Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Johannes Pilch who wrote (505401)	12/7/2003 3:22:08 PM
From: JBTFD	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

<<I agree with them and wish them well as they seek to destroy their enemies. >> In this case their employees who wish to join a union. Do you know that Wal Mart full time pay is less than poverty income? Your real stripes are showing. Someone the other day said that republican concern is an oxymoron. I can see what he meant.

To: Johannes Pilch who wrote (505401)	12/7/2003 5:09:53 PM
From: JBTFD	Respond to of 769670

re: the check: "8. "My plan unlocks the door to the middle class of millions of hard-working Americans." All the available slots of this top-ten list could be filled by statements Bush made to sell his tax cuts at various points—on the campaign trail, in 2001 (for the first major tax-cuts battle), and in 2003 (for the second major tax-cuts battle). But I chose an assertion from 2001 that echoed statements from the campaign trail, that would be reprised in 2003, and that represented the best-sounding argument for his tax cuts. Bush frequently claimed his tax cuts would help low- and middle-income Americans, and in 2000 and 2001 he often spoke of a mythical single-mom waitress, making $22,000 or so, who would be guided into the middle-class by his tax cuts. The point was to make it seem as if he truly cared for hard-pressed Americans and that his tax cuts did indeed embody his promise of "compassionate conservatism." (By the way, I am not placing on this list Bush’s claim that he is a "compassionate conservative." That’s a rather relative term more suitable for judgment than truth-based evaluation.) But when the accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche reviewed his tax plan for Time magazine during the 2000 campaign, it found that his beloved waitress would receive no reduction in her taxes. Zippo. In 2001, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that this waitress might gain $200 from Bush’s tax cuts if she managed to pull in $25,000 a year. But such a sum would not place her on the highway to the middle class. In fact, about 12 million low- and moderate-income families received no tax relief from Bush’s 2001 tax cuts (and millions of families were left out of his 2003 package). His plan unlocked few doors. Instead, about 45 percent of the 2001 package was slated to go to the top 1 percent of income earners. In 2003, Citizens for Tax Justice calculated that individuals earning between $16,000 and $29,000 would net about $99 from Bush’s proposed tax cuts. Again, not an amount that would cover the entrance fee for a middle-class life."