In Case You Missed It...

This week on Off the Charts, we focused on the federal budget and taxes and state budgets and taxes.

• On the federal budget and taxes, Kathy Ruffing explained why the recent House-passed Buffett Rule Act of 2012 doesn’t merit the name.  Chuck Marr listed some categories of American workers who don’t owe federal income tax but do pay payroll (and other) taxes.  Richard Kogan noted that the first stage of large-scale deficit reduction is already in law and will produce $1.5 trillion in savings over the next decade.  We also updated our analysis of Governor Romney’s budget proposals.

• On state budgets and taxes, Phil Oliff pointed out that low-income families pay a considerable share of their scarce resources in state and local taxes.  He also explained why two constitutional amendments on Florida’s November ballot could cause serious trouble for local services.  And we highlighted our new paper on why one of these proposals, a property tax measure, is deeply flawed.

In other news, we issued reports on how Congress has cut discretionary funding by $1.5 trillion over the next ten years and why Florida’s Amendment 4 would cause tax increases and deep cuts to local services.  We also updated our analyses of the Romney budget proposals and the challenges posed by misguided fears of a “fiscal cliff.” Finally, we updated our chart book on the legacy of the Great Recession and our backgrounder on the number of weeks of unemployment insurance benefits available in each state.