Fw: Another tax cut for the rich

[Guest guest]

-

N

J

 

Friday, September 24, 2004 11:34 PM

Re: Another tax cut for the rich

 

 

I don't GET it! Why can't we ALL pay taxes?

Silly-me, I thought we PAID taxes to support all of the teaching museums on

the Mall, police ,health plans , federal highways, bridges, ferries, DC- gov,

federal buildings, services-bases, invention and technology, air safetey, black

budgets,communications, federal services I don't even know of to name,Treasury

Dept.,the MINT! where we keep printing paper money...If we lower taxes, on and

on who will we get to pay to keep all of this functioning in a timely

manner??????!!! NG-

J

N

Friday, September 24, 2004 8:20 PM

Another tax cut for the rich

 

 

TAXES

Middle Class Misnomer

 

Congress passed a $146 billion tax package billed as the " middle-class tax

cut " last night. Scratch below the surface, however, and a few glaring

deficiencies appear. Many of the benefits are skewed directly to the wealthy and

corporations. Low-income families were ignored, as provisions to provide them

with relief were sliced out of the final legislation. And still no word on who's

paying for this. The legislation was not a tax bill for the middle class. As the

Boston Globe writes, " it represents unfinished business from the legislation

oriented to wealthy taxpayers passed last year. Taken as a package, these four

bills are a windfall for the wealthy and a threat to programs that have

sustained middle-class and lower-income Americans for generations. " The Center

on Budget and Policy Priorities agrees, calling the legislation the " latest step

in the continuing slide toward fiscal irresponsibility, the thwarting of normal

democratic processes, and favoritism toward the comfortable and well-off

accompanied by neglect of working-poor families who need help the most. "

 

WHO'S PAYING FOR THIS THING?: Congress passed the $146 billion legislation

with no word on who was going to pay for it. It will add to the already

exploding deficit, which is projected to reach $422 billion this year, a record

high. And one thing's certain: eventually someone will pay for the tax cuts.

That means either raising taxes or, more likely, slashing programs. Cutting

programs means " there is a substantial possibility that many, if not most,

middle-class households will lose more from the measures ultimately adopted to

offset the tax cuts' costs than they receive in tax-cut benefits. " In the

meantime, we will burden future generations by adding to a deficit, already

project to reach $2.3 trillion in the next ten years.

 

YOU CALL THIS MIDDLE-CLASS?: Conservatives pegged this legislation the

" middle-class " tax cut. Don't believe the hype. Forty-four percent of the tax

cut goes to the richest tenth of Americans. The Center on Budget and Policy

Priorities points out that families in the middle 20 percent of the income scale

" will get only 10 percent of the bill's tax cuts, a peculiar result for a bill

promoted as a middle-class tax relief package. "

 

LOW-INCOME CHILDREN LEFT BEHIND: The tax legislation turns a cold shoulder to

the families who need the most help (ironic, given the fact that it was passed

just days before National Family Day). The bill did not expand the availability

of the child tax credit to low-income families, although the benefit has eroded

to such an extent that full-time minimum-wage workers are currently ineligible.

Fixing this would cost $4 billion over 10 years, or approximately a third of the

cost of the corporate tax breaks in the bill. Also, the legislation provides

" marriage penalty " relief for all households.except those with low incomes.

 

MILITARY FAMILIES: In addition to increasing taxes on working families, the

new tax legislation includes a provision which could hurt military families.

Most of the tax cut extensions are for the next five years. Congress Daily

reported, however, conservatives imposed a two-year limit on the provision which

would help military families by counting combat pay as income and thereby

qualify for fairer benefits from the earned income tax credit. Sen. Blanche

Lincoln (D-AR), who tried in vain to make the combat pay provision permanent,

expressed her frustration, saying, " They are willing to make the ultimate

sacrifice ... there's no reason we can't give them and their families the

certainty they deserve that this provision will be there for them. "

 

BIG BUSINESS BONANZA: At the same time the tax legislation saved a few pennies

by cutting benefits for the poor and for military families, Congress " added

about $13 billion worth of business tax breaks " to the bill. Not that some of

these companies need any more help from the federal government; according to a

new study by the watchdog group Citizens for Tax Justice, eighty-two of

America's largest and most profitable corporations paid no federal income tax in

at least one year during the first three years of the George W. Bush

administration - a period when federal corporate tax collections fell to their

lowest sustained level in six decades. " Under the current 35 percent tax rate,

these corporations were responsible for $35.6 billion in income taxes. However,

these companies - including powerhouses like Boeing, ITT and Pepco - generated

" so many excess tax breaks that they received outright tax rebate checks from

the U.S. Treasury, totaling $12.6 billion. " (Instead of cracking down on wealthy

tax dodgers, President Bush shrugs it off, saying, " we've heard the rhetoric

before, 'tax the rich.' The rich hire lawyers and accountants so that the middle

class gets stuck with the bill. " )