Womenstake

Truth or Dare?

by Cristina Martin Firvida, Director of Government Affairs and Senior Counsel
National Women's Law Center

An interesting profile today on Bill Stanfill, friend of the Center’s and a friend of tax fairness. Stanfill, a venture capitalist himself, says of the House-passed bill closing tax loopholes for private equity fund managers that the most likely “consequence of this tax increase would be taxing rich white guys the same as the rest of the population.”

Trick or Treat!

By Cristina Martin-Firvida, Director, Government Affairs, and Senior Counsel
National Women's Law Center

It could have been Halloween: defenseless children scared witless by bloodless, tax-avoiding dead people. But no, it was just a Thursday night at the Senate Finance Committee. Last night, just over 24 hours after the President vetoed the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona offered an amendment to the Senate farm bill to eliminate the estate tax for a handful of the wealthiest American families. 

Please note that Senator Kyl not only voted against CHIP, he tried to kill CHIP in the same Senate committee in which he pressed for his estate tax amendment (subscription needed). In case you have not devoted yourself to the riveting melodrama that is the debate on permanent repeal of the estate tax, you may be unaware that eliminating the estate tax will only help this guy. That’s why it makes perfect sense to give up hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue to spare Uncle Pennybags and his heirs from the most progressive tax in the universe, while denying health care to millions of uninsured children.

The High Risk of Low Prices

by Cristina Martin Firvida, Director of Government Affairs and Senior Counsel
National Women's Law Center

Two events took place this Wednesday morning, seemingly unrelated, but in reality representing two sides of the same coin.

After ninteen years of using the same slogan – “Always low prices” – Walmart launched a new slogan: “Save money. Live better.”  Walmart believes it has gotten a bad reputation as a cheap junk merchant, and wants to improve its image. On the same morning that Walmart rolled out its new campaign, Mattel’s CEO and the head of the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission were testifying before Congress about the millions of recently recalled toys, almost all made in China. 

Spring Forecast: Tax Cuts Are So Yesterday?

by Cristina Martin Firvida, Director of Government Affairs and Senior Counsel
National Women's Law Center

In case you do not follow this sort of thing, it’s Fashion Week in New York,that magical time twice yearly when vanity wrestles good sense to the ground and hogties it to the latest impossible trend. (How do you feel about shoes designed to look too small?).   

Here in Washington, spring 2008 previews are also going on, just without the skinny models and all-night parties. Two D.C. papers, Roll Call (subscription needed) and Congressional Quarterly, reported yesterday that GOP senators were advised by their pollsters to “cut the ‘happy talk’ about past tax cuts and economic growth,” because voters are not interested in tax cuts and tax-cut messaging is unlikely to assist the GOP. The news is apparently leading to an enormous shift in thinking among GOP senators. As one report stated, “Senators said they realize they cannot use the tax cuts as simply a Band-Aid for every problem, and if they propose them, they must do a better job explaining why they are the right answer.”

For years it seemed that the only thing many members of Congress wanted to wear was a tax-cut slogan. It will be fascinating to see if that kind of messaging will get shoved to the back of the closet or dropped off in a paper bag at the local Salvation Army store (for a charitable donation tax deduction, of course). 

More important yet will be whether members not only change their messaging, but their votes as well. Maybe voters are not interested in tax cuts because the tax cuts of the last several years didn’t do much for most voters. More than a few Americans would be better off if recreational tax cutting disappeared once and for all, along with this season’s unforgiving stovepipe jeans. So here is hoping spring 2008 heralds a season of good taste and even better policy sense.

Mammas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Sole Proprietors

by Cristina Martin Firvida

In the American imagination, few archetypes hold such romantic appeal as the cowboy.  In the imagination of many on Capitol hill, the image of the small business owner offers similar enchantment. In the minds of many lawmakers, the small business owner embodies the American dream: working hard, creating jobs, building opportunity where none existed.

For many, then, it must come as a terrible disappointment to read yesterday's report from the Government Accountability Office  on small business owners and the tax gap.  The report concludes that at least 61% of sole proprietors, who own unincorporated businesses by themselves, fail to report their income accurately to the IRS when it comes time to pay their taxes.  The IRS estimates that $68 billion of the annual $345 billion tax gap for 2001 was due to sole proprietors, who under-report their net income by 57 percent. 

