Stop the Wyden-Smith Tax Bill

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon
OregonWatchdog.com

Republican U.S. Representative Jason Smith and U.S. Senator Ron Wyden have crafted the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024.  A Wall Street Journal article notes (headline above) that the bill starts with something that both parties want — a simple extension of business tax breaks set to expire in 2025 from the original 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.   This tax extension should easily pass on its own.

Instead, liberals  are trying to add to the deal a way to pay people for not working by expanding the child tax credit to people who are not working or paying taxes.

This could cost $650 billion over 10 years according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Paying people more to not work is estimated to draw away 700,000 more people out of the workforce according to an American Enterprise Institute report.

The labor shortage has been in a crisis level and still wreaks havoc today.   You can see the signs of the labor shortage everywhere.

To pay for the estimated $650 billion price tag, the bill plans to cut-off and curb the troubled employee retention credit program which has caused rampant abuse.   People having been drawing tens of billions in Covid emergency funds years after the pandemic ended.    Ending a limited one-time government program to fund for more permanent government program is a budget gimmick.

Look at the debt chart below and ask yourself whether this is the time to start adding $650 billion in debt over 10 years to our historic high deficits.

Expanding child care tax credits are best when they ate focused efforts to help where they are needed the most and to help out in crisis situations such as foster parents or families struggling with disabled children expenses.   Expanding broad based benefits for people not working causes people to stop working and we just LIVED THROUGH THIS FAILED EXPERIMENT during Covid where government paid people more to not work than to work.    Asking taxpayers to pay an additional $650 billion in taxes in order to pay nearly one million citizens to stop working is a costly dysfunctional path in the wrong direction of progress.

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