Bush's Middle Class Tax Hike

[complain jane]

In the 2006 budget, rolling back massive tax cuts for millionaires is off the table, but the Bush administration has no qualms about raising taxes on average Americans.

A closer look at the administration's 2006 budget shows an economic agenda promoting the wrong choices and wrong priorities. Rolling back massive tax cuts for millionaires is off the table, but the Bush administration has no qualms about raising taxes on average Americans. The budget President Bush submitted to Congress yesterday imposes $5.3 billion in new, regressive taxes. (They are conveniently listed in table 18-3 on page 305 of the Analytic Perspectives supplement to the budget.) The administration's budget contains new taxes that will increase the price of a six-pack of beer, an airline ticket and prescription drugs for veterans. Meanwhile, the budget cuts funding for education, public health and environmental protection and includes $1.4 trillion in new tax cuts for the wealthy. Welcome to Bushonomics. (Sound off on the president's middle-class tax hike on ThinkProgress.org.)

http://www.alternet.org/story/21205/

[ClintonTyree]

1. Time for a tea party...................

as in, Boston.

[Rainbowreflect]

2. Sadly, none of this surprises me.

[indepat]

3. It couldn't happen to a lovier bunch of coconuts

[TexasLawyer]

4. "Bush's Middle Class Tax Hike" (2006 budget)

It looks as if there are all sorts of fantasy revenue and real tax increases hiding in the 2006 budget.


Bush's Middle Class Tax Hike
The Progress Report
Posted on February 8, 2005, Printed on February 8, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/21205/

A closer look at the administration's 2006 budget shows an economic agenda promoting the wrong choices and wrong priorities. Rolling back massive tax cuts for millionaires is off the table, but the Bush administration has no qualms about raising taxes on average Americans. The budget President Bush submitted to Congress yesterday imposes $5.3 billion in new, regressive taxes. (They are conveniently listed in table 18-3 on page 305 of the Analytic Perspectives supplement to the budget.) The administration's budget contains new taxes that will increase the price of a six-pack of beer, an airline ticket and prescription drugs for veterans. Meanwhile, the budget cuts funding for education, public health and environmental protection and includes $1.4 trillion in new tax cuts for the wealthy. Welcome to Bushonomics. (Sound off on the president's middle-class tax hike on ThinkProgress.org.)

No matter which way you slice it, the administration's budget is egregiously fiscally irresponsible – by its own estimates, it will result in a $390 billion deficit in 2006. Worse, that figure is only arrived at through trickery. The budget includes over a billion dollars in revenue from drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), even though Congress hasn't authorized such drilling and has rejected President Bush's proposal to open ANWR to oil exploration for the last four years. Budget Director Josh Bolten defended the move, claiming, "the budget is the right place to present the entirety of the president's policies, so all of his proposals are reflected in there." Really? The Bush budget excludes all funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the administration's $2 trillion Social Security package.

During the Bush administration, more and more Americans are struggling. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities sums it up: "The number of poor went up for the third straight year in 2003, the share of total income that goes to the bottom two-fifths of households has fallen to one of its lowest levels since the end of World War II, and the number of people lacking health insurance rose to 45 million in 2003, the highest level on record."

Yet the Bush administration is cutting programs that help people get back on their feet. For example, the administration's budget proposes "a five-year freeze on child care funding that ... will result in cutting the number of low-income children receiving child care assistance by 300,000 in 2009." The Bush budget also cuts $45 billion from Medicaid, the program that provides basic health coverage to the poor.

<snip>

http://www.alternet.org/story/21205/

[Tux]

5. Must be stopped

By all that is good in this world, this "budget" must be stopped.

[cattleman22]

6. How is that a middle class tax hike only?

Seems to me that beer and airline tickets are purchased only by people who choose to consume those goods or services. The people who choose to consume those goods and services can be from any economic "class" within society.