The Senator who stood on stage with President George W Bush before supporting a series of tax cuts, now says extending those very same tax cuts would be a “bad idea,” as The Hill reports.
A press conference by Baucus outlining his proposed tax hikes is scheduled for Thursday.
Even though there is little time left in the 111th Congress, Baucus has an ambitious agenda. He wants to reach bipartisan deals on the estate tax and a tax extender bill that has repeatedly fallen short in 2010.
On Thursday, Baucus will hold a hearing on tax reform that will examine the lessons learned from President Reagan’s 1986 tax reforms.
Meanwhile, as The Politico reports, a tax bill is still possible, but unlikely, before the next congressional recess.
“A three-year extension allows us to make a rational decision — when you get the economy back up on its feet — about deficit and tax policy,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told POLITICO. “Taxes and jobs go together, taxes and deficits go together. I think the compromise is the length. That’s where I would be willing to compromise.”
Yet, on this same point, Baucus takes quite the opposite approach, emphasizing permanency, not another incremental set of tax cuts like under the initial Bush bill.
The Baucus package, which would cost close to $2 trillion, or half of McConnell’s, would make the middle-class reductions permanent as well as estate tax relief. And he said he favors a flat rate of 20 percent for dividends to mirror that for capital gains.