|
UNIVERSITY OF COMPASSIONATE
CONSERVATISM (what
is this?)
You have selected
COMPASSIONATE
CONSERVATISM
202B*
*Bush administration lies
and deception moral clarity,
honesty and integrity
on the Economy, Budget and Taxes
- Part II
In this course you will learn about the
abundant lies, deception or
intent to deceive moral clarity, honesty and integrity displayed by compassionate conservative2
George W. Bush (and his administration speaking on his behalf) on the issue of the Economy,
Budget and
Taxes - Part II. This
part covers his (Government's) statements on the 2003 Tax Cuts including
the Dividend Tax Cuts and other Economic Moral Clarity.
Make sure you drop by again when the Election 04 (2004) campaign starts
picking up steam, so that you can refresh your memory on his
compassion. Please
note that the statements made by Bush or his
spokespersons/administration3 - as
cited in column 3 of the tables below - are by default extracted from
one or more of the links shown in column 4. If the source of the
statements is different from the link(s) in column 4, then a URL is
explicitly provided in column 3. For feedback and corrections, please go
here. A detailed
acknowledgement of the sites from which the information below was
obtained is listed at
this location. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the
following sites where I got the vast majority of links from: PK
archive, Atrios/Eschaton,
Politics, Law and
Autism, Calpundit,
Buzzflash, Daily
Howler, Thinking
it Through, Bushwatch,
Spinsanity.
Total Compassion Con credits 2
available from this course to date = 91
Last
Update: 10/28/2003
Please select one of these sections
Once you are done with the above
sections, you may choose another course by picking one of the options
below
2003
TAX CUTS <go back to the top>
Compassion Con
credits total = 70
| # |
Topic |
Bush's or his
representative's
Compassionate statement |
Some
Uncompassionate Facts |
Compassion
Con Credits |
| TC1-01 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal
Size |
Bush
pushing a "$674 B" tax cut plan |
Daily
Howler:
"...The Washington Post doesn’t pull many punches in this
morning’s editorial,
“Stealth Tax Reform.” Remember, the Post has generally
supported Bush’s approach to Iraq:
WASHINGTON POST: Imagine that President
Bush had a plan to dramatically reshape the federal tax system,
eliminating taxes on investment income for most taxpayers,
making the tax structure less progressive and providing a boon
to the wealthiest Americans. You might think he would mention it
during his State of the Union address. You might think he would
call it by its name: radical tax reform.
It turns out that Mr. Bush has such an audacious plan, but he
has left it to his Treasury Department and to his 2004 budget
proposal, which was released yesterday, to spell it all out.
It’s being wheeled into town inside a Trojan horse of private
savings accounts...
Daily
Howler:
"...In particular, the Post screamed about the unannounced
“Trojan horse” Bush’s budget contained, that $1.5 trillion
in new proposed tax cuts. In the past few weeks, the president
had gone out and misled us again, letting us think that he was
proposing about $674 [billion] in new cuts. On Monday, the
larger package showed up unannounced in his new budget plan...
Meanwhile, Weisman’s
piece today offers only a hint that something odd has
occurred:
WEISMAN (pgh 5): One GOP senator said yesterday that Republicans
are worried Bush is “overreaching” by pushing for larger tax
cuts than “he originally let on but at the same driving up
deficits” to new heights.
A GOP senator notes that Bush’s proposed cuts are “larger
than he originally let on.” Pravda-trained readers will take
meaning from that, perhaps realizing that Bush has now submitted
cuts than that are twice the size of the cuts he had
seemed to disclose. On Tuesday, the Post recoiled at Bold
Leader’s conduct. Today, a reader would have to do between
lines to learn that massive new cuts have in fact been
proposed...
Has a bigger fake ever lived in the White House? As a candidate,
Bush faked and falsified his actual values, making us think that
he was carefully calibrating his tax cut plan to produce
long-term balanced budgets. We were told that the tax cut
package of $1.3 trillion over ten years was all that the numbers
would allow. But in 2001, Bush passed a slightly larger tax-cut
plan—and now he seeks additional cuts that are even larger
than that initial package, the one over which he pretended to
agonize. Plainly, Bush’s ongoing conduct bears no relation to
the posing which drove his campaign. And he presents this new
plan in the dead of the night - refusing even to tell his
subjects about his new, large proposals. What kind of a man
behaves in this way—hiding behind a war and a space disaster
to peddle plans he’s too craven to acknowledge? Perhaps you
know what kind of man—a Dear Leader behaves in this way..." |
1 |
| TC1-02 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal
Size |
Bush
referred to his tax cut proposal as a $674
billion 10-year plan |
Richard
Cogan (CBPP page 26):
"...The
Administration estimates that its "growth package"
will reduce tax revenue and increase expenditures by $674
billion over the period 2003-2013. This figure does not include
the cost for higher interest payments on the debt that would
result from the package. These increased interest costs, which
would be an inevitable result of the plan, would total at least
$250 billion over this period. The total cost of the package to
the Treasury — and the amount by which deficits would increase
(or surpluses be reduced in the unlikely event that surpluses
return during this period) would be at least $925
billion..." |
1 |
| TC2-01 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut
Proposal for
Individuals |
Bush
"Under this plan, 92 million Americans receive an average
tax cut of $1,083," Mr.
Bush said. "That's fair."
|
Washington
Post:
"...No, it's deceptive. The vast majority of
taxpayers -- 80 percent -- would receive less than that
amount, according to data from the Urban
Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. For the
truly typical household -- filers in the middle fifth of
the income spectrum -- the average tax cut would be $256.
Almost half of all taxpayers would see their taxes drop by less
than $100. At the top of the income pyramid, however, the
tax savings would be huge; the top 1 percent of filers
would receive an average tax cut of $24,100. The average
tax cut touted by Mr. Bush is more than $1,000 only
because the savings for the wealthiest Americans are so
large..."
Also see CBPP,
Spinsanity,
PLA,
Daily
Howler
|
1 |
| TC2-02 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal
for Individuals (Seniors) |
Bush
"...In the section titled "For
Everyone Willing To Work, A Job", Bush claims that
"32 million seniors would receive, on average, a tax cut of
$2,042." But his
official talking points actually claim far less, stating
that "13 million elderly taxpayers would receive an average
tax cut of $1,384"..." |
Brendan
Nyhan (Spinsanity):
"...(Note: This is yet
another misleading administration average - the left-leaning
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities [CBPP] concluded
that 79 percent of seniors would get less than $1,384, and 40
percent would get under $100.) The center-left Urban-Brookings
Tax Policy Center defined
the issue in similar terms, analyzing the benefits of the plan
for 15 million elderly tax filers (including joint returns in
which at least one person is over 65), whom it found would
receive an average tax cut of $1,095. [8K PDF] (Again, benefits
vary widely by income group.)
