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You middle class? Well, Bush wants you to pay a higher share of taxes, and his super-wealthy buddies to pay a lower one
Three successive tax cuts pushed by President Bush will leave middle-income taxpayers paying a greater share of all federal taxes by the end of the decade, according to new analyses of the Bush administration's tax policies.As critics of the tax cuts in 2001, 2002 and 2003 have noted, the very wealthiest Americans -- those earning $337,000 or more per year -- will be the greatest beneficiaries of the changes in the nation's tax laws. And, as administration officials have argued, low-income taxpayers will also enjoy a disproportionately lighter tax burden.
First, some caveats. The range of those paying more is pretty wide - 28,000 to 337,000. Obviously, the top end of that is not really middle class. Frankly, the bottom end of that is not really middle class, at least in most places in the country.
What Bush appears to generate is a bell curve, with the poor end of the bell curve slightly higher than the rich end.
Citizens for Tax Justice found that for the lowest fifth of taxpayers -- those earning below $16,000 -- federal taxes would fall 10 percent between now and 2010, while federal taxes for those in the second quintile -- earning between $16,000 to $28,000 -- would fall 12 percent. At the other end of the scale, the decline for the top 1 percent of taxpayers -- those making $337,000 and up -- would be 15 percent.In contrast, for taxpayers earning between $45,000 and $337,000, the decline would be 7 percent, less than half the cut reaped by the very wealthy
Keep in mind, though, that the top end benefit greatly from living in America. Bush doesn't want them to pay for those privileges - but he doesn't mind making the middle class pick up the difference. Bush is reducing the requirement that citizens who earn their income form something other than labor - i.e. working at a job everyday - pay for the benefits they receive. Considering how much those people benefit from having a strong, stable country, that seems a lot like freeloading.
To be completely fair, Kevin's statement that Bush "wants you to pay more taxes" isn't entirely accurate. Under Bush's tax plan, everyone will pay less taxes than before, because less total tax revenue would be collected. What the article says is that, in effect, the middle class will pay a larger portion of that new, lower total.
Of course, the cut is still unfair, but Kevin's wording is misleading about the way in which it is unfair. The bottom line is that yes, the middle class gets a tax cut, too, but their cut is much smaller than the cut received by those on the ends of the spectrum.
Of course, nobody ever likes to mention that if you just cut the bottom tax bracket and nothing else, everyone who pays taxes, including the wealthiest Americans, still gets a cut.
Last point: be careful about lumping "the rich" together in a group and labelling the freeloaders. There are lots of very rich people (Warren Buffett, most notably), who adamantly opposed this cut.
Posted by: Tom"wants you to pay more taxes" isn't entirely accurate. Under Bush's tax plan, everyone will pay less taxes than before.
1) everyone wont pay fewer taxes. This is just an income tax cut, so the working poor will not all pay less. And it does not fix the ATM problem, so some small number of people in the middle class will pay substantially more.
2)I thought the context made it clear that I was talking in relative terms, but I cleaned it up.
Posted by: kevinOh, if you reread the last paragraph, you will see that your point about lumping people is off bases. I am talking about Bush and his supporter's intention.
Posted by: kevin
