New Poll Shows More Favor Letting Tax Cuts For Top Earners Expire

A new Gallup poll out today reveals that more Americans would support allowing tax cuts for the nation’s most wealthy individuals to expire at the end of the year.

44% of those surveyed said the tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration should be renewed next year for people making less than $250,000 per year, but not for those making more than that. Comparatively, 37% said they would vote to keep the tax cuts in place for all taxpayers. 15% said they would allow all the tax cuts to expire.

The debate in Washington this fall promises to center around the issue of what to do about the tax cuts. President Barack Obama has made it clear that he supports raising taxes on the top two percent of Americans, while keeping in place tax cuts for all other income earners. The Obama administration believes that doing so would generate $700 billion in revenue.

Republicans, however, have unitedly called for extending the cuts for all. According to House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), “this would help ease the uncertainty employers and entrepreneurs are facing so they can get back to creating jobs.”

The Gallup poll indicates that views on what to do about the tax cuts fall generally along partisan lines. Among those who said they would vote to extend the complete package of cuts, 54% identified themselves as Republican, compared to just 18% who said they were Democrats. Meanwhile, 60% of Democrats that were surveyed said they favored eliminating the cuts for the wealthy. 32% of Republicans who responded agreed.

Congress will likely take up the issue when it returns to session next week, but immediate action is not expected. The struggle over what to do could take weeks, especially with most lawmakers looking ahead to the November elections. Though the president will continue to call for swift legislation, the White House seems to be acknowledging the ideological battle that will surely occur on Capitol Hill. Just this week, recently resigned OMB Director Peter Orszag urged lawmakers to extend the entire package of cuts.

“[T]he best approach is a compromise: extend the tax cuts for two years and then end them altogether,” he wrote in an editorial featured in the New York Times. “Ideally only the middle-class tax cuts would be continued for now. Getting a deal in Congress, though, may require keeping the high-income tax cuts, too. And that would still be worth it.”

OMB Director Remains Cautious Of Fragile Economy

By Rob Sanna- Talk Radio News

Peter Orszag made his last public address as Director of the Office of Management and Budget Wednesday and lauded policies that have helped the economy begin to recover. However, he believes that the economy is far from fixed.

“We are back from the brink, but not out of the woods,” Orszag said. “The most pressing danger we now face is unacceptably weak growth and persistent unemployment, rather than outright economic collapse, more needs to be done.”

According to Orszag, the deficit is predicted to drop from of 9.2% of GDP to 5% GDP by 2015, which is the fastest deficit reduction since the end of World War II.

Orszag touted the Health Care Act and said it will drive down health care costs which will help the status of a the country’s struggling economy. In addition to lowering health care costs, the OMB Director says government spending is being reduced through cutting outdated or inefficient programs.

Orszag said that critiques against a rising defit are ill informed. Orszag argued that radically reducing the deficit would hinder the progress of an already weakened economy and job market.

“It would be foolish to dramatically reduce the deficit immediately because that would choke off the economic recovery before it had a chance to develop adequately, but it would be equally foolish not to reduce the deficit significantly by 2015, because it would seriously imperil economic growth at that point”

Obama announces Office of Management and Budget nominees

President elect Obama announced his nominees for the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and discussed a plan to cut wasteful government spending.

Peter Orzag, director of the Congressional Budget office, will serve as the new OMB director and Robert Nabors, 13th Clerk and Staff Director of the House Appropriations Committee, will serve as OMB deputy director.

Following the President-elect's statement yesterday that his economic team would craft a stimulus package aimed at creating jobs and rebuilding the national infrastructure, Obama announced that in order to pursue these investments, the U.S. will need to cut wasteful spending.

"When we are facing both rising deficits and a sinking economy, budget reform is not an option. It is an imperative. We cannot sustain a system that bleeds billions of taxpayer dollars on programs that have outlived their usefulness, or exist solely because of the power of a politician, lobbyist, or interest group. We simply cannot afford it," said Obama during a press conference held at the Chicago Hilton Hotel.

"This isn’t about big government or small government. It’s about building a smarter government that focuses on what works. "

The President-elect also said that the responsibility for shaping a more effective budget will fall with the OMB, and that Orzag's prior experience is ideal for this task.

"Peter doesn’t need a map to tell him where the bodies are buried in the federal budget. He knows what works and what doesn’t, what is worthy of our precious tax dollars and what is not," said Obama.