Bush did claim that one group would receive an average tax cut
of $2,042, but it wasn't seniors. The administration talking
points state that "23 million small business owners would
receive tax cuts averaging $2,042." It appears that the 23
was reversed, and attributed to seniors rather than small
business owners. Such sloppiness in a highly vetted document is
troubling, especially given the administration's pattern of
deceptive budget and tax salesmanship..."
|
2 |
| TC2-03 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal
for Individuals
(Single Women) |
Bush
"...the
Administration says the average tax cut among six million single
women with children would be $541..."
|
Isaac
Shapiro, Joel Friedman (CBPP page 12):
"...Yet
85 percent of such women would receive tax cuts of less than
$500, and 49 percent would receive nothing. The average is $541
because a small number of such women would receive massive tax
cuts, thereby raising the average..."
|
1 |
| TC2-04 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut
Proposal for
Individuals |
Bush
"..."under this plan, a family of four with an
income of $40,000 will receive a 96 percent reduction in
federal income taxes...The income taxes would drop
from $1,178 a year to $45 a year." The White House fact
sheet similarly claims that "A typical family of
four with two earners making a combined $39,000 in income
would receive a total of $1,100 in tax relief under the
President's plan."..."
|
Spinsanity:
"...Both claims are misleading in that they
carefully select a household which would benefit
disproportionately for its income level. As noted above,
according to calculations by CTJ, the middle 20 percent of
earners, who make an average of $36,600 per year, would
receive an average benefit of just $289. The White House's
theoretical family does better than this by virtue of
having two children, allowing it to take advantage of
the additional child tax credit. It also benefits from the accelerated
marriage penalty phaseout..."
Spinsanity:
"...Bush claimed
on April 24 that "If you're a family of four, making
$40,000 a year, this tax plan will reduce your taxes from $1,178
to $45 -- a family of four, $40,000." He then suggested a
few moments later, "that thousand dollars a year will mean
a lot. Tax relief is good for the average citizen." He has
repeated the statistic on a number of occasions, most recently a
May 6 speech
to the US Chamber of Commerce.
As we have pointed
out before, while the tax reduction Bush advertises for this
theoretical family is technically correct, it benefits
disproportionately for a household of its income level. Bush's
suggestion that the hypothetical family's benefit demonstrates
that "[t]ax relief is good for the average citizen" is
also misleading and unrepresentative..."
|
2 |
| TC2-05 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal
for Individuals |
(This is
a more compassionate variant of the one above)
Bush
"...Earlier this month, speaking to the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, Bush explained,
"You'll hear all kinds of rhetoric about how this plan is
not fair. Well, let me just describe to you what it means to the
family of four making forty thousand dollars a year. It means
their taxes would go from one thousand one hundred seventy-eight
dollars a year to forty-five dollars a year. ... That sounds
fair to me."..."
|
Jonathan
Chait (The New Republic):
"...The clear impression is that Bush is fighting to cut
taxes for middle-income families, and Democrats (along with some
moderate Republicans) are resisting. In fact, this is the
opposite of the truth. First, the $40,000-per-year family won't
pay only $45 in taxes, since they'll still owe $6,120 in payroll
taxes, which Bush ignores. Second, their savings from the Bush
plan would come from three elements: increasing the child tax
credit ($800), expanding the level of income subject to the low
10 percent tax bracket ($100), and reducing the "marriage
penalty" ($233). These cuts, all of which enjoy broad
bipartisan support, would only cost $157 billion over ten
years--less than one-quarter of the total cost of Bush's plan.
What have drawn real opposition are Bush's upper-bracket rate
cuts and his repeal of the dividend tax, which will cost in
excess of $500 billion over the next ten years and will benefit
the rich almost exclusively. Bush could have won a sweeping
majority for the middle-class cuts if he had dropped his
insistence on the upper-class ones. But he didn't, because the
former are merely a sweetener to help him obtain the latter.
Indeed, when the Senate voted to reduce the size of the tax
cuts, conservative Republicans suggested removing the
middle-class provisions altogether so they could squeeze in more
upper-bracket cuts.
Andrew
Lee, Isaac Shapiro (CBPP):
"...The
family of four making $40,000 would receive a 96 percent cut in
federal income taxes.
The family’s federal income tax liability would fall
from $1,178 to $45. This
family, however, pays much more in federal payroll taxes than in
federal income taxes. When
one includes just the family’s employee
share of $3,060 in payroll taxes, they would receive a more
modest 27 percent cut in federal income and payroll taxes.
Furthermore, most economists have concluded that workers
bear the burden of both the employee and the employer payroll
taxes, with the employer portion being passed on to workers in
the form of lower wages. If
one includes both the employee and employer portions, the family
pays $6,120 in payroll taxes and would receive a 16 percent
reduction in federal income and payroll taxes under the
Administration’s plan.
A recent analysis from the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution
Tax Policy Center shows that among tax filers with wage
earnings, 90 percent of those with income below $100,000 pay
more in payroll taxes than in individual income taxes.
|
2 |
| TC2-06 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut
Proposal for
Individuals |
Bush
"...The administration's fact
sheet also suggests that beneficiaries of the tax cuts
will include "Everyone who pays taxes, especially
middle-income Americans, as tax rate reductions passed by
Congress in 2001 are made effective immediately."
Bush, referencing the 2001 tax cut that he is
proposing to accelerate, made a similar assertion yesterday, claiming that "it
was tax relief for all citizens. We've reduced the tax rate for everybody who pays taxes."..."
|
Spinsanity:
"...Both of these claims, while appearing to be
expansive, depend on narrowing the definition of
"taxpayer" to include only those paying federal
income taxes. Many workers in lower income brackets pay no
federal income taxes, but do have Social Security and
Medicare taxes deducted from their paychecks, pay sales
and excise taxes, and sometimes pay state income taxes.
