If anyone thinks the Bush tax cuts have spurred economic growth, I
have a low-tax investment in a bridge to Brooklyn.
From The Washington Post, 1/14/04:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14515-2004Jan13.html
Good for Investors, Bad for the Rest
By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, January 14, 2004; Page A19
If you work for a living in George W. Bush's America, you're a sap.
Take a quick look, or a long one, at the tax code as Bush has altered
it during his three years as president, and you're compelled to
conclude that work has become a distinctly inferior kind of income
acquisition in the eyes of the law.
Bush tax policy rewards investment and inheritance.
Relying on work for your income, by contrast, turns you into a
second-class citizen.
In his first round of tax cuts in 2001, Bush got Congress to phase out
the estate tax by 2010.
Last year, with Republicans in control on Capitol Hill, he reduced the
top tax rate on dividends from 39.6 percent to 15 percent, and brought
the capital gains tax rate down from 20 percent to 15 percent as well.
This year, his new budget proposes that families be allowed to shield
as much as $30,000 yearly on their investment income, which will
abolish all remaining taxes on such income.
Meanwhile, the income tax cuts to most middle-class families don't
exceed a couple of hundred dollars, and payroll taxes for employees
remain untouched.
In part, this devaluing of work is simply an expression of Bush family
values.
As Kevin Phillips points out in his new biography of the Bush dynasty,
the Bushes don't do anything so vulgar as going into professions.
Rather, the clan lives by its connections.
For George W. and his brothers, work has meant riffling through
Pappy's Rolodex.
Theirs is the cronyest form of capitalism.
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Harry
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