JCT: GOP tax plan costs $29 billion more than Dems

Republicans and Democrats have used heated rhetoric to slam each other’s plans to extend expiring tax cuts, but it turns out the price tags of their proposals aren’t all that different.

The Joint Committee on Taxation, in estimates released Thursday, said that a Senate Democratic plan that would allow Bush-era tax rates to expire on family incomes at more than $250,000 a year would reduce revenues by about $272 billion.

Meanwhile, a Senate GOP plan that would extend all the current rates would cost just over $300 billion.

In all, the almost $29 billion difference amounts to a fraction of the current projected deficits or, as Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) put it, enough money to run the government for a couple of days.

“The American people deserve better than to have the president and his allies threaten to melt down our economy for what amounts to less than three days of federal spending,” Hatch, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement.

Democrats, meanwhile, downplayed the findings.

"I don't think the score is really relevant to deficit reduction, which is looked at over 10 years," Schumer said.

The projections come less than four months before November’s election, and as Republicans and Democrats have been hammering each other over their contrasting tax ideas.

The Senate Democratic plan, in addition to extending current income rates for family income up to $250,000, would also raise the top rate on capital gains and dividends to 20 percent, and return the estate tax to less generous 2009 parameters.

Republicans in both the House and the Senate want to extend the current rates on all those items.

Extending the current top rates on income, capital gains and dividends would cost around $40 billion, according to JCT, while the GOP estate tax proposal costs around $9 billion more than the Democratic plan.

The Democrats, meanwhile, would extend certain expansions of provisions like the Earned Income Tax Credit and the child tax credit.

The Senate Democratic plan is expected to get a floor vote next week.

House Republicans will vote on a proposal to extend all current tax rates before leaving for August recess, and the Senate GOP is fighting for a vote on their similar proposal.

Democrats have said they believe they have the upper-hand in the tax debate, after years of ceding the issue to the GOP.

Party leaders have also stressed that they believe revenue increases need to be part of any broad deal to rein in deficits.

Top Democrats, including Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), have also suggested that they would be willing to let all tax rates rise, and allow automatic spending cuts to be implemented, if Republicans don’t relent on a tax increase on just the wealthy.

For their part, Republicans have charged that Democrats are willing to “tank” the economy. 

Vicki Needham contributed.

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