Senate Budget Chair's Memo Hopes for Tax Hikes up to $1.2 Trillion

Senate Budget Committee chairwoman Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) has circulated a memo to her Democratic colleagues indicating she desires a massive tax increase in her upcoming budget. 

The memo, originally authored in January and since obtained by Breitbart News, indicates on page three that Murray agrees with a spending cut to tax hike ratio of 1:1. She also believes we have to cut approximately $2.4 trillion over the next decade. That means a tax hike of another $1.2 trillion.

“These bipartisan frameworks include significant new revenue and have far more balance between spending cuts and revenue increases than the deficit reduction measures we’ve enacted to date,” the memo reads. “For instance, the President’s Fiscal Commission and the Senate’s Gang of Six each proposed roughly $4.8 trillion in deficit reduction over the 2012-2021 period, with over $2 trillion coming in the form of new revenue. Excluding the interest savings of roughly $800 billion, the two bipartisan efforts proposed a roughly 1:1 ratio of spending and revenue savings.”

“Further, measured over the same ten-year window used to estimate the effects of the ATRA legislation (2013-2022), the two bipartisan efforts each provide for revenue of between $2.4 trillion and $2.5 trillion, or roughly four times the amount of new revenue to be generated by the year-end deal,” the memo continued.

It appears Murray will count the $2.4 trillion of future deficit reduction passed via the Budget Control Act in that $4.8 trillion. The suggested plan would reduce the remainder of the deficit through a combination of spending cuts and tax hikes. Using her favorite ratio, that means a $1.2 trillion tax hike.