The Politico reports that DC’s well-heeled tax lobbyists are scrambling to figure out whose ox Charlie Rangel will gore when he introduces his massive tax bill in the next few weeks:
Rangel is surprised when people get nervous at the words ‘fairness’ and ‘equity,’ but it all depends on the context and the speaker. I get creeped out by the innocuous phrase ‘is it safe?’ And why shouldn’t affected groups be leery of Rangel’s proposal? He’s being cagey about where he’s going to get the money to achieve ‘fairness:’
People can be forgiven for losing track of exactly how big the federal government is; the figures for spending and taxing are high enough that it’s easy to forget the details. But according to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government took in $2.568 trillion in revenues in 2007. A tax bill of one trillion dollars represents a pretty big chunk of federal spending. Rangel faces another challenge on the tax issue. His bill is probably dead on arrival in the Senate, where Finance Committee chairman Baucus doesn’t want to take on the challenge of permanently fixing the AMT. Baucus is up for re-election in a solidly red state next year, and the last thing he wants to do is propose a big tax increase. But if the Senate won’t vote on the measure, and Republicans will cast it as the largest tax increase in American history (which it will be), then how many Democrats in tough districts will want to vote on it? After all, 47 House Democrats are currently defending districts that President Bush won twice. Are they likely to be eager to cast a vote for a huge tax increase? Like it or not, it seems that’s where they’re headed.
