Expert Blasts GOP's Economic Freedom Act

By Rob Sanna - Talk Radio News

Economic expert at Citizens for Tax Justice Steven Wamoff said Tuesday that the Republicans’ Economic Freedom Act, informally know as their jobs plan, would be extraordinarily expensive and only provide temprary relief to middle-class Americans. 

The plan permanently eliminates income taxes on capital gains, which provides a huge windfall to wealthy people who rely on return on their investment for income. It also erases the federal tax on property transferred after a person dies via a will.

Speaking at the Center for American Progress, Wamoff said the plan is “regressive” and that it cuts payroll taxes in half for one year, the only portion of the bill which would benefit the middle class and it is a short-lived provision.

Wamoff offered harsh criticism of the right-leaning legislation and said America would be “spinning its wheels if a bill like this were passed.”

He argued that the plan cuts 75% of corporate income taxes by allowing businesses to immediately write off purchases and reduces the regular corporate tax rate from 35% to 12.5%.

All of these changes in the tax code would cost about $7 trillion over 10 years, and Wamoff said if the Bush tax cuts are made permanent, the total cost would be closer to $10 trillion.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) described the plan as “more of the Bush policies warmed over.”

“Americans don’t want to go back [and] they don’t want to return to the failed policies of the Bush administration,” Hoyer said. “They want to go forward, and very frankly we think the progess we have been making, and which we need to build on, are what the American public are going to vote on in November.”