NYT: Bush Tax Cuts Offer Most for Very Rich, Study Finds

[DeepModem Mom]

Bush Tax Cuts Offer Most for Very Rich, Study Finds
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: January 8, 2007

WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 — Families earning more than $1 million a year saw their federal tax rates drop more sharply than any group in the country as a result of President Bush’s tax cuts, according to a new Congressional study.

Skip to next paragraph The study, by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, also shows that tax rates for middle-income earners edged up in 2004, the most recent year for which data was available, while rates for people at the very top continued to decline.

Based on an exhaustive analysis of tax records and census data, the study reinforced the sense that while Mr. Bush’s tax cuts reduced rates for people at every income level, they offered the biggest benefits by far to people at the very top — especially the top 1 percent of income earners.

Though tax cuts for the rich were bigger than those for other groups, the wealthiest families paid a bigger share of total taxes. That is because their incomes have climbed far more rapidly, and the gap between rich and poor has widened in the last several years.

The study offers ammunition to supporters and opponents of Mr. Bush’s tax cuts, which are all but certain to touch off a battle between the president and the Democrats who just took control of Congress....

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/08/washington/08tax.html

[Erika]

1. Paris Hilton got a tax cut

While VA benefits were cut. W sure knows his priorities.

[Straight Shooter]

2. I'm going to file this under "Tell me something I don't know."

Hello, New York Times? You could have found some very convincing evidence years ago that the tax cuts were designed to help the very wealthy and no one else. You know who I'm talking about, the haves and the have mores.

[LynnTheDem]

3. OH MY FAWKING GAWD!!!

I am so freakin' Surprised.

Ok, I'm not.

[Eurobabe]

4. No shit Sherlock (Duh NY Times!)

[Nite Owl]

5. This needed a study? n/t

[Diane R]

6. So, they're just now figuring this out?

[Maeve]

7. No, they just now feel safe enough to report it. eom

[sofa king]

8. And they did it in the middle of a war.

Which I think should be all the justification needed for an Excess Profits Tax, setting a profit ceiling of $250,000 a year on all Americans until the "War on Terror" is won. All excess profit is the property of the federal government.

And if you really want to make it fair, make it retroactive to the year 2001.

[HughBeaumont]

9. In other news, President Lincoln was shot.

The Titanic sunk, Hitler's gone the way of the dodo and Ronald Reaganomics once again proves to fail the middle class.

This has been The Painfully Obvious News Channel, I'm Rock Harders.

Oh doo-dah-ay!

[gratuitous]

10. So, when Bush talks about "sacrifice" this week

We'll know who he's not talking to.

[ryanmuegge]

11. Where the fuck was this coverage in the mainstream during 2000/2001?

Especially during the 2000 campaigns, when all of the fucking idiots who were running were slithering around touting the financial wizardry fake budget surplus (actually, a Social Security surplus) and advocating cutting taxes.