Because they will not benefit from the proposed federal
tax rate reductions, only those few with dividend income
would realize any benefit from the current proposal...."
|
1 |
| TC2-07 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut
Proposal for
Individuals |
Bush
administration
"...Another argument that administration
officials make regularly is that under the president's plan, the
wealthy would bear a larger share of the nation's tax burden
than they do now. A table released last month by the Treasury's
office of tax analysis showed that people with incomes over
$100,000 would see their share of all income taxes rise to 73.3
percent from the current 72.4 percent. At the same time, the
table showed, taxpayers with incomes of $30,000 to $40,000 would
get a 20.1 percent reduction in income taxes, and those earning
$40,000 to $50,000 would get a 14.1 percent cut...."
|
David
Rosenbaum (New York Times):
"...The problem with figures like
those is that a large percentage of a small amount of money may
be less important to a low- or middle-income family's lifestyle
than a small percentage of a large amount of money would be to a
rich family. For example, a $50 tax cut would be a 50 percent
reduction for a household that owed only $100 in taxes to start
with, but that small amount of money would not significantly
improve the family's well-being. A better
measure may be the increase in after-tax income, or take-home
pay, that would result from tax cuts. According to data from the
Joint Congressional Committee on Taxation, the tax reduction of
$380 for a family with an income of $45,000 would amount to less
than 1 percent of the household's after-tax income. But the
$12,496 tax cut received by a family with an income of $525,000
would mean a 3 percent increase in money left after taxes..."
|
1 |
| TC3-01 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut
Proposal for
Small
Businesses |
Bush
"We estimate that 23 million
small-business owners across America will receive an
average income tax rate cut of $2,042," Mr.
Bush said. "That matters."
|
Washington
Post
:"...Again, misleading. As with the individual
taxpayer statistics, the Tax Policy Center estimates that
nearly four out of five tax filers with small-business
income would receive less than that amount. More than half
would receive $500 or less. Nearly a quarter would receive
no tax cut at all -- a group that doesn't drag down Mr.
Bush's average because it's simply not included in the
calculation. But a small number of wealthy individuals
with small-business income would receive huge tax cuts,
once again inflating the average..."
Also see: Paul
Krugman (NYTimes)
|
2 |
| TC3-02 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut
Proposal for
Small
Businesses |
Bush
"...In his radio
address, the President also echoed a claim contained in a recent
Treasury press release that small business owners would benefit
greatly from his proposal to accelerate the reduction in the top
income tax rate, because two-thirds of those who pay the top
rate are small business owners. .."
|
Andrew
Lee (CBPP):
"...This
statement, as well, is misleading in two respects.
The Administration is claiming that 500,000 of the 750,000 tax
filers who pay the top rate — or two-thirds of them — are
small business owners. Even if this claim were valid, it
would not mean that the reduction in the top rate would
broadly help small businesses. The 500,000 “small
business owners” said to pay the top rate would, by the
Treasury’s own figures, constitute only two percent of small
business owners...
In addition, the contention that 500,000 of those tax filers who
pay the top tax rate are small business owners is derived by
counting all tax filers with some small business income
as “small business owners.” Wealthy individuals who do
not run small businesses and simply have passive
investments in partnerships, S corporations, and the like are
thereby presented as “small business owners,” as though they
ran a corner store. Analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice
finds that when sole proprietorships with positive business
income are examined (as distinguished from individuals who do
not run small businesses but have passive business investments,
as well as doctors and lawyers who are in partnerships), only
about one-fourth of those who pay the top income tax rate turn
out to be business owners...
Careful examination of the data indicates that the impact of the
proposed tax cuts on most people with small business income
would, in fact, be modest and that a key feature of the plan
actually could have a negative impact on small businesses.
Although the plan includes an “expensing” provision that is
targeted toward small businesses and would be beneficial for
them, the package’s largest provision — the exclusion of
corporate dividends from individual income taxation — could
hurt small businesses in two ways. First, reducing taxes
on corporate dividends would attract investment dollars away
from small businesses into corporate stocks that issue tax-free
dividends. Second, by increasing the attractiveness of
dividend-paying stocks relative to bonds and also by increasing
long-term deficits, the dividend exclusion would likely raise
long-term interest rates. These higher interest rates
would raise the cost of borrowing for small businesses and
partly mitigate the benefits of the expensing provision..."
|
3 |
| TC4-01 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal
for Corporations |
Bush
administration
"...In instances where both the
corporation and the shareholder are paying taxes at the maximum
rate, it is possible, as the administration maintains, for 60
percent of the profits to be taxed away..."
|
David
Rosenbaum (New York Times):
"...But calculations based on I.R.S. data and performed by
Robert S. McIntyre of the nonpartisan Citizens for Tax Justice
show that on average, only 19 percent of corporate profits are
paid in taxes by companies and shareholders combined..."
|
1 |
| TC5-01 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal
and targeted recipients |
Fleischer for
Bush
"...The President doesn't look at the
American people and say, I'm from the government, I know who the
right people are -- I'm from the government, I know who the
wrong people are. The President believes that's a divisive
approach."..."
|
David
Corn (The Nation) via Bushwatch:
"...But the President does indeed say, "I'm from the
government, and I know who the right people are." In this
instance, he is saying that the "right people" (those
deserving of a tax cut) are people who hold stocks--outside of
401(k)s and other tax-free retirement accounts--that pay out
dividends. What about investors who place their money elsewhere?
Why won't interest on a certificate of deposit be tax-free,
under the new Bush plan? Bush is indeed deciding who gets a
break. He also proposed expanding the child credit. That hardly
rewards singles or couples without young ones. Tax policy is
about choices, about who gets what--and choices deserve to be
judged...."
|
1 |
| TC5-02 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal
and targeted recipients |
Bush
"..."I understand the politics of
economic stimulus, that some would like to turn this into class
warfare," Bush said last week as he was giving reporters a
tour of that very nice ranch he owns in Crawford, Tex.
"That's not how I think."..." |
E.
J. Dionne (Washington Post):
"...But it would be easier to respect
this attack on class warfare if the president and his allies
disavowed such belligerency themselves. Alas, they don't. They
just play a different kind of class politics by demonizing those
elites who are not on their approved list of corporate chiefs, oil
millionaires, heirs to large fortunes and the like. The
president, for example, loves to bash the rich if they got that
way by being trial lawyers...He declared that "what we want
is quality health care, not rich trial lawyers."...Almost
daily, Republicans attack privileged groups: "the cultural
elite," "the Hollywood elite," "the
intellectual elite" and, of course, "the liberal
elite." Bush merged some of these categories in 1994 when he
was running for governor of Texas. No slouch as a fundraiser
himself, he chided Ann Richards, his opponent, for going to
California to raise money from the "liberal elite."..."
|
1 |
| TC5-03 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal
and targeted recipients |
Fleischer for
Bush
"...it's inaccurate to say that the
benefits will go to the wealthy" and that "because
it's inaccurate, [this criticism] is used in...a way to divide
and to play class warfare, in an effort to portray some
Americans as unworthy of tax relief and other Americans as
worthy of tax relief based on their class."..."
