So if one person gets an $88K tax cut and 99 people get a $121 tax cut is that really an average tax cut of $1000 or is it the usual fool the gullible numbers game (Currently being played on both sides of the aisle and in several offices around Wall Street)

Administration’s Use of “Average” Tax Cut Figures Creates Misleading Impression

Courtesy of The Center ofBudget and Policy Priorities

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities seems to be suggesting that the Bush administration is intentionally creating a misleading impression by asserting that "92 million taxpayers would receive, on average, a tax cut of $1,083 in 2003". Perish the thought!

Why, the middle fifth of the population would be receiving $265 - that's more than 25% of the figure the Administration is citing for the average taxpayer. Eminently generous, if you ask me. And less than half of all tax filers (a paltry 49%) would receive tax cuts of less than $100 - and they're just a bunch of minority whiners. On the other hand, the top 1% of tax filers would only receive a tax cut of $24,400 and those with incomes of more than $1 million would merely get cuts of $88,900. With the bottom 80% receiving an average of $239, an advertised average of $1,083 strikes me as being eminently straightforward.

Charges of "misleading" are way out of line. Really - what's a difference of $88,661 to the average taxpayer (or, at least, the average taxpayer that makes interesting campaign contributions)?

Bush's tax cuts will accomplish nothing except what he set out to do in the first place, which is to help the wealthy retain more of their wealth. It does nothing to promote consumer spending, which is what in reality, drives business investment and production. This is nothing but good old-fashioned trickle-down economics. It already failed once, but I guess we have to go another round with it to really prove that it doesn't work. Someday, hopefully soon, people will wake up and smell the coffee.

Are you kidding me? Trickledown most certainly worked...oh, I forgot you read from the DNC history books...perish the thought.

Wertz, and anyone else out there, how the hell can you give a tax break to someone who doesn't pay taxes? This is the reason we should have a flat tax on consumption. End of story, simple and fair.

I'm sorry, I have a hard time telling people what to do or how much money you can have like the DNC does. I guese that makes me a bad person.

Back to lurking,
Darcaine

And which history books are you reading? Is Henry Hyde an historian now?


Who's talking about people who don't pay taxes? Did I mention anyone who doesn't pay taxes? Did the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities mention anyone who doesn't pay taxes? Did Eeyore? Did "anyone else out there"?


Okay... no telling anyone what to do. So you're advocating what, Darcaine - total anarchy? But wait: "We should have a flat tax on consumption. and "I have a hard time telling people what to do" Do these statements strike "anyone else out" there as, how you say, contradictory? Oh, the disadvantages of binary thinking!

The New York Times estimated that a family earning $1 million a year will see a tax reduction of $24,000.00. A family earning $40-50 thousand is expected to see a tax reduction $76.00 per year. Less that one half of one percent.

I read that the 2002 Christmas retail season was the worst in thirty years. Does Bush really think that another $76.00 is going to make the 2003 season better? They probably don't realize or care that there that millionaires won't spend their $24,000.00 on gifts to make a difference in the economy.

Madtown

There's allot of dissent on Bush's plan, even amongst the GOP. At least 5 key GOP Senators have now come out and said they won't support Bush's bill, citing that it is too big, and too heavy. See The full story.

Darcaine: Please cite one example of how trickle-down economics helped the economy. As I recall, about all it did was trigger massive budget deficits, and a recession in the early 90's that was very slow to come to an end. In fact, it didn't end until Clinton came into the picture and moved us away from trickle-down economics.

Also, if you could tell me where I can get copies of these "DNC History Books", I would really appreciate it... I've never heard of such a thing.

It seems to me that whether or not this tax cut will help the economy depends on how much of it will be spent. So does really anyone know which is better?

Tax-breaks to the less than wealthy, limited in size but more likely to be spent.

or

Tax-breaks to the wealthy, much larger in size, but limited in how much the rich are likely to spend?

I think Hoover successfully used trickle down theory and corporate welfare to soldify the successful Great Depression.

We already give tax breaks to people who end up receiving money and not paying any taxes. Unless you want to call it paying negative taxes. It is called an earned income credit I believe.

It really surprised me the first time I helped someone get a three thousand dollar refund when they had paid in less than half of that during the year.
On the other hand it got put pack into the economy very quickly and it wasn't used to pay off existing debt.