. A change to nuclear-weapons policy. Government payments for cheese. And most significant, the bill would raise taxes but do relatively little to cut government spending or the huge federal deficit. To a tea-party-influenced crop of House Republicans, the bill to resolve the fiscal cliff crisis was everything they had wanted to change about the way Washington worked.

WE COULD have sworn that, after campaigning on a pledge to make the richest Americans pay more taxes - and vowing to allow the Bush-era tax cuts to expire for incomes over $250,000 - Barack Obama won re-election by nearly 5 million votes and an Electoral College landslide. And yet a deal passed in the Senate at 2 a.m. yesterday looked quite different from what the majority of Americans support and thought they had voted for. If passed by the U.S. House of Representatives - and for a while yesterday, that was a rather big "if" - it would extend the tax cuts to incomes over $450,000 a year.

LEGISLATION to block the "fiscal cliff" is headed to the White House for President Obama's signature. The bill will avoid, for now, the major tax increases and government-spending cuts that had been scheduled to take effect with the new year. Final approval came in the House on New Year's night. The vote was 257- 167. The Senate passed the bill fewer than 24 hours earlier. The measure raises tax rates on incomes over $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for couples, a victory for Obama.

WASHINGTON - Americans are all but certain to face a broad hike in taxes on Tuesday for the first time in at least two decades, ending a prolonged period of declining taxation that has become a defining characteristic of the American economy. Regardless of whether President Obama and Congress reach an agreement to avoid the fiscal cliff, many Americans will see a higher tax bill because of the expiration of the payroll tax cut, which was enacted in 2011 as a temporary measure to boost economic growth.

AROUND dinnertime Sunday night, ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl reported on Twitter that he'd asked a source who is a Senate aide for an update on the last-minute talks to avert the so-called "fiscal cliff" of across-the-board tax hikes and deep spending cuts. What got emailed back was an iconic picture. It showed Wile E. Coyote - the Roadrunner's not-so-wily cartoon nemesis - skidding off a steep cliff. Indeed, the last day of 2012 may long be remembered as America's Wile E. Coyote moment - the day the nation's political system sprinted far out over the abyss of a dry desert canyon, pausing long enough to hold up a tiny sign reading "Help!"