Bush
"...PRESIDENT BUSH SAYS that, when
crafting a tax plan, the government shouldn't be in the business
of picking winners and losers..."
|
David
Corn (The Nation) via Bushwatch:
"...Using Fleischer's standard, Bush, by focusing on income
taxes as opposed to, say, payroll taxes, is determining that
low-income Americans (who do not make enough to pay income taxes
but who are hit by payroll taxes) are "unworthy of tax
relief." Moreover, what is inaccurate about the charge that
the rich would make out like bandits under Bush's tax proposal?
Citizens for Tax Justice report that one-third of the tax cut
would flow to the top 1 percent (taxpayers with incomes over
$374,000) in 2003. Almost half would go to the top 5 percent
($154,000 and above.) As for the top 20 percent ($77,000 and
up)--they would get over three-quarters. The lower 60 percent
(those pulling in $46,000 and less) would bag only 8.4 percent.
How could Fleischer claim that a plan that eliminates dividend
taxes and lowers the top income tax rate does not reward the
well-to-do? But he did. The CTJ numbers would have to be
inverted--be off by a factor of 7 or more--for Fleischer to be
in the right...."
Washington
Post:
"...PRESIDENT BUSH SAYS that, when
crafting a tax plan, the government shouldn't be in the business
of picking winners and losers. But the tax bills making their
way through Congress do precisely that -- and you can probably
guess how things are turning out. The
winners are those at the top of the income scale, and not just
because they pay more taxes to begin with. Both the House and
the Senate would speed up cuts in individual income tax rates
passed in 2001. For three income brackets, rates would drop by 2
percentage points. But the top rate falls by 3.6 percentage
points, from 38.6 percent to 35 percent. One argument for this
is that it would help small businesses, many of which pay taxes
at individual rates. But only 2 percent of taxpayers with
small-business income pay the top rate -- and many of these are
not mom-and-pop businesses but rather wealthy individuals with
complex tax returns full of partnerships and royalty income and
the like. The losers are those near the bottom: low-income
working families eligible to receive money under the Earned
Income Tax Credit..."
|
2 |
| TC5-04 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal
and targeted recipients |
Fleischer for
Bush
"..."Let me address," he said,
"one thing about why this issue about who benefits from tax
cuts, I think, is such a different issue in Washington than it
is in the real world. If you make $30,000 a year, and you pay,
for example, $2,000 in taxes, and you receive a $1,000 tax cut,
you just received a 50 percent cut in your taxes. A thousand
dollars to somebody who makes $30,000 a year means all the world
to them. It is a huge difference in their life. Take somebody
toward the top end of the scale, somebody who makes $200,000,
and they pay $50,000 in taxes. To begin with, they pay far more
in income taxes, a point which opponents of the President never
make. They pay far more in income taxes than others who earn
less. They receive a tax cut that in dollar amounts may be
larger than somebody who receives less. To them, that tax cut
won't change their life as much as it does somebody who doesn't
earn as much. Their life will change more so, more beneficially,
than somebody toward the top."..."
|
David
Corn (The Nation) via Bushwatch:
"...In promoting Bush's contribution to progressive
taxation, Fleischer undermined part of the reasoning for the tax
cuts...First, his example is not supported by the CTJ numbers.
According to that analysis, the average taxpayer in the
$29,000-to-$46,000 income group (the middle 20 percent) will
receive a total of $289 from these tax cuts in 2003. That's much
less than the $1000 figure Fleischer used in his anecdote.
Putting that aside, Fleischer was essentially arguing that the
big earners won't see their lives changed drastically by the tax
cuts. So why bother? Why defund the federal government--at a
time of war, maybe two wars, maybe more--if it's no big diff to
the main beneficiaries? Similarly, if it's so important to have
a large impact on the lives of the lower earners, why not send
more relief their way?..."
Compassiongate: Note that the mendacity
compassion on tax cuts is so robust that arguments are being
made for tax cuts from completely contradictory positions. The
supply side tax cut push (previous row) makes the exact opposite
case for why these tax cuts need to focus on the rich. |
2 |
| TC5-05 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal
and targeted recipients |
Bush
"...Oh, you'll hear the talk about how
this plan only helps the rich people. That's just typical
Washington, D.C., political rhetoric, is what that is. That's
just empty rhetoric..."
|
Michael
Kinsley (Time):
"...Bush creates a straw man: the critic who says his plan
"only helps the rich." The actual criticism is that it
mainly helps the rich. The much smaller tax breaks for
lower-income people are vital too. They provide cover and act as
a bribe. For a few hundred dollars, the government buys your
support for a plan worth millions to those who already have
millions..."
|
1 |
| TC5-06 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal
and targeted recipients |
Bush
"...declared
several weeks ago in promoting his proposal, “My jobs and
growth plan would reduce tax rates for everyone who pays income
tax."..." |
Robert
Greenstein (CBPP):
"...The Tax Policy Center
analysis shows that 8.1 million lower and middle-income
taxpayers, who pay billions of dollars a year in income taxes,
will receive no tax reduction under the legislation [signed
ultimately by Bush]...These taxpayers also would have received
no tax reductions under the Administration’s plan..."
|
1 |
| TC6-01 |
2003 Bush Dividend Tax Cut
Proposal
(for Seniors) |
Bush
"..."It means that 10 million
seniors, nearly one in four, who receive dividend
income will get relief," Mr. Bush said of his plan to
cut dividend taxes. "Now, that's important.
Getting
rid of the double taxation of dividends is an
incredibly positive thing for the quality of life of
our seniors."
|
Washington
Post:
"...Some seniors would see their quality of life
improve a lot more than others, however. You can probably
guess which ones. A big slice of the dividend tax cut --
37 percent -- would indeed go to seniors. But the majority
of elderly people -- the two-thirds with incomes below
$50,000 -- would save on average $325 or less. Meanwhile,
a small number of high-income elderly would reap most of
the benefits. More than three-quarters of the part of the
dividend tax break that would go to the elderly would flow
to the 19 percent of senior citizens with incomes above
$75,000; 43 percent of the benefits would go to the
richest in that group, the 2.5 percent of senior citizens
with incomes greater than $200,000. They would save an
average of more than $5,000. Mr.
Bush must know how phony his "averages" are. Any
time a salesman has to resort to such deceptive tactics,
the customer ought to be wary about what is being
sold...."
