I was browsing the web when I came across some reactions to the Bush tax cuts from two cover stories in Sojourner’s Magazine from April 2005. They describe the Bush tax cuts, their motivation and effects. The first is entitled “If I Were A Rich Man… The elite few benevit from the Bush tax agenda. The rest of us get stuck with the bill,” by David Kay Johnston.
You can sign in and read them for free at the magazine's webpage http://www.sojo.net/...
An excerpt from the first:
George W. Bush’s first tax cut was so heavily tilted towards the rich that more than half of the benefits in the first decade went to the top 1 percent of Americans, those making more than about $300,000 annually. Even within that group the tax relief was highly concentrated in the top tenth of one percent - households with an income of $3 million or more annually. Go out beyond the first 10 years and the benefits to the super rich grow much more.
Rather than a progressive tax structure with the highest rates paid by those at the top, we have a bubble structure in which the upper middle class and the modestly rich pay more so that the super rich can pay less. And two-thirds of Americans pay more in Social Security taxes than in income taxes. If you consider the combined burden of Social Security and income taxes, people who made from $60,000 to $10 million paid a larger share of their money to the federal government than those making $10 million or more.
The second story is, “Reform, Reduce, Destroy, For political strategist Grover Norquist, tax policy is just a means to a brutish end.
” by Duane Shank. A quote from that article:
Norquist is not ashamed to discuss his main political strategy. In May 2003 he was quoted in The Denver Post as saying, "We are trying to change the tones in the state capitals—and turn them toward bitter nastiness and partisanship."
Looking at Capitol Hill, it’s easy to see the same strategy at work. Another long-term goal sometimes named by Norquist’s camp is that of driving moderates of both parties out of office, which they believe will help build the power and reach of a more conservative Republican party for decades to come.
It is all coming to pass as planned unless it can be stopped.