Kerry pledges to Support Middle Class Families, Not Raise Their Taxes

[flpoljunkie]

http://www.johnkerry.com/news/releases/pr_2003_0909b.html



John Kerry Pledges to Support Middle Class Families, Not Raise Their Taxes

Child Tax Credit Makes A Difference for Working Americans

Baltimore, MD -

Presidential candidate John Kerry today visited the Downtown Baltimore Children’s Center to talk about his support for the middle-class tax cuts like  the child tax credit that are right for hardworking families and right for America.  Today, John Kerry pledged to help families with children who are struggling to make ends meet, by fully protecting expansions of the child tax credit and the child care credit.  Kerry also underscored his commitment to expanding access to health care coverage to all children and improving early childhood education.
 
John Kerry said, “If I am President, I will rollback the Bush tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans so we can invest in education, health care, and the skills of our workers.  But I want to give the middle class a tax cut, not a tax increase.  Too many middle class people are getting pummeled everywhere they turn – more bills to pay, a higher cost of living.   And for all of this President’s talk about tax cuts, middle class families have seen their share of the tax burden go up, not down.   Some in my party want to balance the budget on the backs of the middle class. This would hurt those who most deserve our help.  After they’ve had to deal with George Bush, the last thing middle class people deserve is a President making it even harder for them to make ends meet.  I’m for a tax cut for the middle class.” 
 


 

[Kolesar]

1. If I am elected President, I will buy everybody a new car!

You won't have to give up your color TVs, vacations, or new cars if you are a parent. Who says you can't have it all? /sarcasm

I don't think that middle class Americans are those who most deserve "our" help, it is the poor, the infirm and the elderly who need help.

[ComerPerro]

3. Can the talk, I want my new car, dammit!!

Can I have a green one?

[Larkspur]

2. I'm a hardworking family of 1 without children and Kerry's plan doesn't

help me. His proposal does nothing to alleviate my property and state taxes from rising. Bush's tax cut, I did not get. I'd rather have the tax rates back to prior to Bush's tax cuts so that Social Security can be strengthened as well as states and localities get needed funds so that they can lower their taxes.

[sangh0]

4. Not entirely true

Kerry's tax proposal WILL help reduce your property and state taxes by:

1) Providing a Healthy and growing economy. Your state will benefit from that as well as the federal govt.

2) By eliminating tax cuts for the rich, it will reduce the deficit, which will

a) enable additional federal help for states
b) lower interest rates, which helps the states when they borrow.

[Kolesar]

5. The "flat taxers" wanted a $10,000/child deduction

"Enough to pay the annual expenses of raising your child" or some other such astronomical deduction. This would make it so that breeders would have to pay zero income taxes for the glorious years that they they are raising future Americans. This all had a pathetic pro-family message inside of the insidious plot. I object (!).

[Kolesar]

6. Senator Kerry's proposal, as stated in Maryland

(1) PROTECTING MIDDLE-CLASS TAX CUTS TO HELP CHILDREN

Keep the Full Child Tax Credit: Raising children costs a lot these days and many working families are struggling to make ends meet. The child tax credit provides benefits to 521,000 Maryland households and John Kerry believes we should keep it that way. He fought for this provision in the 2001 tax cut and worked to make the credit partially refundable. Kerry supported a further expansion of the child tax credit that could have provided benefits to an additional 114,000 children in Maryland, but the proposal was cut out by Bush and the House Republicans in a midnight deal.
Don’t Reinstate the Marriage Penalty: John Kerry will not repeal the accelerated reduction of the marriage penalty, which benefits 552,000 married couples in Maryland.
Accelerate the 10-Percent Bracket Expansion: John Kerry will not repeal the expansion of the 10-percent bracket. This expansion benefits 1,459,000 married couples and single tax filers in Maryland.

Per the IRS: "The Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 increased the maximum child tax credit for 2003 to $1,000 per child, up from $600 for tax year 2002. " --a 67% increase, but certainly not astronomical

Now back to Mr. Kerry's release. Here is another part we are all "interested in" . It is actually a credit for those who pay for adult and child day care:
Expand the Dependent Care Tax Credit (DCTC): The DCTC assists families in meeting the costs of child and adult dependent care by allowing taxpayers to offset a portion of their employment-related child and dependent care expenses. The new law increases the limits on qualifying expenses for determining the credit from the current $2,400 to $3,000 for one child or dependent and from $4,800 to $6,000 for two or more children or dependents. The new law increases the qualifying expenses from the current 30 percent of expenses to 35 percent. The credit will increase by up to $804 for families with two or more children or dependents ($402 for families with one child or dependent).