Also see CBPP
|
1 |
| TC6-02 |
2003 Bush Dividend Tax Cut
Proposal (for Seniors) |
Bush
"...talking points state that "[a]lmost
half of all savings from the dividend exclusion under the
President's plan would go to taxpayers 65 and older. The average
tax savings for the 9.8 million seniors receiving dividends
would be $936."..."
|
Brendan
Nyhan (Spinsanity):
"...This $936 figure is yet another
misleading administration average. As with most such
figures, it exaggerates the benefits of the tax proposal at hand
because dividend tax payments - like income tax payments - are
concentrated toward the top of the income scale, which skews the
average upward..." |
1 |
| TC6-03 |
2003 Bush Dividend Tax Cut
Proposal (for Seniors) |
Fleischer for
Bush
"...Press Secretary
Ari Fleischer elaborated
on the putative benefits to seniors with an array of statistics
during a briefing on the plan on January 7: Of
the 12.6 million taxpayers 65 and older with income over
$15,000, 58 percent receive dividends...There are 8.2 million
taxpayers 65 and older with income over $30,000 a year, 66
percent of them receive dividends. So clearly, the number of
seniors receiving dividends goes down far lower on the income
scale [than reporters had implied in questioning him]..."
|
Brendan
Nyhan (Spinsanity):
"...However, new
data from the center-left Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center
[6K PDF] shows how Fleischer's numbers are carefully constructed
with a lower bound that makes it appear that many more low- and
moderate-income seniors receive dividend income than is actually
the case. Only 21.3% of those making $10,000-$20,000 would have
their taxes reduced at all as a result of the elimination on
income taxes on dividend payments, along with 39.7% of those
making $20,000-$30,000 and 47.1% of those making
$30,000-$40,000. These senior income groups as a whole will
receive average tax cuts of $26, $89 and $170, respectively. And
as with the public as a whole, the benefits of the dividend tax
proposal are concentrated among the higher income elderly - the
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found
that "[m]ore than three-quarters of the benefits that would
go to the elderly from this tax cut [the elimination of taxes on
dividends] would flow to the 19 percent of elderly with incomes
above $75,000" and nearly 43% would go to those with
incomes greater than $200,000..." |
1 |
| TC6-04 |
2003 Bush Dividend
Tax Cut
Proposal |
Rove for
Bush
"...Bush political adviser Karl Rove
said Bush's plan to abolish the dividend tax was evidence
that he's "a populist. Give him a choice between
Wall Street and Main Street and he'll choose Main Street
every time." As evidence, Rove argued that "45
percent of all of the dividend income goes to people with
$50,000-or-less incomes, family incomes. Nearly
three-quarters of it goes to families with $100,000 or
less family income."..."
|
Andrew
Lee, Robert Greenstein, Isaac Shapiro (CBPP page 6):
"...These
statements mislead because they count a person with $20 in
dividend income the same as a person with $20,000 in dividend
income. While many people receive dividends, most receive only
small amounts. The distribution of dividend income is very
skewed.
People with income below $50,000 account for over 40 percent of
those receiving dividends, but they get only 18.5 percent of all
dividend income.
Furthermore, according to the Urban Institute-Brookings
Institution Tax Policy Center, people
under $50,000 would receive only 6.7 percent of the tax cut from
the Administration’s proposal to eliminate the taxation of
dividends.
Similarly, while people with incomes below $100,000 make up
three-fourths of those who receive dividends, they get only 37
percent of all dividend income and would receive only 21 percent
of the proposed tax cut on dividends..." |
2 |
| TC6-05 |
2003 Bush Dividend Tax Cut
Proposal |
Cheney for Bush
"..."Other critics have suggested
that ending the double taxation of dividends is somehow tilted
toward a small number of wealthy beneficiaries. The fact is that
54 million Americans own stocks that pay dividends." He
then argued that "45 percent of all dividend recipients
make under $50,000 per year," while "[t]hree-fourths
of them make less than $100,000 per year."..."
|
Brendan
Nyhan (Spinsanity):
"...As we have demonstrated,
however, the 54 million figure cited by Cheney is misleading
because it includes approximately 19 million Americans whose
dividend payments accrue solely in tax-free retirement accounts
and would therefore not benefit directly from the President's
plan; this is why the administration's official
talking points use a figure of 35 million...
Rove is completely wrong about the distribution of dividend
income, as Dana Milbank pointed
out in the Washington Post (CG - see above)...For
the same reason, Cheney's statistics are misleading. By
emphasizing the number of people who receive any dividend
income, he implies that the benefits of the elimination of taxes
on dividends would be more evenly distributed than the
statistics bear out..." |
2 |
| TC7-01 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut
Proposal and economic growth |
Bush and others
"...suggested that the economic
projections put out by the Blue Chip Economic Forecast, a survey
of 53 private-sector economists, are predicated on the passage
of his tax cut proposals...White House Press Secretary Ari
Fleischer made the same claim in a press
briefing just prior to Bush's speech..."
|
Spinsanity:
"...As reported by Newsday,
Randall Moore, editor of the Blue Chip Forecast, took umbrage
with Bush's claim. According to the paper, Moore told the White
House that "It looks like you guys are saying the Blue Chip
endorses the president's proposal. That's not the case." |
1 |
| TC7-02 |
2003
Bush Tax Cut Proposal and economic growth |
Bush
"...In Ohio last month, Bush said
senators "might have some explaining to do" for
approving "a little bitty tax relief package" of $350
billion. "The package ought to be at least $550 billion in
size over a 10-year period in order to make sure that the
economy grows," he said..."
|
Richard
Kogan (CBPP):
"...the President said...that
the war and the recession caused those deficits. He
declared “Now, you hear talk about deficits. And I’m
concerned about deficits. I’m sure you are as well.
But this nation has got a deficit because we have been through a
war.” Three sentences later, the President added: “And we had an emergency and a recession, which affected the
revenue growth of the U.S. Treasury.”Finally,
in his Canton
speech, the President said that those who supported scaling back
the tax cuts he proposed in February to $350 billion “are for
a little bitty tax relief package.” Yet that $350
billion figure is far larger than the approximately $200 billion
provided or requested for war, anti-terrorism efforts abroad and
at home, and reconstruction after
September 11, 2001
. It is difficult to square the claim that the costs of
the war have been so large that they have caused the return of
deficits with the argument that the $350 billion for tax cuts is
a “little bitty” amount..."
CBS
News:
"...President Bush celebrated a package of tax
cuts..."This achievement is a victory for every family
struggling to pay the bills, every entrepreneur hoping to expand
the business and create new jobs and every American looking for
work."...Mr. Bush's enthusiasm contrasted with his earlier
criticism of a package that was even larger - the $350 billion
version originally approved by the Senate.
