The U.S. House is due to take up a new $190 billion spending bill this week, and they had to put seven words in the title to avoid using the S-word. Instead of another stimulus, we are getting the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act. Because, you know, tax loopholes are the reason the economy is stuck in neutral.

Keith Hennessey has a better name for it: The Hypocrisy Act of 2010, because it violates the ruling Democrats’ ballyhooed pay-as-you-go rules by adding $134 billion to the deficit. How do they justify this violation? House Ways and Means Chairman Sander Levin (D., Mich.) says the deficit spending comes from “emergency provisions.”

So, it’s been 15 months since the passage of the big stimulus bill, which has since been increased by $75 billion to a total of $862 billion and which, to hear Democrats tell it, has been a great big success. Yet, we’re still talking about “emergency” deficit spending in a single bill that nearly equals the entire federal deficit for 2007. With that kind of success, it’s no wonder they didn’t want to call this one another “stimulus.”

What’s in this bill? Aside from about $55 billion in unemployment benefit extensions, the bill includes:

• $65 billion in Medicare physician payments — the so-called “doc fix” that Democrats left out of ObamaCare so that it could be officially scored as a deficit-reducing act rather than a deficit-ballooning one;
• $24 billion in Medicaid funding for states so that they can keep up with the unfunded mandates they already faced, much less the additional ones that will flow from ObamaCare;
• $1 billion for summer jobs for 16- to 24-year-olds, which effectively is an admission from the feds that the market couldn’t support the minimum wage increases forced upon employers starting in 2007 (the unemployment rate for this age group has hit 25 percent);
• corporate subsidies for recipients including, according to The Wall Street Journal, “municipal bond traders, cotton farmers, yarn producers, sheep growers, Hawaiian sugar cane cooperatives, motor sports businesses, renewable energy firms, the steel lobby, and so on.”

When people ask how I can blame President Obama and the Democrats for the deficit, this is what I’m talking about. You don’t stop digging by continuing to dig.

May 20, 2010

H.R. 4213 American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act

The "American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act" makes significant investments in American jobs and cuts taxes to help the nation continue along the path of economic recovery and job growth. The economy has added 573,000 jobs since December-this bill includes provisions to continue that growth.

The American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act includes provisions to:

• Promote American job creation
• Provide relief for working families
• Prevent the outsourcing of American jobs
• Close tax loopholes
• Ensure corporate accountability
• Maintain access to affordable health care

Click here for the legislative text of H.R. 4213

Click here for a summary of H.R. 4213

Click here to view JCT's Estimated Revenue Effects

Click here for the White House's Statement of Administration Policy (SAP)

Click here for information on H.R. 4213 the Tax Extenders Act of 2009 that passed the House on December 8, 2009.

Promoting American Job Creation

Summary of Infrastructure, Business Tax Relief, and Pension Funding Relief Provisions

Build America Bonds

Relief for Working Families

Disaster Response

Summary

Energy Independence

Summary

Closing Tax Loopholes

Summary

What People are Saying about Carried Interest and Tax Equity