For a second straight summer, Congress has been fighting about the proper way to manage the country’s finances. House Republicans continue to argue for extending tax cuts for the wealthy, which are set to expire at the end of the year. On Wednesday, the House passed a one-year extension of the George W. Bush tax cuts, costing $403 billion.

Throughout the last several years, Republicans have shown commitment to extending tax cuts for the wealthy. President Barack Obama has called for an extension of tax cuts for families making less than $250,000 or individuals making less than $200,000. Tax benefits for the middle and lower classes are not as important to Republicans. Their strategy will be hard to sell to the growing number of people who are not wealthy.

Approximately 16 percent of Americans live at or below the poverty line, which is an income of $23,000 a year for a family of four, according to an Associated Press survey. About 1 out of every 3 Americans lives with a household income of around $40,000.

In the summer of 2011, when Congress members were trying to decide whether or not to raise the nation’s borrowing limit, Republicans were adamant about cutting spending as a tradeoff. Plans to cut spending revolved around cutting programs that would have benefitted middle-class individuals. Instead, an across-the-board spending cut is in store for 2013, since a compromise could not be reached.

Yet, rather than end the Bush tax cuts, a move which would cut the nation’s debt, Obama and Congress settled on extending them. The Bush tax cuts were supposed to be a temporary measure, though Bush wanted to make them permanent. The payroll tax cut — a temporary tax cut for 122 million people — is still needed, but the Bush tax cut for the wealthy is not.

House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) thinks increasing taxes on the wealthy will stifle economic development. He said, “I am hopeful that with the passage of a bipartisan bill to stop the tax hike in the House and with unemployment still above 8 percent that President Obama will return to the position that he embraced less than two years ago and agree that now is not the time to be raising taxes on small businesses, job creators and the hardworking taxpayers of this country.”

However, the wealthy aren’t forced to spend money or create jobs — the poor are. To improve the economy, the poor and middle class should continue to receive tax cuts. The plan to help the supposed “job creators” has not been successful. The wealthy are still operating under reduced taxes, and our economic growth has not been demonstrably better. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and others characterize the end of Bush tax cuts as a “tax hike,” but it should be viewed instead as a return to a normal level of taxes.

Early this year, Republicans tried to offset the payroll tax with further spending cuts. The payroll tax cut is designed to help middle- and lower-class Americans by taking out less in taxes from each paycheck. Republicans did not want to offset the Bush tax cuts. This demonstrates favoritism toward the wealthy.

Some of those now arguing for a reduced tax burden on the wealthy have already proved their financial irresponsibility when they funded two wars but failed to raise taxes to cover the costs. Ryan is among House members who now want to directly offset the cost of lower-class tax cuts but, when funding costly wars, were unconcerned with paying for them directly.

In Ryan’s budget plan, he refuses to reduce defense spending. He and those who subscribe to his budget plan are not serious about reducing government spending. Nearly $1.4 trillion of our debt since 2001 is caused by defense spending, according to data from the Congressional Budget Office and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Before an agreement is reached on the Bush tax cuts, there will be more heated debate between Congress and the president. Hopefully, they see beyond the unproven theory that job creation is hurt by restoring the pre-Bush era tax rate.

Harmen Rockler is a senior newspaper journalism and political science major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at horockle@syr.edu.

Published on August 5, 2012 at 2:45 pm