In Ohio last month, Mr. Bush campaigned against that bill and
insisted only a package of at least $550 billion would
"make sure that the economy grows."
"Why are they for a little-bitty tax relief package?"
he said of senators who opposed his bid for larger cuts.
Anticipating the questions, the White House compiled numbers
showing that the final version, while smaller overall, offers
bigger relief in its first two years. Mr. Bush's original
proposal for $726 billion in tax reductions through 2013
included $191 billion in cuts the first two years, compared with
$226 billion in the final bill..."
Compassiongate: President Bush clearly criticized
the total size of the tax package (indicating it had better be
higher than $550 billion, and not the immediate tax reductions
for 2003 and 2004 - so the explanation for his "change of
heart" is at best compassionate).
Dana
Milbank and Jim VandeHei (Washington Post):
"...In brokering and celebrating a $350 billion
tax-and-spending package he derided less than a month earlier,
President Bush and top aides this week made the calculation that
it was more important to have a tax cut than to stand on
principle over its size and content...
it was a different Bush who appeared in the Capitol yesterday to
congratulate lawmakers for reaching agreement on a $350 billion
plan with $318 billion of tax cuts over 10 years. "I look
forward to signing the economic recovery bill soon," he
said. "This bill I'm going to sign is good for American
workers, it is good for American families, it is good for
American investors and it's good for American entrepreneurs and
small-business owners."
How did Bush go from dismissing a tax cut of this magnitude to
hailing it? Bush and his aides, realizing that Republican
lawmakers who control both chambers of Congress were in danger
of leaving for the Memorial Day recess without a tax agreement,
made clear that the president would accept any deal.
"Politically, it was essential," a Senate GOP aide
said. "The president and the Republicans couldn't go into
Memorial Day with nothing to show on the economy."
|
2 |
| TC8-01 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal
and the Iraq war |
Fleischer for
Bush:
"...Asked a week ago about McCain's plan
to postpone tax cuts until after the war, Fleischer replied that
tax cuts would ensure that, "when the war is over, our
military has jobs to come home to."..." |
Jonathan
Chait (The New Republic):
"...Since this seems to be the administration's new line
Fleischer has repeated it twice more since it is worth
considering in all its glorious absurdity. First, soldiers
aren't going to "come home" after the war the way they
did after Vietnam. We now have an all-volunteer, professional
army, and the administration is not proposing to shrink its size
anytime soon. When the war is over, the soldiers will still have
jobs as soldiers. Yes, reservists have been called up, but they
have a legal right to resume whatever job they left.
Second, given that the administration's budget
projects just one month of combat, the war will almost certainly
have ended before the tax cuts are even signed into law, let
alone have any effect on the economy. One provision of Bush's
tax cut, for instance, would make the estate-tax repeal,
scheduled to take effect in 2010, permanent. Now, Bush could
honestly argue that those soldiers who serve for seven years and
then come home and inherit multimillion-dollar fortunes should
not have to pay any tax on their windfall. But doing so would
deprive his position of its moral punch..."
Also see: Dana
Milbank (Washington Post) |
2 |
| TC8-02 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal
and the Iraq war |
Bush
administration
Making various claims about not knowing the
costs |
Jonathan
Chait (The New Republic):
"...When the Bush administration unveiled its proposed
budget early last month, it made no provision at all for war
with Iraq. At first, the White House defended this omission by
asserting that war might not happen at all. "It would have
been very unnatural," argued Budget Director Mitch Daniels
on February 3, "to include costs for a conflict that Saddam
Hussein could avert at any day by complying with the world
community's eleven years of demands that he disarm."
(Daniels said this one week after Hans Blix told the United
Nations that Saddam was not complying with weapons inspectors
and one day after The New York Times detailed the
Pentagon's plan for war with Iraq.) After war became a
certainty, the Bushies shifted to arguing that they couldn't
provide a war estimate because, as Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld put it, "There's no calculation that you can do
about all of these variables." This is roughly analogous to
parents deciding they're not going to begin a college fund
because they don't yet know what schools their kid will attend.
The suspicion all along was that the
administration was delaying its war estimate until after
Congress acceded to its proposed tax cuts. Last Friday, when a
reporter asked White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer if Bush
was postponing his request for war funding until Congress
approved his budget, Fleischer replied, "No." Then,
that very afternoon, the Senate voted down an amendment to halve
the tax cut, apparently paving the way for Bush's plan. (A
subsequent vote to shrink the tax cut this week came as a
surprise.) On Monday, Bush promptly asked Congress for $75
billion to fight the war and begin postwar peacekeeping. Were
the two events related? Not at all, insisted an administration
official. Rather, the White House was suddenly able to estimate
the war's cost because, "We found that there would not be
an immediate surrender of the Iraq regime, that there would be
some resistance," the official explained. Of course, this
explanation came as the Pentagon was telling reporters that it
had never assumed otherwise [CG emphasis - see
why]..."
|
3 |
| TC9-01 |
Reason(s) for 2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal |
Bush
said "...The
nation needs quick action by our Congress on a pro-growth
economic package. We need tax relief totaling at least
$550 billion to make sure our economy grows. And American
workers and American businesses need every bit of that relief
now…” “And a
significant part of the benefit [from the tax cut package] to
our economy will come within the first two years of the plan.”
“…economic and job growth will come when consumers buy more
goods and services from businesses such as your own. And
the best and fairest way to make sure Americans can do that is
to grant them immediate tax relief so they have more of their
own money to spend or save.”..." |
Robert
Greenstein and Isaac Shapiro (CBPP):
"...However,
contrary to what the President suggested, most of the tax cuts
he has proposed would not have a large immediate impact.
The substantial majority of these tax cuts would occur in years after
2004. The official estimates of the Joint Committee on
Taxation show that fewer than six percent of the tax cuts
in the President’s package would occur in the current fiscal
year, which ends September 30. Only 21 percent of the tax
cuts would occur by the end of fiscal year 2004.
|
|
Administration’s
“growth” package, distribution of its tax cuts by
fiscal year
|
|
2003
|
5.5%
|
|
2004
|
15.7%
|
|
2005-2013
|
78.8%
|
..."
|
1 |
| TC9-02 |
Reason(s) for 2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal |
Bush
has repeatedly pushed the view that tax cuts
will create more jobs and boost the economy. For example he said
recently - "...I believe we should enact more tax relief,
so that we can create more jobs and more Americans can find work
and provide for their families..."
|
Back in early 2002
Paul
Krugman (New York Times):
"...Third, they will claim that the future tax cuts are
just what the doctor ordered to deal with the current recession.
