re: #33 engineer cat

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The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the entire package will increase the deficit by $3.9 trillion over 10 years, with a $280 billion increase in 2013 alone. That’s because the JCT is comparing the deal to what would happen if the entire fiscal cliff were allowed to take effect — about $4.5 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It looks worse if you include interest on the debt and the $30 billion in federal unemployment insurance, which is not offset.

The numbers look better if you compare the deal to a world in which we had kept the tax code the way it was in 2012: Then, the package raises more than $600 billion in additional revenue (and cuts interest payments by about $50 billion). But it comes from a far smaller portion of taxpayers than Obama had been hoping for. Letting the Bush tax cuts expire at the $450,000 family/$400,000 income threshold affects just 0.7 percent of all taxpayers, or a little over 1 million Americans, according to Tax Policy Center’s latest analysis.