Okay, quick tell me whether or not the Bush tax cuts were "tax cuts for the wealthy"? If you have only been reading the media for the last decade, your answer to that question is probably "yes". For year after year, we heard that the tax cuts passed early in the Bush presidency were a boondoggle for the rich.
Of course, when the cuts were expiring at the end of 2010, we saw the actual facts. Had the Bush tax cuts been allowed to expire, there would have been about 4 trillion dollars in additional tax revenue coming into the Treasury according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Of that amount, fully 80% would have been gained from increases on those who were not wealthy, but middle class. The wealthy only got 20% of the benefits even though they pay at least twice that percentage of the taxes. simply put, the Bush tax cuts were a major benefit to middleclass Americans and not a gift to the wealthy.
Despite the actual facts, the media is back with the "tax cuts for the rich" attack that has been the basis of most of its discussion of Republican economic ideas for the last decade. Al Hunt, Washington editor of Bloomberg News, is out today with a report discussing how the GOP is back pushing 'trickle down" economics, a system where the wealthy get benefits in the hope that some trickles down to the middle class. It is truly amazing to see this major dishonesty coming from someone who heads all reporting out of Washington for a major news service. Unfortunately, I suspect that we will soon see much more of these lies.
No comments:
Post a Comment