Editorial:
richer, The rich get
The rich get richer n recent weeks the stalled economy has brought renewed attention to the White House's fiscal record and plans for the future. For the third straight year the number of people...
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...The president's numbers just do not add up...
...The Congressional Budget Office projects this year's federal deficit at $422 billion...
...Yet Bush's reliance on tax cuts to solve every problem is not just bad public policy, it is bad economics...
...Still, as the chaos in Iraq demonstrates, voters should be wary when this president justifies his actions with high-sounding and unfalsifiable arguments...
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...In light of these troubling statistics, it is little wonder that people on both the right and left are anxious about our economic future...
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...and capital and labor carry their fair share...
...But the Bush team has also done a remarkable job of keeping under wraps the long-term consequences of what the New York Times's Daniel Altman calls the "neoconomy...
...Bush's flirtation with the idea of a flat tax would take the nation in the same direction...
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...This represents an enormous tax shelter for those with excess income but will do little for the average American...
...Like many of Bush's tax initiatives, these proposals will make it easier for the wealthy to hold onto their money and harder for the poor and middle class to accumulate any...
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...Some experts predict that Social Security could run out of money as early as 2031...
...According to a recent report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Bush's 2005 budget proposes long-term cuts in funding for housing, education, job training, and health-care programs...
...The Bush team seems to be counting on the fact that tax law and economic policy are esoteric topics that the average voter knows little about...
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...Unlike the upheaval in foreign policy, the neoconomists' revolution is certainly not being televised," Altman writes in Neoconomy (PublicAffairs...
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...But voters should be able to tell, as Ronald Reagan memorably put it, if they are better off now than they were four years ago...
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...The likely consequences of Bush's economic and tax policy are clear enough, even if underreported...
...But the Bush team is interested in the ideology of tax cuts, not the economic facts...
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...The fact that the war in Iraq has dominated political debate is one reason the administration's radical economic agenda hasn't galvanized public resistance...
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...The real problem with the tax-free savings accounts—and the Bush tax plan in general—is that it merely passes on the costs to future generations...
...Not only will the tax cuts fail as economic stimulus, they will have a devastating effect on government programs like Social Security...
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...When asked, he assures voters that his tax cuts will spur the economy and thereby increase federal tax revenue, thus reducing the deficit...
...The White House believes that more money in the hands of investors means more economic stimulus...
...Eliminating taxes on savings and investment, as the Bush administration seems determined to do, will disproportionately shift the tax burden to the shoulders of the average wage earner...
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...Eliminating them will drive the nation further into debt and have a permanent effect on government programs...
...Columnist portraits: Elaine Mills www.commonwealmagazine.org Commonweal 5 October 8, 2004 to a new "ownership society...
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...The plan would allow individuals to place $7,500 each year in such ac-counts...
...By pushing through the largest tax breaks since the Reagan years, Bush has done more than any modern president to widen the disparity between rich and poor...
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...George W. Bush will be the first president since the Depression to preside over a net loss in jobs during his term...
...Since the person-al income tax was introduced," Cassidy wrote, "it has been based on two principles: the burden of taxation is distributed according to the ability to pay...
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...The president has deflected criticism of his economic stewardship by focusing tirelessly on the war in Iraq...
...The willingness of Congressional Democrats facing election to vote to extend some of those tax cuts last month was disgraceful...
...For the third straight year the number of people living below the poverty line has increased, as has the number of Americans without health insurance...
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...Recently Bush has tried to sell his economic policy by touting it as the means I STAFF Editor: Paul Baumann Managing Editor: Patrick Jordan Associate Editors: Daria Donnelly (At Large) Grant Gallicho Maurice Timothy Reidy Production Editor & Webmaster: Tiina Aleman Business Manager: Sandra J. Taylor Development: Mary Lundy Semela Copy Editor: Susanne Washburn Poetry: Rosemary Deen, Daria Donnelly Screen: Rand Richards Cooper, Richard Alleva Stage/Media: Celia Wren Columnists: E. J. Dionne Jr., John Garvey, Andrew Lustig, Jo McGowan, William Pfaff Circulation Manager: Malena Seldin Administrative Assistant: Quanda Williams Advertising Manager: Roth Advertising Commonweal, [ISSN 0010-3330] A Review of Public Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is published biweekly except Christmas/New Year...
...A recent study conducted by economists Karen E. Dynan of the Federal Reserve, Jonathan Skinner of Dart-mouth College, and Stephen P. Zeldes of Columbia University indicates that the wealthy tend to save at significantly higher rates than the middle class, contradicting the Republican mantra that the money earned by the rich will eventually "trickle down...
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...If Bush's tax cuts remain in place for ten years, the projected deficit will reach $2.3 trillion...
...One of the most important parts of a reform agenda is to encourage people to own some-thing," a Bush campaign ad announces...
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...John Cassidy made a similar argument in the New Yorker (September 6), emphasizing that the Bush administration's goal is to undermine the very idea of progressive taxation, by which those who benefit most from America's economic abundance have a proportionate responsibility to provide for the commonweal...
...Redistributing the nation's wealth upward is not something the Re-publicans are eager to advertise to anyone but the wealthy...
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...As with many of the president's platitudes about building freedom and democracy in Iraq, the benefits of "ownership" are impossible to dispute in the abstract...
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...Bush's radical tax agenda and its consequences were laid out in these pages by Charles R. Morris ("Economic Inequality for Most," August 13...
...Taxes on investment are a huge source of government income...
...Further-more, without drastic cuts in government programs, this windfall for investors will result in even larger deficits and eventually increased taxes on those who can afford them least...
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...Yet Bush's "ownership society" entails the rollback of taxes on such investments, even though a recent study finds the richest 1 percent of Americans earn almost half of their income from savings and investment instruments...
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...During the Bush administration, the United States has lost roughly 1.8 million jobs...
...The Bush administration appears set on undermining both of these principles...
...Yet there is compelling evidence to suggest that tax cuts aimed at the middle and working classes, who are likely to spend their money on necessities, are more effective in stimulating the economy...
Vol. 131 • October 2004 • No. 17
