Published August 2004 — Download PDF of the original newspaper column
Byrd's-Eye View By U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd A Skewed Tax Policy Needs Fixing
When George W. Bush campaigned for the presidency in 2000, he talked a great deal about tax cuts. Once he took office, he rammed through some of the biggest tax cuts in the nation's history -- tax cuts which most benefit the wealthiest of Americans. It is a tax plan that does little to help working West Virginians. By focusing on massive tax cuts for the wealthy first, President Bush squandered a great opportunity to improve America. The President came into office with a $5.6 trillion surplus. He is preparing to end this term with a deficit of $2.9 trillion. That incredible turnaround wasted the chance to make significant investments in education, fix Social Security, and strengthen Medicare. Instead of saving for the long-term and making sound investments in America, the Bush Administration chose to squander the surplus that had been handed to them in good faith. Recently, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), whose director served as the top economist in the Bush White House, highlighted the disparity of the President's tax cuts. According to the CBO, one-third of the tax cuts have been directed to people in the top I percent income bracket, who earn an average of $1.2 million annually. The report calculated that households with incomes in that top I percent bracket were receiving an average tax cut of $78,460 this year. In fact, for this year, the average tax cut for those American households with the highest incomes is more than seventy times the tax cut for middle-income households. That kind of disparity places an unfair burden on working families. Already, the Bush Administration has slashed funding for programs that are important to families in West Virginia: funding for classroom initiatives has been erased; veterans are forced to wait in long lines for health care; seniors are told, in essence, that the best Medicare prescription drug coverage that the government can afford is a maze of paperwork and a small menu of choices. These and other problems go without solutions because of the skewed tax policies of this Bush White House. Every politician likes to vote to cut taxes. But, when the tax cuts are massive and unfair, the flip-side to that vote is less funding for initiatives like education, health care, transportation, and worker safety, all of which benefit families and regular Americans. President Bush has his priorities wrong. The Administration's economic policy is broken. Instead of irresponsible tax cuts for the privileged that have resulted in oceans of red ink, we ought to invest in the future of this nation by promoting policies that benefit all Americans. August 18, 2004