Report Shows How Health Care Reform Adds To Other Democratic Tax Cuts And Assistance To Small Business

Some have called Barack Obama’s stimulus plan the biggest tax cut in history. Families USA has launched a campaign to explain why health care reform was one of the largest middle-class tax cuts in history. Their report also showed how health care reform helps workers in small business. The Hill reports:

Almost 29 million middle-income Americans will be eligible for a “historical tax cut” worth $110 billion in 2014 alone thanks to the healthcare reform law, according to a new report released Tuesday.

The national healthcare consumer organization Families USA commissioned the Lewin Group to use its economic models to estimate how many people would be eligible for the new premium tax credits created by the law. Families USA Executive Director Ron Pollack said the report’s release was a timely reminder of the health law’s benefits to working, middle-class families at a time when much of the conversation in the nation’s capital is focused on both rising healthcare costs and the need for tax cuts.

“This is one of the largest middle-income tax cuts in history,” Pollack told reporters during a conference call. “And it will enable many hard-working Americans to afford private health insurance premiums that continue to stretch family budgets.”

In addition to the expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor, the new law will offer tax credits to about 24.8 million people in families with a full-time employed worker and another 2.5 million people in families with a part-time worker.

The report also points out that the law will be especially helpful to workers in small businesses:

More than half (52.9 percent) of those people eligible for the premium tax credit — 15.2 million people — work in businesses with fewer than 100 workers;

About 40 percent of the people eligible for the tax credit (11.4 million people) are employed in businesses with fewer than 25 workers

Senate Democrats also overcame an attempted Republican filibuster today to allow a small business job bill to move forward.

Former Florida GOP Leader Admits “Many Within the GOP Have Racist Views”

While pandering to racism has been a major tactic of the Republican Party, one former GOP leader has apologized for using race, conceding that “many within the GOP have racist views.” CNN reports:

The ex-chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, Jim Greer, is now apologizing for stoking fears about President Obama’s address to school children last year.

Greer, now under indictment on fraud and money-laundering charges after being drummed out of the state party, also accused “many within the GOP” of having “racist views.”

In September 2009, conservatives raised questions about the motives of president’s back-to-school speech, which was beamed into many of the nation’s classrooms. Greer was among them, charging that “taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology.”

“While I support educating our children to respect both the office of the American President and the value of community service, I do not support using our children as tools to spread liberal propaganda,” he said then in a statement that made waves around the country.

Greer is now apologizing for those comments.

“In the year since I issued a prepared statement regarding President Obama speaking to the nation’s school children, I have learned a great deal about the party I so deeply loved and served,” Greer said in a statement Tuesday to CNN and other media outlets.

“Unfortunately, I found that many within the GOP have racist views and I apologize to the President for my opposition to his speech last year and my efforts to placate the extremists who dominate our Party today. My children and I look forward to the President’s speech.”

He did the right thing in apologizing for the racism withing the Republican Party. It might have been nice if he also admitted that the claims that Barack Obama has a “socialist ideology” are also absurd.