Bush's baby tax

Pete Peterson on PBS' Now:

There's a German philosopher named Bonhoeffer who said the ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children.

When we sit around here and talk about all these tax cuts and we say it's our money, your money and mine, I think we ought to be honest with the American people. In the first place, it's also our debt and it's our children's debt.

But secondly, a tax cut isn't really a tax cut long-term unless you reduce spending. Because then it becomes a tax increase on your children. So we're inflicting this awful bill not simply on ourselves but most importantly on our kids.

Every baby born today has a debt of tens of thousands of dollars on their heads.

Yesterday, Preznit Bush signed yet another tax cut bill. The main components of this new $70 billion package:

1) Continues an earlier Bush tax cut through 2009, which limits to 15 percent the tax on capital gains and dividend income ($20.6 billion over five years).

2) Extends through 2006 the Alternative Minimum Tax on upper middle-income taxpayers, which only became a problem because of they were getting so many other tax cuts ($33.5 billion over five years).

3) Extends through the end of 2009 a tax cut letting small businesses write off up to $100,000 in investments in equipment and other depreciable assets ($7.3 billion over five years).

The new Bush tax cut, advanced by congressional Republicans withering in the polls, comes at a time when the United States is at war. The real long term costs of that war -- replacing equipment, paying down debt, veteran's benefits -- may exceed $2 trillion. President Bush is the first president in history to not raise taxes during a time of war. Instead, he's cutting taxes! This is absolutely insane!

Consider the fact that before President Bush leaves the White House (hurray!) in January 2009 (978 days), the National Debt Clock near Times Square will run out of numbers. Also consider the fact that debt reduction was looking so good after eight years of Bill Clinton that the clock's owner, real estate developer Douglas Durst, turned it off. But after just two years of George W. Bush, he fired up the clock again. Notably, it was Ronald Reagan's irresponsible fiscal policies that originally inspired Durst's idea for the National Debt Clock.

The national debt now stands at $8.3 trillion. That's approximately 68 percent of the United States' entire Gross Domestic Product for one year. Well, being one who's never had to learn the meaning of hard work, President Bush just authorized Congress in March to increase the debt ceiling to $9 trillion.

When he signed the legislation on the new tax cut, Bush said:

We believe that our economy prospers when the American people make their own decisions about how to save and spend and invest their own money.

Hey, I couldn't agree more. I'd like my money back that you spent in Iraq George.

Again, Pete Peterson, this time from a later edition of Now:

I want to believe that in their guts, the American people are wise enough to know we're living in a kind of surreal Disneyland world. We're fighting two wars, and I'm old enough to remember the second World War, and I remember the sacrifice. And I wonder if at some level, people in their gut don't understand that this is kind of an economic fiscal Disneyland. And it ain't really true.

George W. Bush doesn't know about sacrifice. This Little Lord Fauntleroy was born with a silver spoon stuck up his backside, which explains why he might have a difficult time figuring out which end is up, and why he doesn't understand the obligation of his class to this democratic capitalist society which makes their privilege possible.

President Bush isn't cutting taxes, he's raising taxes on every single baby born in the United States.



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