Ted,, In addition, earlier in the article, he states that the tax analyzers are career civil service, can not be fired, do not like Bush and therefore will not give Bush the ammo he needs to defend his tax cut proposal. He then digresses to the discussion centering on the OTA.<<<<<<<<
Taz analyzers are civil service and can not be fired for political reasons. Judges have already ruled that. He did not say they don't like Bush. What he said is that the OTA works under a strange set of rules which skew the presumptions of tax liability towards the rich. Assuming the rich die every yr, is ridiculous. To say most rich pay any estate at all when they do die is ridiculous. Frankly, I am not that keen on eliminating it, but it only contributes 1% to our tax rolls, and isn't that big of a deal. To include any gains from capital gains because of inflation as income is totally misleading. In order to get figures out of the OTA, the Bush administration needs to appoint a first class economist who will put out figures which are honest. You don't need to fire the workers who are there. You just need to change the formulas the OTA uses so the results conform to reality. You also need to realize, the estate tax elimination is not part of the income tax reduction, because estate taxes are not income taxes but rather a tax on assets. That is how the dems are demonizing the tax cut, by putting the two together and then quoting the 92% figure, when in fact the reduction in income taxes doesn't even come close. |
