In his new role as New York Times columnist, Peter Orszag proved won’t just be a soldier for the Obama administration. In his first piece, the President’s just-departed budget director created a big headache for his former boss by calling for a two-year extension of all the Bush tax cuts — including the ones for the wealthy.
The White House and Democratic leaders on the Hill want to let the tax cuts benefiting the wealthiest expire, but are facing opposition from some of their own members, who will now have Orszag to cite as justification for holding out.
“[T]he best approach is a compromise: extend the tax cuts for two years and then end them altogether,” he wrote. “Ideally only the middle-class tax cuts would be continued for now. Getting a deal in Congress, though, may require keeping the high-income tax cuts, too. And that would still be worth it.”
Orszag also recommends implementing a Value Added Tax down the line to help erase deficits in the future, but says the votes simply aren’t there. You can read the entire column here.