The C.B.O. disagrees; it declared, in a recent report, that
accelerating those tax cuts would be ineffective as a stimulus
measure..."
In 2003
Paul
Krugman (New York Times):
"...In fact, those who oppose the Bush plan think it will
work no better than the 2001 tax cut: that it will do little for
growth or employment, and will sharply raise the deficit. (These
guys now have a track record, and it's not encouraging. In the
year and a half since that tax cut, which was sold as the
perfect economic stimulus, the economy has lost 1.4 million
jobs.)..."
Washington
Post:
"...Thus, it's not surprising that Mr. Bush is casting his
tax cut as a job creation vehicle. The dismal new unemployment
numbers, Mr. Bush said, "should say loud and clear . . . we
need robust tax relief so our fellow citizens can find a
job." One response to that battle cry is that the most
disputed piece of Mr. Bush's tax cut -- dividend tax relief --
is apt to do the least in creating jobs in the short term and
that most of the president's proposed tax cuts would occur after
2004, by which point the economy should have recovered...
A study by the financial research group Economy.com put
unemployment spending at the top of the list of stimulative
measures, estimating that each dollar spent on the program would
boost the economy by $1.73; by contrast, reducing the taxation
of dividends would return just 9 cents on the dollar, the study
found. An argument against extending benefits is that it would
reduce incentives for the unemployed to find work. But as
Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress,
when jobs are evaporating, the limits "almost surely ought
to be eased to recognize the fact that people are unemployed
because they couldn't get a job, not because they don't feel
like working." Mr. Greenspan made his remarks in November.
Since then, the economy has lost nearly half a million
jobs..."
Also see: Jared
Bernstein (EPI) for more on the continuing jobless recovery
since the 2001 tax cuts
|
2 |
| TC9-03 |
Reason(s) for 2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal |
Bush
"..."Some members of Congress support
tax relief but say my proposal is too big," Bush said in his
Saturday radio address. "Since they already agree that tax
relief creates jobs, it doesn't make sense to provide less tax
relief and, therefore, create fewer jobs."..." |
Jonathan
Weisman (Washington Post):
"...But few economists would argue that
tax policy is so straightforward. Taken to its extreme, Joel
Slemrod, a tax economist at the University of Michigan, said that
Bush's argument would support eliminating taxes altogether for the
sake of job creation. "Logically, the
statement that more tax cuts are better is certainly wrong,"
Slemrod said. Asked to evaluate Bush's new argument, one
Republican economist with close administration ties quipped,
"I suppose it matters whether you think economics
matters."
If stimulating the economy is simply a matter of pumping in money,
these should be flush times, economists say, because the last two
years have seen the largest tax cut in a generation and the
largest two-year federal spending binge since Jimmy Carter was
president. C. Eugene Steuerle, a Treasury official in the Reagan
administration, calculated that previously passed tax cuts,
federal spending increases, and reduced taxation due to the
economic downturn will pump more than $600 billion into the
economy in 2003.That is well in excess of the amount drained out
of the economy by the Bush-era slump, between $300 billion and
$550 billion, said Steuerle, a senior fellow at the Urban
Institute. "We have never had a recession where we have put
so much stimulus back into the economy," said Steuerle..."
Liberal
Oasis:
George Voinovich (Sen -OH):
"...when
we voted for the last tax reduction--and I was a leader in
supporting that in 2001--we had a $5.6 trillion surplus. Today
it's projected in the next 10 years that we're going to have a $2
trillion deficit, and we're going to be borrowing this year…I
know that a lot of people can't believe this number--but we're
going to borrow over $500 billion this year and next year to run
our government...recently the economists from Goldman Sachs told
The New York Times that the percentage of our debt to our gross
domestic product is moving from about 33 percent to 49
percent…and they believe that will undermine our economy instead
of stimulating it..."
|
2 |
| TC9-04 |
Reason(s) for 2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal |
Bush
"...In his Canton
speech, the President also blamed Congress for phasing in the
tax-rate reductions, estate tax repeal, and other aspects of the
2001 tax cut that he signed into law...“And Congress responded,
but the problem is they responded with a phased-in program.
They said tax relief was important and tax relief should be
robust, but they phased it in over a number of years - three years
in some cases, five years in others, and seven years. Listen, all
I’m asking Congress to do is to take the tax relief package
they’ve already passed, accelerate it to this year so that we
can get this economy started and people can find work..." |
Richard
Kogan (CBPP):
"...The
President is re-writing history here, as well. It was the
President who asked Congress to phase in most of the tax cuts over
five years, both when he first unveiled his tax-cut plan in 1999
and again when he laid it out in detail in his first budget.
And it was Congress, not the President, that accelerated the
creation of the new 10 percent income-tax bracket into 2001,
thereby creating the $300/$600 “rebates” to respond to the
slowing economy..."
Jonathan
Chait (The New Republic):
"...He makes it sound like an unwelcome scheme, probably
cooked up by Tom Daschle. In fact, Bush's original 2001 plan had
phase-ins, and Congress--with the administration's
approval--extended the phase-ins in order to include the deepest
possible tax cuts while still appearing to comply with its budget.
Each tax cut, in other words, is mined with time bombs that must
be defused (or else we'll have a "tax increase"), and
each fix plants new ones that must be defused again. Bush will
soon be back decrying those very gimmicks and demanding they be
fixed by yet another tax cut..."
|
2 |
| TC9-05 |
Reason(s) for 2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal |
Bush
"...Mr. Bush suggests on the stump that
his 2001 tax cuts were limited to nine years as a result of a
“quirk in the rules in the United States Senate.”..." |
Dwight
Meredith (Politics, Law and Autism):
"...In truth, the tax cut was limited to nine years by Mr.
Bush and the Republicans in an effort to keep the cost of the
bill to $1.35 trillion and to disguise the long-term fiscal
consequences of the cut..."
|
1 |
| TC10-01 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal
and Jobs |
Bush
said that a $550 billion tax cut would create
more than 1 million jobs by the end of 2004, compared with the
1.4 million jobs he contends would be created by the original
$726 billion version. "That's not my projection," he
said. "That's the projection of a lot of smart economists
who have analyzed the package." |
Dana
Milbank and Jonathan Weisman (Washington Post):
"...In fact, it is the projection of
his economists. The Council of Economic Advisers in February
estimated that the package would create 510,000 jobs in 2003 and
891,000 more in 2004. Those figures come from economic growth
calculated by plugging the tax cut into a computer model of the
economy developed by Macroeconomic Advisers LLC, a St. Louis
forecasting firm. Macroeconomic Advisers'
own numbers are somewhat more modest over the two years: 242,000
new jobs in 2003 and 894,000 in 2004..."