So,  I guess what Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson sang about cowboys holds true for sole proprietors  -  they'd rather give you a song than diamonds or gold.

A Taxing Question: Can You Get Something for Nothing?

by Cristina Martin Firvida

In the aftermath of the Minnesota bridge collapse last week, a daring new plan began to emerge to ensure the safety of your commute: fix the bridges that are broken. Of course, bridges don’t get fixed for nothing, so a companion plan surfaced: raise taxes to pay for the repairs.  Seems like common sense – if you want something, you have to pay for it. And if you want something that benefits the public, its reasonable to raise taxes.

This is not a fringe issue. Governor Pawlenty of Minnesota  – who twice before has vetoed increasing the gasoline tax  – stated maybe it was time to rethink that position.  The National Conference of State Legislatures, a bi-partisan group that serves the legislators of the nation's 50 states, its commonwealths and territories, is also backing an increase in the gas tax.  The latest call for a gas tax increase to pay for bridge repairs comes from Congressman Jim Oberstar of Minnesota, who is chairman of the House Transportation Committee, and knows a thing or two about the condition of our roads. 

On the other hand,  the President wasted no time panning the idea.  This is the same President whose newest domestic initiative is to cut taxes on corporations – because surely the most pressing problem the American people face today is that our corporate sponsors are being crushed by taxes.   

A vote for right priorities, or for the wrong direction?

by Cristina Martin Firvida

Today, the House of Representatives is voting on the spending bill (H.R. 3043) that funds many of the federal programs that make the greatest difference in the lives of American women and their families – programs like Head Start, Pell grants, Title X family planning, and the Child Care and Development Block Grant. 

This is the bill that makes the spending decisions most of us care about – money to make it more affordable to find good child care for our children, to make sure schools can prepare them for a strong future, and to put a college education within the reach of more Americans. This is the bill that funds the research to find a cure for cancer, and to support health services in local community health centers. Many of these priorities have gone by the wayside for the last six years, and the bill being voted on today, while it falls far short of meeting unmet needs, certainly is better than anything we have seen in a long time.  Yet the President has threatened over and over to veto this bill because it spends $10 billion more on these kinds of priorities than his own budget proposes to spend – and to be clear, in many cases, his budget would cut a lot of spending that you and I care about. 

Minimum Wage Increase Vetoed

by Cristina Begoña Martin Firvida

Yesterday, the House and Senate sent the President the Iraq “emergency” spending bill, and last night the President vetoed it. In his remarks before the nation to explain his veto, the number one reason the President provided was his opposition to the timeline for pulling American troops from Iraq. Not mentioned in his speech was a different timeline that the President also vetoed last night – the timeline to gradually increase the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour over the next two years.

The minimum wage increase was included in the Iraq supplemental as a way of moving the legislation which had stalled over the issue of business tax cuts – the Senate wanted business tax cuts in exchange for the wage increase, and the House did not. Now, the increase in the minimum wage is held up again.

Who is hurt by this delay? Women. Nearly two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women, and overall women are twice as likely as men to work for the minimum wage. Over 9 million women would benefit from the minimum wage increase that was vetoed.  And women have been waiting a long time – ten years, in fact – for the federal minimum wage to be increased. We hope Congress and the President won’t keep 9 million women waiting too much longer...

Mind The Gap

by Cristina Begoña Martin Firvida

The Senate Finance Committee held a hearing today on closing the tax gap. The tax gap is the amount of federal taxes owed but not collected.  The Washington Post recently reported that unpaid taxes amount to $345 billion, and unreported business income accounts for nearly a third of that amount.  That same article reported that, according to the IRS, wage earners (whose income is withheld and reported to the IRS) will pay 99% of the taxes they owe. But business owners will pay less than half.

$345 billion could buy a lot of health care for the uninsured, help pay for the child care that lets us go to work, or finance public investments that we can all agree are needed to guarantee the kind of future we want for our children. So collecting the taxes that are owed and making sure everybody pays their fair share is a no-brainer, right?