Blinded by the right

[teach1st]

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/02/01/Columns/Blinded_by_the_right.shtml

Robyn E. Blumner, St. Petersburg Times, 2/1

My brother put the figure at $250,000 a year. If his income ever reached that level, he conjectured, it would be in his interest to vote Republican. On CNN's Crossfire, former NBA power forward Charles Barkley said he once joked with his grandmother about party affiliation. He asked her, "Why are we Democrats?" and when she responded that Republicans are only for the rich, he shot back: "I'm rich."

Since the Gilded Age, the Republican Party has been known as the party of wealth, and under President George W. Bush it is more aggressive than ever in serving the interests of the monied classes. Bush may use his State of the Union address to sell Congress on making his tax cuts permanent by crying crocodile tears for the "millions of families" that would lose a $300-per-child tax savings, but the populist rhetoric is cover for real beneficiaries of Bush's tax relief: people for whom $300 is a nice Christmas tip for the parking attendant at the club.

When tax cuts eliminate estate taxes on multimillion-dollar inheritances, reduce capital gains and dividend taxes and provide an average of $51,000 in income tax savings in 2003 alone for the nation's top 1 percent of earners, $300-per-child is nothing more than a pathetic bone tossed to the middle class so they will ignore how a starved federal Treasury is bleeding red ink.

When Bush is long gone, we'll wake to an America where grandma gets kicked out of the nursing home because Medicaid can no longer pay; Suzy can't afford college because Pell grants and loan guarantees have evaporated; the national parks cost as much to enter as Disney World; and Medicare doesn't have the funds for any "care" at all.

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[Racenut20]

1. $300

The middle class never got the (actually) $400 additional child tax credit. It was SOME of the poor people, but there was a big gap in the middle of the income range. And it was only an advance paid out in the summer against the 2003 tax return. It has to be claimed back and reduce the current codes $1000 credit.

The middle class did get the marriage tax penalty deduction, which was also passed in the "great" Reagan tax package, then repealed because it was too costly to government revenues by 1986.

Most of the Reagan tax package for ordinary working families was repealed once the Republicans gained control of the Senate.

Income averaging
Marriage tax equalization
A longer depreciation schedule that helped create the building boon, and then was shortened again and caused the Savings and Loan Crisis.

[reprehensor]

4. If you make...

...less than 150,000 a year, and you vote Republican, it's like the chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.

[cryofan]

2. nothing quite like laying it on the line

the progressive tax system is what civilization is all about

[roughsatori]

3. thanks for posting : kick NT