Who's Paying for the Bush Tax Cuts?

Tax Policy Center

Check out this nice report from the Tax Policy Center: Distributional Effects of the 2001 and 2003 Tax Cuts and Their Financing.

It's not as wonkish as the title suggests. It considers two ways that the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 could have been financed (besides the heavy borrowing of this Republican government, which will only delay and aggravate the effects of this analysis).

One is by assuming that every household pays an equal amount in lost benefits and/or other taxes to finance the tax cuts. The second assumes that all households pay an equal percentage of household income (2.6%) to finance the cuts.

The results? Far more households lose more than they gain from the Bush tax cuts. The "equal money" scenario is especially brutal to the poor and middle class households, but both clearly favor the richer households on the spectrum.

Bush's borrow-and-spend policies are masking the true effects of the ruinous effect of his tax cuts for America, but the piper will have to be paid one day. It's time to get some grownups back in charge in Washington.