House Republicans still trying to cut taxes for the rich, Obama still trying to help others

Once again, the House is gearing up for a vote to repeal the estate tax, a little ritual Republicans have routinely embraced since the turn of the millennium. So much for fresh ideas. They may not have gotten the memo but tax cuts for the rich aren't broadly popular and they haven't proven to do anything to help the economy, which is basically what the White House said in response. Bernie Becker has the details:

Jason Furman, the chairman of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, cast the estate tax repeal as a giveaway to the richest of the rich - helping just 5,400 families out of the millions in the U.S. 

"That's not even a tax cut for employers," Furman said on a conference call with reporters. "That's a tax cut on the wealth of some of the very wealthiest people in the country."

So wealthy, in fact, that it affects families whose fortunes are around $11 million, not to mention the fact that it would hit the federal government with a $270 billion loss over the course of a decade. According to the White House, that tax break would affect only about 970 families while President Obama's suggested tax break for two-earner households would help more than two million families.
The president has also floated new credits for child care, overhauling education incentives and expanding preferences like the Earned Income Tax Credit - all to be paid for by raising the tax rate on capital gains and other tax hikes aimed at the wealthy.
Furman and Munoz maintained Monday that those proposals would augment the tax changes that Obama has already implemented - including raising the tax rates on the country's highest earners - that they said had helped boost the current economic recovery.

"I don't think the vast majority of economists would tell you that eliminating the estate tax is the way to raise wages for middle class families," Furman said.

Nor would the middle-class families tell you that.

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