This week on Facing the Future, host Bob Bixby spoke with Ben Ritz, Vice President of Policy Development at the Progressive Policy Institute, about recent tax policy proposals, budget challenges, and the broader implications for fiscal responsibility in the United States.
The conversation focused heavily on two significant tax cut proposals introduced by Democratic Senators Cory Booker and Chris Van Hollen. Both plans aim to exempt a large portion of middle-class Americans from paying federal income tax—up to $75,000 under Booker’s plan and $92,000 under Van Hollen’s. Ritz was critical of these proposals, describing them as “slopulism,” a term he said meant “low-effort and designed to trend on social media algorithms rather than be good policy.”
He explained that with these proposals, “If you say them really quickly to someone – ‘Should we cut taxes on the middle class and working Americans?’– people say, ‘Yeah, sure, that sounds good.’ And then you actually look at the proposal and they have a lot of really bad consequences if you just think about the details for 5 minutes”
Ritz pointed out that the Van Hollen and Booker proposals are actually regressive despite appearing progressive at first glance. Because of the way deductions work, higher earners receive a disproportionately larger benefit. He noted, “Someone who earns $175,000 a year is getting twice the tax cut as somebody who earns $75,000” Furthermore, the cost implications are staggering: Van Hollen’s plan would cost about $1.5 trillion, while Booker’s proposal is nearly $7 trillion—exceeding the size of the Trump tax cuts and COVID relief spending.
Ritz emphasized the importance of fiscal responsibility, especially for Democrats who want to expand government programs. He warned, “If you want to be the party of ‘government can do things,’ you have to make it so that the government can do things.”
Budget Process and the President’s Proposal
Turning to the broader budget landscape, Ritz expressed skepticism about the President’s recent budget proposal, noting it lacked completeness and realism. “I didn’t see a budget proposal from the president. I saw a proposal for maybe 30% of the budget. There’s nothing on revenue and he only talked about discretionary spending, nothing on mandatory spending, which is about two-thirds of the budget when you include interest… I thought it was incomplete and irresponsible.”
“We’re spending $1 trillion a year on interest now and basically every year into the future”, Ritz said. “As a percent of GDP, it is the highest it has ever been. We have never spent as much of our national resources on federal interest payments as we do now, and are going to in the future. It’s more than we spend on national defense, or at least as we were before the war on Iran. We’ll see how that changes. But it’s more than we spend on Medicare and Medicaid, at least individually. And if we keep going on our current path, eventually it’s going to be even bigger than Social Security, which is the biggest program in the budget.”
Potential Solutions: Fiscal Commissions and Automatic Stabilizers
Ritz was “lukewarm positive” about the idea of a new fiscal commission, acknowledging its potential to restart conversations on budget reform. However, he stressed that “the process isn’t the problem, the people and the policy and the politics are the problem.” He advocated for action-forcing mechanisms to be part of a commission process, such as requiring Congress to vote up-or-down on commission recommendations to increase accountability.
On automatic stabilizers—mechanisms that would automatically adjust taxes or spending based on economic conditions—Ritz expressed strong support: “I’m a big proponent of them… I’d rather the default be an ideal outcome rather than an unsustainable one.”
Social Security and Holistic Budget Planning
With Social Security’s trust fund projected to become insolvent by 2032, Ritz supported forming a specific commission to address the issue but cautioned against treating it in isolation. He explained, “Social Security isn’t the only problem we have in 2032. Medicare’s main trust fund is going to run out at the same time, so we’re actually going to have multiple problems hitting at the same time. I don’t think you can look at Social Security entirely in isolation from the rest of the federal budget. What are you going to do about our other fiscal challenges? I think if we’re doing a Social Security-only commission, it needs to be circumscribed so that they can’t take all the solutions for all the other problems we face off the table.”
