Paul Krugman gives the Bush administration a little dose of reality. I mentioned the memo in question last week. (emphasis added)
Beyond the routine mendacity, the case of the leaked memo points us to a larger truth: whatever they may say in public, administration officials know that sustaining Mr. Bush's tax cuts will require large cuts in popular government programs. And for the vast majority of Americans, the losses from these cuts will outweigh any gains from lower taxes.It has long been clear that the Bush administration's claim that it can simultaneously pursue war, large tax cuts and a "compassionate" agenda doesn't add up. Now we have direct confirmation that the White House is engaged in bait and switch, that it intends to pursue a not at all compassionate agenda after this year's election.
This pretty much sums up the last three and a half years. The Bush Administration has said exactly what most people want to hear in an effort to get reelected. Realities be damned! My opinion has been that the tax cuts have been largely wasted for the Middle Class. What's an extra $300 or $600 if you have increases in property taxes, sales taxes, state income taxes, staggering tuition increases, and not much wage growth? In 2000, Bush ran on a campaign that promised "compassionate conservatism." Turns out, he's not much of a conservative at all. It's been a wonder to me just how some Republicans have been able to stomach this for so long.
And it's real hard just to get a handle on the impact the large tax cuts will have in the future. Krugman tries to get a handle on it.
I can't back that assertion with official numbers, because under Mr. Bush the Treasury Department has stopped releasing information on the distribution of tax cuts by income level. Estimates by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, which now provides the numbers the administration doesn't want you to know, reveal why. This year, the average tax reduction per family due to Bush-era cuts was $1,448. But this average reflects huge cuts for a few affluent families, with most families receiving much less (which helps explain why most people, according to polls, don't believe their taxes have been cut). In fact, the 257,000 taxpayers with incomes of more than $1 million received a bigger combined tax cut than the 85 million taxpayers who make up the bottom 60 percent of the population.Still, won't most families gain something? No -- because the tax cuts must eventually be offset with spending cuts.
And just as the Iraq war was billed as a "Rid the world of WMD" campaign, only to turn into the "Liberate Iraq" war, the tax cuts were sold on something that never happened.
Three years ago George Bush claimed that he was cutting taxes to return a budget surplus to the public. Instead, he presided over a move to huge deficits. As a result, the modest tax cuts received by the great majority of Americans are, in a fundamental sense, fraudulent. It's as if someone expected gratitude for giving you a gift, when he actually bought it using your credit card.
I love that last quip. But to give this conversation a nice punch line, Paul adds the following.
The administration has not, of course, explained how it intends to pay the bill. But unless taxes are increased again, the answer will have to be severe program cuts, which will fall mainly on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- because that's where the bulk of the money is....
Does Mr. Bush understand that the end result of his policies will be to make most Americans worse off, while enriching the already affluent? Who knows? But the ideologues and political operatives behind his agenda know exactly what they're doing.
This has been their M.O. from the beginning. Screw the future; let's push the Middle Class into oblivion forever. The economy might be chugging along, but that sound you hear is the Middle Class' piggy bank being smashed.