Robert Reich (Common Dreams): The Obscene $70 Billion Tax Cut:

[Jack Rabbit]

From CommonDreams.org
Dated Monday May 15

The $70 Billion Tax Cut: Irresponsible and Obscene
By Robert B. Reich

Here we are six months before a mid-term election, with polls showing only about 20 percent of the American public approving the job Congress is doing. Small wonder. The federal budget deficit is still out of control. We’ve got a war going on that’s not going well, and the military is spending over a half a trillion dollars a year. Meanwhile, public services are being slashed. So what’s Congress about to give us? A $70 billion tax cut.

The tax cut would be politically irresponsible, but not obscene, if it were going to middle-income workers now facing sky-high fuel prices and soaring health-insurance costs, and variable-rate mortgage payments heading through the roof.

But this tax cut is not going to the middle class. Like the Bush Administration’s previous tax cuts, most of this one is going to people who are already very comfortable. Hence, it’s both irresponsible and obscene.

The non-partisan Urban Institute - Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center examined its provisions, including a two-year extension of capital gains and dividend tax cuts, and a one-year extension of relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax. It turns out a whopping 87 percent of the benefits of this tax cut will go to the 14 percent of American households earning above $100,000 a year. Twenty-two percent of the benefits will go to the richest two-tenths of one percent of American households earning more than a million dollars a year.

Read more.

[Pharaoh]

1. insane pathetic neocon greed

When will people wake up?

[katinmn]

2. Great article! I miss Robert Reich. Clinton's best appointee, IMO.

:)

[Joe Chi Minh]

3. A great man. I think Bill go t rid of him after a while though,

didn't he? Or Robert left because Bill continued to remain too far to the right. Or have I got that wrong?

[katinmn]

4. Clinton advisers said he was too far left so they ditched him. Shame.

Reich led some great changes for working people!

From wikipedia:

A longtime friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton, going back to their days together at Oxford and Yale Law respectively, he was invited to head Clinton's economic transition team. He later joined the administration as Secretary of Labor. During his tenure, he implemented the Family and Medical Leave Act, fought sweatshops, successfully promoted increasing the minimum wage, improved workplace safety, successfully lobbied to pass the Pension Protection Act and the School-to-Work Jobs Act, and launched a number of job training programs.

At the same time, he lobbied Clinton to address big issues like the increasing advancement of the poor. He had moderate success until the 1996 presidential campaign began, when Clinton, heeding the advice of political advisor Dick Morris, shifted right and promoted policies that appealed to the suburban swing voter.