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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (149184)	10/26/2004 6:47:15 PM
From: michael97123	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

"Political sound bites don't allow for a detailed explanation of exactly what Bush meant by "Most of the tax cuts went to low- and middle-income Americans". " Those low and middle class folks will sure find out soon enough if kerry is elected president. But apart from all the ways of figuring the burdens, it still strikes me as amazing that some economists can maintain that 41% tax rates in recessionary or slow growth times is good tax policy. Hell it only worked in the clinton years because it was used as a piece of bread to slop up all the gravy in boom times. And then there is the dividend tax increase which prevents double taxation and certainly the 85% exclusion is pro-growth. Mike

To: TimF who wrote (149184)	10/27/2004 1:30:26 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Tim, Thanks for your sincere effort to explain this. Here is my take: >> 1 - Each person who pays less taxes has a tax cut. By that measure Bush's statement is true. Sorry, this does not compute. He did not say that most of the people benefiting from his tax cuts were middle and lower income. It is quite obvious that most people are not rich. So using your interpretation of the above, Bush could (hypothetically) give $1 tax cut to bottom 60% and a $10,000 tax cut to the rest and still make the same claim...so no go. >> 2 - Measure by the biggest percentage of federal income tax decrease. This is the only normal interpretation of his statement. We are talking about the actual tax cut and not how many people it applied to (see above). I bet you that if you put his statement in front of 10 people without a context for this, at least 8 of them will interpret it as such. ST