The Poor Held Hostage for Tax Cuts
Editorial
The New York Times
June 5, 2003
Millions of low-income families were cruelly denied
child credits in the administration's latest detaxation victory. Now, with consummate
arrogance, Republican leaders in Congress are threatening another
irresponsible tax-cut bidding war as the price for repairing the damage.
"There are a lot of other things that are more important than that,"
said Tom DeLay, the House Republican majority leader, signaling that revisiting
the child-care issue will open the door to even worse deficit-feeding tax-cut plans.
Mr. DeLay at least offered unabashed candor instead of the
crocodile tears of other Republicans. They are now embarrassed
over the furor that low-income families were deleted in the final G.O.P. deal on the
tax-cut boon weighted so shamelessly last month to favor the wealthiest Americans.
There is a clear and sensible solution to restore the $400
child-credit increase to the working poor in a Senate proposal from Blanche Lincoln,
Democrat of Arkansas, and Olympia Snowe, Republican of Maine.
Their measure, which would cost $3.5 billion and help nearly 12 million children,
would be paid for by eliminating some of the tax-shelter abuses
that fed the Enron scandal.
Republicans are scrambling for political cover now, fearing the
wrath of the mythic soccer-mom voting bloc next year. But the rival child-care
solution being offered by Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa
and the finance chairman, introduces a whole new scale of irresponsibility to
the tax-cut games. This would expand the credit to 6.5 million
low-income households, although not to minimum-wage earners of less than $10,500
a year. But at the same time, the upper-bracket limit would be generously,
gratuitously raised another $40,000 to benefit families earning up to
$189,000, hardly the neediest among us. Plus the credits would
be made permanent instead of temporary, as currently enacted.
This makes it a $100-billion-plus budget-busting measure lacking
the cost offsets of the sane and prudent Lincoln-Snowe approach. The fiction of
Republican leaders' promises to contain the deficit damage of their
tax cuts is becoming clearer with each wad of debt rolled onto future
generations.
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