Brendan
Nyhan (Spinsanity):
"...the CEA also briefly states that, "On average over
end-2002 to end-2007, job creation as a result of the package
would be 140,000 higher than otherwise." In other words,
over this five year period, a net total of 700,000 additional
new jobs would be created as a result of the proposal, not 1.4
million. Thus, according to CEA, the President's plan would
create 1.4 million additional new jobs in the first two years,
but would also lead to 700,000 fewer jobs being created in
2005-2007 than would have been created without the passage of a
tax cut, leading to a net job creation total as a result of the
package of 700,000 (140,000 per year for five years). This
remarkable finding, which is obscured by the CEA in its
analysis, has received scant national media coverage besides a
CNN/Money story...."
MaxSpeak:
"...The average over the next five years provided by the
CEA is 140,000. This means the five year total is only 700,000.
Hence the jobs effect of the President's proposal, according to
his own CEA, is a reduction of jobs from years 2005
through 2007. Hence as a public service, through the use of
advanced mathematics, MaxSpeak has supplied the missing columns
to this table. The difference between 1.4 million and the five
year total of 700,000 averages out to job losses (the
parentheses in the table indicate negative numbers) for years
2005-2007, if one measures from 4th Quarter to 4th Quarter. (The
second row provides the same calculations in terms of the year
over year averages.)..."
Jonathan
Weisman (Washington Post):
"...Beyond 2007, the tax package would actually do
more harm than good, warned Joel Prakken of Macroeconomic
Advisers LLC, which developed the computer model the White House
used...in the longer run, surging budget deficits would raise
interest rates and lower savings rates, while higher investment
income would actually discourage job creation, Prakken said..."
Washington
Post:
"...Well, the Joint Committee on
Taxation has produced...an assessment of the economic effects of
the House's $550 billion tax cut, which the administration says
it "strongly supports"... The joint tax committee
quietly slipped its analysis into the Congressional Record on
Friday, just as the House was preparing to pass the tax cut. To
look at the study is to understand the reasons for this stealth
release.
The committee, like the CBO, used dynamic scoring, predicting
the tax cut's effect on the economy and taking that into account
when measuring revenue impact. And, as Mr. Snow hoped, it
considered the effect of tax cuts without changes on the
spending side...
Will the tax cut create jobs? In the first five years, somewhere
between 230,000 (according to three of the models) and 900,000
jobs would be created. To put this in perspective, the economy
has lost 500,000 jobs in the past three months alone. In the
second five years, the study predicts no new job creation (one
model) or actual job losses..."
|
3 |
| TC10-02 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal
and Jobs |
Bush
"...has also repeatedly claimed that, as he
put it in his May 6 speech,
that "[t]he right answer for how big the tax cut ought to be
is a million jobs. That's the right answer. And that's the package
I submitted to the United States Congress." Stephen Fisher,
Director of the National Economic Council, made an identical claim
in an online
chat: "The Council of Economic Advisers projects that the
President's [original] proposal would create 1.4 million jobs by
the end of 2004. Congress is looking at a smaller proposal, which
would create a million new jobs by the end of 2004."..." |
Spinsanity:
"...Yet, as Dana Milbank and Jonathan Weisman reported
in the Washington Post, Bush has not produced a study to verify
this [1 million] number. Instead, it represents a scaled-back estimate based
on a projection by the Council of Economic Advisors that the
original, $736 billion tax cut proposal would have produced 1.4
million new jobs by the end of 2004 (the final tax cut is likely
to be somewhere between $350 and $550 billion due to budget votes
in the House and Senate). As the New York Times noted,
since the exact details of the plan - such as when it would go
into effect - are not known, private-sector economists have not
been able to directly evaluate Bush's claims. And even the White
House has
admitted that rather than "creating" new jobs, the
plan would simply accelerate hiring that would have occurred in
2005 through 2007..."
|
1 |
| TC11-01 |
2003 Bush Tax Cut Proposal |
Bush
said "...we will not deny, we will not
ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses,
other presidents, and other generations..." |
Citizens
for Tax Justice:
"...According to the latest
figures from the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation,
President Bush’s fiscal 2004 budget includes $1.6 trillion in
additional tax cuts over the upcoming decade. Counting the $0.4
trillion in added interest on the national debt that the tax cuts
will entail, the total cost over the fiscal 2003-13 period will be
almost $2 trillion if the plan is adopted by Congress—$100
billion more than the administration previously estimated. In
comparison, the Bush tax cut plan enacted in 2001 was projected to
cost $1.6 trillion over its first decade including interest.
In the current fiscal year, the Joint Committee data show that the
President’s new tax cut plan will cost $41 billion, thus
providing virtually no stimulus to our ailing economy. But by
fiscal 2013, Bush’s new tax cut proposals will cost $431 billion
a year including interest. “If the President’s new tax cuts
are enacted, it appears that our national debt will approach $10
trillion by the end of 2013, counting the amount owed to the
Social Security trust fund,” said Robert S. McIntyre, director
of Citizens for Tax Justice.
When Bush took office,
the national debt, including the amount owed to Social Security,
was $4.5 trillion and headed sharply down. But Bush’s new budget
projects a $7.5 trillion debt by the end of 2008, including
amounts owed to Social Security. The President refuses to offer an
estimate for the size of the debt a decade from now, but the
likely figure under the President policies is close to $10
trillion.
“So much
for the President’s worthless promise not to send the bill for
his irresponsible tax-cutting program to our children,” McIntyre
said."
|
1 |
| TC11-02 |
2003 Tax Cut Proposal |
White House for
Bush
"...250 Economists Endorse President
Bush's Jobs and Growth Plan..."
|
TAPPED:
"...We finally found a
link to the White House press release, titled
"250 Economists Endorse President Bush's Jobs and Growth
Plan". We could point out that they only have 250
economists to the 450 that are
opposed to Bush's plan, but it's more interesting to look at
what, exactly, the meaning of the word "economist" is.
At Hesiod Theogeny's prodding, we checked up on some of
the people not listed with a university affiliation, and
found out that the White House is using the term
"economist" rather loosely. Among those listed are Grover
Norquist, of Americans for Tax Reform, and Jackson Brown,
of the American Dental Association -- neither of whom is an
economist. Nor, as far as we can tell, is "Leonard Bower,
consultant." Emile J. Brinkmann of the Mortgage
Bankers Association of America has
a Ph.D. -- in finance, not economi | |