Conservative economist and business professor Peter Morici says good riddance to a batch of expired federal tax breaks totaling $45 billion that could disappear for good if lawmakers and the president don't re-up them before Congress adjourns.
"A lot of these tax breaks are just, you know, pork," Morici, of the University of Maryland, told "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner on
Newsmax TV Thursday.
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House Republicans are feuding with Senate Democrats and the White House over a stalled bid to revive and make permanent assorted breaks. A veto threat killed one package that Congress supported, with the White House demanding more consideration for struggling wage earners and less for corporations.
Morici said the original list includes "a tax break for ranchers — for their racing trucks" as well as "stuff that was put in place as stimulus that turned out to be permanent: for example, enhancing the earned income tax credit and things of that nature, [as well as] the sales tax write-off, which largely benefits liberal states like New York.
"The Democrats had control of Congress for a long time and, along with President Obama, they rigged the tax code," said Morici. "They like to talk about special interests: They sure padded theirs … until they lost the election."
Morici pointed to another questionable item: a tax credit for power-generating windmills that went to huge companies such as General Electric.
"Do we really need a tax credit for windmills?" said Morici. "I mean, basically that was supposed to promote the domestic windmill industry. So what happened? General Electric got involved and [CEO] Jeff Immelt does what he always does: shakes the president's hand, takes his money and then imports the stuff from China.
"I'm not in the business of propping up the Chinese economy by expanding the U.S. deficit," said Morici.
Morici also discussed Wall Street's banner year, and said it had a limited effect on the economy as a whole, which continues to recover from the 2008 financial collapse and the Great Recession.
"The stock market benefits well-off Americans — the Democrats are right about that," he said. "The average guy that has an IRA … a lot of them took their money out at the wrong time [after the 2008 collapse] and put it back at the wrong time. There haven't been enough buy-and-hold folks who went through the big dip and then the recovery.
"The stock market by itself won't raise the economy," said Morici. "It's helpful, but it's not as significant, for example, as an uptick in the birth rate or new home construction improving, or improvements in bank regulations to permit that. Those have a more salutary effect."
Morici turned to a much-publicized speech by
Sen. Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, criticizing Obama pushing the Affordable Care Act, instead of more stimulus, when the economy was still struggling.
"Senator Schumer is big on saying Democrats should propose more big-government programs to help the middle class," said Morici.
That's the same Schumer, said Morici, who loves Wall Street and takes campaign cash from corporate titans including the CEO of Comcast — a reliable Obama donor as well who now looks poised to get U.S. clearance to buy rival cable giant
Time-Warner for $45 billion.
"This is really a riot, the senator from Wall Street donning the cloak of the champion of the middle class," said Morici. "That's absolutely absurd. I watched his speech in entirety and I haven't seen a better con job than George C. Scott playing 'The Flim-Flam Man' in that classic motion picture."