PDD Welcomes Senator Chris Coons Tonight
One of the issues we will be discussing with Senator Coons tonight is the American Jobs Act, the DADT repeal and the prospect for the repeal of DOMA in the future, and his opinions on the budget and the horribly named Super Congress. If you can’t make it tonight, what questions do you have. If you can make it, please join us at the special meeting of the Progressive Democrats for Delaware at 6:30 p.m. at the Delaware Democratic Party Headquarters, located at 19 E. Commons Blvd, in New Castle. PDD meetings are open to all like-minded voters.
I probably won’t make it, so I wanted to post my questions here for discussion. Maybe somebody else can ask them.
I support Senator Coons in general, but there are too many unanswered questions about economic policy, so I’m not really sure what I can support at this point.
Most of all I’d like Senator Coons to know that, if it is necessary to oppose the President in order to vote for a sensible economic policy, he will have my support in that, and I hope many others feel the same way.
1. Do you still support the scheduled expiration of the Bush tax cuts that you voted to temporarily extend last December?
2. If so then what strategy can you suggest to make sure the expiration happens on schedule and is not voided by some “tax reform” plan that further extends and deepens the tax cuts for the wealthy?
3. Are you willing to let all the Bush tax cuts expire, including the middle-class cuts, if that is necessary to make sure the tax cuts for the wealthy expire?
4. Are you willing to let the tax cut on dividends expire to their Clinton-era rate of 39% (taxed as regular income?)
5. Are you willing to stay the course on tax cut expiration even if Republicans “take hostages?”
6. Are you willing to stay the course on tax cut expiration even if that means opposing the President’s position?
7. You have stated that your ideal tax reform is represented by the Bowles Simpson plan, which insists on a top marginal rate of no more than 29% and possibly as low as 23%, with the tax cuts paid for by savings from closing loopholes. Is there a plan scored by CBO or some other party that actually validates these numbers?
8. Which loopholes do you expect to provide the bulk of the savings? Does this plan require closing loopholes benefiting the middle class, like mortgage interest or educational deductions?
9. Regardless of savings from loopholes, do you believe a top rate of 23-29% provides enough “tax avoidance” incentive to promote investment in hiring and business infrastructure? Or will it simply continue our current tax environment that promotes short-term profit-seeking driven by layoffs and cost-cutting?
10. The Bowles Simpson plan taxes both capital gains and dividends as regular income (no more than 29%). By treating short-term and long-term earnings the same, this plan would permanently eliminate the traditional preferential tax treatment of long-term holdings, and remove the incentive to hire and re-invest earnings. Can you confirm this is really what you support?
11. How can the payroll tax cuts be prevented from undermining Social Security and creating new arguments for destructive “reform?”
12. Your jobs plan echoes Bowles Simpson in seeking to “broaden the (tax) base.” What exactly do you mean by that? Who do you plan to tax who isn’t being taxed now?
13. Your jobs plan “lowers rates while raising revenue.” I am very skeptical about this, having heard in in many previous forms for the last 30 years. Do you have any validation for how this would work?
Good questions, all.
Looking forward to hearing Sen.Coons and Puck has excellent questions.
If I don’t hear some asked, I will query.