While I've seen the DC democrats trying to make the point about how the Bush tax cuts only benefit the rich I think they are doing a very poor job of it. Here is the stat I repeatedly see:
The Senate tax cuts will save an American earning $1 million a year about $42,000. An American earning between $40,000 and $50,000 will save around $47.
And when I see that stat I know that there are a lot of people (i've heard it many times), that will say, "well of course a millionaire gets more with these tax cuts...they MAKE more!!" and then the person saying that will give you a look like you are some kind of idiot. This person usually isn't a millionaire themselves and one of the main reasons is probably there inability to do simple math. If these current tax cuts weren't heavily in favor of the rich than the refunds should be proportional. Let's do the math.
$47/$40,000= 0.1175% of your $40,000 equals your tax refund that Bush and the Republicans just gave you.
$42,000/$1,000,000= 4.2% of your $1,000,000 equals your tax refund that Bush and the Republicans just gave you.
If the Democrats can't get this point across they really don't deserve to win. Perhaps they could show what the tax cut would be for someone making $40K a year if they got the same rate cut as the millionaires? How does a $1,680 tax cut sound? There has to be some better way to show how unequal these tax cuts are...or am I missing something obvious about how people think? If we can't convince anyone making less that $150K a year that they are getting screwed by the Bush Republicans...what is it going to take? People care about money. They are upset about gas prices. These tax cuts are a lot worse than the gas prices.