I see a lot of people here on Daily Kos remark on the expiration of all the Bush tax cuts as a good thing, for both political and deficit reasons. I'd like to explain why my family needs that relief, and what we did with our tax refund last year.
My family is squarely in the middle class - we are a one income family making around $75,000 a year. Though think tanks and institutes for making charts might place us at the upper end of the middle class, the high cost of living in my state make us a paycheck-to-paycheck family. We have no credit cards, car payments, gambling habits or shopping addictions but every month we still find it hard to free up income for savings, even emergency items. A second income is impossible at this point as we have one young son with Autism, and it's hard to convince an employer to hire someone who has to leave whenever there's a problem at school, plus meetings, meetings, meetings, evaluations, meetings. So there's a basic snapshot of our economic situation.
Last year's tax refund made a world of difference to us. First, we were able to pay off some medical bills that had been hanging over our heads. That's probably about what we would have managed with the previous tax levels, I imagine. But with a larger refund we were able to go out and use our dollars to, you know, stimulate the economy. We were able to buy a new area rug and a couch to replace ones which were, frankly, hazmat zones. I purchased an iPod touch for myself and to use with my Autistic son. My husband was able to replace his failing laptop with a new netbook which helped him at his "working for the man" job as well as giving him a chance to work on his small business, which now has a chance of thriving. I was able to attend a conference on Autism that greatly helped me understand the therapies my son receives, as well as glean some new ideas and solutions to some behavioral issues that have been plaguing us. We were also more able to stop for coffee at the local coffee shop and eat meals out at local restaurants more frequently. And finally, we used some of the money to pad our weekly budget which made it easier to buy healthy food, which led to a 50-pound weight loss on my part which in turn led to better control of a medical issue! This may seem like hyperbole - tax cuts lead to weight loss! but it's pretty hard to eat well when your supermarkets charge you $5 for a head of cauliflower. And no, that's not the pinko Whole Foods price, that's the chain supermarket down the street price.
So while I understand the call for austerity, I also know how these tax cuts helped my family and my local economy, and I hope I've demonstrated that in this diary! And I am fervently hoping that the House and Senate do what I believe is the right thing in this economy and make these cuts permanent, tucked away from the coming presidential political storm. Let families do more than just pay their creditors, let them breathe financially and put that money back into their communities.