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    CAP's Plan For Budgeting For Growth and Prosperity

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    Center for American Progress
    A two-pager by Michael Ettlinger, Michael Linden, and Seth Hanlon gives the highlights of CAP's plan to reduce the deficit while growing a strong economy.

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    CAP's Plan For Budgeting For Growth and Prosperity

    Uploaded by

    Center for American Progress
    202 views2 pages
    A two-pager by Michael Ettlinger, Michael Linden, and Seth Hanlon gives the highlights of CAP's plan to reduce the deficit while growing a strong economy.

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    CAP's Plan for Budgeting for Growth and Prosperity

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    A two-pager by Michael Ettlinger, Michael Linden, and Seth Hanlon gives the highlights of CAP's plan to reduce the deficit while growing a strong economy.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    202 views2 pages

    CAP's Plan For Budgeting For Growth and Prosperity

    Uploaded by

    Center for American Progress
    A two-pager by Michael Ettlinger, Michael Linden, and Seth Hanlon gives the highlights of CAP's plan to reduce the deficit while growing a strong economy.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 2

    Budgeting for Growth and Prosperity

    A Long-term Plan from the Center for American Progress


    to Balance the Budget, Grow the Economy, and Strengthen
    the Middle Class
    Michael Ettlinger, Michael Linden, and Seth Hanlon  May 2011

    The highlights

    • Achieves “primary balance” by 2015, with the federal budget in the black except for
    payments on the national debt
    • Hits full and permanent balance by 2030, and reduces the debt to just over 40 percent
    of gross domestic product by 2035
    • Delivers two-thirds of the deficit reduction from spending cuts, and one-third from
    revenue increases
    • Is the only long-term plan for sustained balanced budgets that invests in the middle
    class rather than asking them to bear the brunt of deficit reduction

    Our plan makes room for crucial investments, protects middle-class


    services, and fights poverty

    • Makes room for substantial new investments in all levels of education, renewable
    and clean energy technologies, transportation and infrastructure, and basic scientific
    research and development even while balancing the budget—investing an annual
    average of about $70 billion above current levels
    • Includes substantial, targeted boosts to successful antipoverty programs that cut the
    poverty rate in half by 2030

    Our plan controls health care costs for everyone, not just those in the
    public programs

    • Strengthens existing cost-containment measures in the Affordable Care Act


    • Fully pays for a permanent “Doc Fix” for Medicare
    • Builds in a cost-containment “failsafe” to slow the growth of health care costs across
    the entire economy while ensuring the quality of care

    1  Center for American Progress  |  Budgeting for Growth and Prosperity


    Our plan sets “discretionary” spending at responsible levels

    • Brings defense, homeland security, and the State Department into one unified budget
    to better meet our 21st century national security needs
    • Delivers strategic cuts to defense to bring spending down to peak Cold War levels,
    adjusted for inflation
    • Sets limits to nonsecurity discretionary spending that, over time, contribute to deficit
    reduction, but also make room for necessary investments

    Our plan delivers comprehensive income tax reform so the tax code is
    simpler, fairer, and raises enough revenue

    • Creates a single 15 percent income tax bracket for 80 percent of Americans


    • Turns tax deductions into flat credits so that every taxpayer gets the same benefit
    • Returns the top ordinary income tax rate to levels under President Clinton
    • Includes a temporary 5 percent surtax for millionaires that expires in 2030 when the
    budget balances
    • Caps the top capital gains rate on realized investment income at the level signed into
    law by President Reagan
    • Eliminates or reforms dozens of “tax entitlements” such as oil and gas industry
    subsidies and special benefits for hedge fund managers
    • Results in 90 percent of taxpayers getting an income tax cut or no change at all in their
    income tax bill
    • Results in the after-tax income of the richest 1 percent of taxpayers remaining at least
    46 percent higher than it was in 2001

    Our plan combats climate change and reduces our dependence on


    foreign oil

    • Establishes a price on carbon emissions, with any higher costs for lower- and middle-
    income families more than offset, on average, by our income tax cuts and rebate program
    • Levies a $5 per barrel fee on foreign oil imports

    Our plan improves the stability of U.S. financial markets

    • Enacts a modest financial transactions tax to discourage short-term speculation and


    encourage long-term investment

    Read the full report, “Budgeting for Growth and Prosperity,”at our website.

    2  Center for American Progress  |  Budgeting for Growth and Prosperity

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