Government Hands More Than $1 Trillion to Wealthy While Deficit Is $642 Billion

Dave Johnson, Campaign for America's Future: 

While our government is laying off hundreds of thousands and cutting services in the name of cutting deficits, a new report exposes that taxpayers are handing more than $1 trillion a year to the wealthiest.

(Image: Troy Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: Alex E. Proimos, ianmunroe, calebkimbrough)

DC Focused On Deficits Not Jobs

Instead of focusing on jobs, Congress and the White House obsess on how to cut the budget -– the things We the People do to make our lives and economy better. While the “sequester” has already cost 900,000 jobs — 1.6 million thru 2014 — Republicans are threatening to shut down the government and force the country to default on its debt as leverage to force even morecuts.

Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner has repeatedly said the country is “broke.” For example, “We’re broke, broke going on bankrupt,” Boehner said Feb. 28, 2011. Here he is saying it on Dec. 11, 2012, “Let’s be honest. We’re broke.”

So we have to cut and cut and cut, even though the cuts are costing millions of jobs and damaging the economy and the prospects for our country and peoples’ future, because supposedly “we’re broke.”

New Report: More Than $1 Trillion Per Years Handed To Wealthiest

But a report out today from the National Priorities Project (NPP) shows that the country is handing more than $1 trillion to the already-wealthy.

That’s right, the government is cutting services and laying off hundreds upon hundreds of thousands in the name of cutting deficits, while handing more than $1 trillion a year to the wealthiest. The rest of us pay taxes and suffer cuts in jobs and services to make up this lost money.

According to the report, lots of 1%ers will pay no taxes at all this year, while the country cuts jobs and services in the name of cutting the deficit.

“Ten major tax breaks that together total more than $750 billion in tax savings in 2013 are tilted heavily in favor of the top income earners; according to the Congressional Budget Office, 17% of the benefits from these major tax breaks go to the top 1% of households. In fact, according to the Tax Policy Center, nearly 1.2 million taxpayers in the top 1% will owe no income tax at all in 2013, thanks in large part to tax breaks that help them reduce their tax liability down to zero.”

Two of the key findings in the report tell the story:

• Corporate tax breaks will total $108 billion in FY2013 – more than 1.5 times what the U.S. government spends on education funding. Between 2007 and 2013, the revenue lost from U.S. corporations deferring taxes on income earned abroad rose 200%, going from $14 billion to $42 billion.
• All tax breaks for individuals will exceed $1 trillion this year, with about 17% of the biggest individual tax breaks going to the top 1% of earners. In fact, many individual tax breaks disproportionately benefit wealthy households.

The country’s budget shortfall is not from “entitlements” (things We the People are entitled to as citizens in a prosperous democracy) and “government spending” (the things We the People do to make our lives and economy better). The deficit is down to $640 billion while $1 trillion in tax breaks goes to the 1%. (Actually mostly the 1% of the 1%.)

Click through to read the entire NPP report, and here for a visualization of the impact.

Deficit Talk Is A Rigged Discussion...

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