Terrible Job Explaining Tax Cuts
Reported by Eleanor - August 13, 2004 -
About half of the Special Report with Brit Hume (Jim Angle) (Aug.13, 6:00 p.m.) was spent on the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report that the middle class will pay more taxes, not fewer taxes, with the Bush tax cuts.
Jim Angle interviewed Bill Beach of the Heritage Foundation about this issue. The bipartisan CBO report, with all taxes factored into the equation, shows that with the Bush tax cuts, the middle class pays more taxes now than in 2001, and "this is clearly a major campaign issue." Angle asked Beach, "Does anyone pay more?" (The following is a summary of key points made.)
Beach responded that taxes are lower for all tax payers. Angle: Many are taken off the tax roles altogether. Beach: This is an incomplete report. All taxes are put into the same bucket. If you are below the maximum you can pay, your taxes will rise. If you work harder, you pay more taxes. You might drop off the income tax and pay the alternative minimum tax. Then your taxes will go up. Angle: Kerry says the burden is shifting to the middle class. Beach: This report included corporate income tax. They're guessing who owns stock. It includes income from stocks. Angle: The percentage for the wealthy was cut so they get a bigger cut. Beach: A tax cut was given to everyone who pays taxes. The wealthy pay 65% of all taxes. Angle: If the tax cut is rolled back for the wealthy, it will raise 60-80 billion dollars. Beach: It would slow the economy and cause unemployment. It's not enough to help. (I didn't see anything in this discussion that disputed the results of the CBO report.)
At the end of the hour, a panel made up of Fred Barnes, Mort Kondracke, Jeff Birnbaum and Jim Angle took up the discussion again of the middle class tax issue. (I guess the damage control was too important to have a democrat on the panel distracting from the point being made.) The CBO report was presented by Angle as an independent report showing the tax burden on the wealthy going down, and the middle class tax burden going up. (This again is a summary.) It depends on which numbers you look at. If everything is thrown together, the middle class burden goes from 18.7% to 19.5%. We don't know. It's a projection. It varies. Angle: Is anyone paying more? No. Bush gave tax cuts across the board. The rich pay more taxes. Because they make more money, they pay a larger share. Kondracke: The CBO numbers include payroll taxes.
The group then tried to explain that the actual numbers are yet to be seen because it's all a projection, and everyone will be helped by the tax cuts, with "slightly more" going to the wealthy. This discussion ended with, "Bush has done a terrible job" of explaining what he was doing with the tax cuts. (I felt the same about this discussion. It clarified nothing for me except that the damage control didn't work.)
