Passed 12/4/2012
WHEREAS in 2001 Congress passed a broad package of tax cuts supported by President Bush that included steep reductions in capital gains and income tax rates for Americans making over $250,000 annually, with the reduced rates scheduled to sunset in January 2011, and during the 2010 lame duck session extended those rates until 2013, in the face of Republicans’ refusal to decouple tax cuts for middle-class Americans from those benefiting the very wealthy, and
WHEREAS numerous economic studies, including a report recently prepared by the Congressional Budget Office, demonstrate that restoring Clinton-era level tax brackets for millionaire Americans is the least economically destructive way to help balance the federal budget, affecting far fewer jobs than ending all the Bush tax cuts, slashing federal discretionary spending, or cutting benefits of federal entitlement programs, and
WHEREAS ending the Bush tax cuts requires only that Congress take no action before the January 2013 deadline, after which it would be politically infeasible for Republicans to hold hostage a restoration of middle-class tax cuts to the full restoration of tax cuts for the wealthy,
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley supports the full elimination of the Bush tax cuts for income made over $250,000 annually, even if the process involves first letting the entire Bush tax cuts package expire, followed by a subsequent restoration of middle-class tax cuts, and
THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that DPSFV urges the President, Senators and Congressmembers to resist Republican entreaties to trade unnecessary and destructive cuts to entitlement benefits, or overly complicated schemes to eliminate tax deductions, in return for ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.