We don’t need a stimulus package—just more tax cuts for the well off—say 36 Republican Senators.

Thirty-six Republican Senators and nobody else voted for an amendment to the economic stimulus bill to strike out the entire contents and substitute nothing but permanent tax reductions benefitting high income individuals and corporations. Republican Senators Snowe and Collins of Maine, Specter of Pennsylvania, and Voinovich of Ohio voted against the amendment, and Senator Gregg of New Hampshire did not vote.

This is the summary of the amendment from the office of Senator DeMint, who offered it:

1) Defuse the 2011 tax bomb: Stop tax increases set to hit the economy in 2011.

• Permanently repeal the alternative minimum tax once and for all;
• Permanently keep the capital gains and dividends taxes at 15 percent;
• Permanently kill the Death Tax for estates under $5 million, and cut the tax rate to 15 percent for those above;
• Permanently extend the $1,000-per-child tax credit;
• Permanently repeal the marriage tax penalty;
• Permanently simplify itemized deductions to include only home mortgage interest and charitable contributions.

2) Long term, broad based tax cuts for American families and businesses.

• Lower top marginal income rates – the one paid by most of the small businesses that create new jobs – from 35 percent to 25 percent.
• Simplify the tax code to include only two other brackets, 15 and 10 percent.
• Lower corporate tax rate as well, from 35 percent to 25 percent. The U.S. corporate tax rate is second highest among all industrialized nations, driving investment and jobs overseas. Lowering this key rate will unlock trillions of dollars to be invested in America instead of abroad.
• This is not only good economic policy, but a matter of fairness. No American family should be forced to pay the federal government more than 25 percent of the fruits of their hard labor.