Republicans and Democrats are flogging each other over whose plan is more stimulating -- economically speaking that is. Now the neutral Tax Policy Center, a joint venture between the centrist Urban Institute and the center-left Brookings Institution, has weighed in.
In a report card released Thursday night, the respected center gave the Senate Democratic stimulus plan's tax provisions a barely passing grade. Of the 13 tax provisions it scored, the center gave only two of them a B+. (There were no A's and two D's).
The best grade went to the Making Work Pay tax credit proposed by President Barack Obama, that returns money through a temporary payroll tax holiday. The center said it is quick to reach its target, and the group also applauded increasing the eligibility for the refundable portion of the child credit for doing a good job targeting those most in need.
The center gave a D minus to a plan to extend a temporary fix to the creeping Alternative Minimum Tax, noting it is neither timely nor targeted and is not an economic stimulus. It gave a D to tax incentives to hire more veterans and disconnected youth, saying it is unlikely it will reach the target groups.
Read the report card at http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/411830_senate_stimulus_reportcard.pdf
We say in the blog that they area a joint venture between Urban Institute and Brookings. Centrist and center left, hardly the Heritage Foundation. They are a policy research center whose tax data is probably the most respected by both economists and the media. They are useful because many of their forecasts are done outside the constraints of some of the technical parameters imposed on government forecasts.
Posted by: Kevin G. Hall | January 30, 2009 at 12:28 PM
Yeah, right. They're neutral. Who are they? Respected by whom? And who undergirds them????
Posted by: EddieG3 | January 30, 2009 at 11:53 AM