Bullypulpit
Senior Member
<h2><a href=http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14515-2004Jan13?language=printer>Good for Investors, Bad for the Rest</a></h2>
By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, January 14, 2004; Page A19
<i>If you work for a living in George W. Bush's America, you're a sap.
Take a quick look, or a long one, at the tax code as Bush has altered it during his three years as president, and you're compelled to conclude that work has become a distinctly inferior kind of income acquisition in the eyes of the law. Bush tax policy rewards investment and inheritance. Relying on work for your income, by contrast, turns you into a second-class citizen.
In his first round of tax cuts in 2001, Bush got Congress to phase out the estate tax by 2010. Last year, with Republicans in control on Capitol Hill, he reduced the top tax rate on dividends from 39.6 percent to 15 percent, and brought the capital gains tax rate down from 20 percent to 15 percent as well.
This year, his new budget proposes that families be allowed to shield as much as $30,000 yearly on their investment income, which will abolish all remaining taxes on such income. Meanwhile, the income tax cuts to most middle-class families don't exceed a couple of hundred dollars, and payroll taxes for employees remain untouched. In part, this devaluing of work is simply an expression of Bush family values. As Kevin Phillips points out in his new biography of the Bush dynasty, the Bushes don't do anything so vulgar as going into professions. Rather, the clan lives by its connections. For George W. and his brothers, work has meant riffling through Pappy's Rolodex. Theirs is the cronyest form of capitalism.</i>
This is how wealth concetrates in the hands of a few, and leads to the kind of feudalistic mentality and social stratification prevalent in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. Howdy, the rest of his clan and their inbred, blue blood fellow travelers are nothing but a bunch of royal wannabes. The rest of us can go to hell.
By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, January 14, 2004; Page A19
<i>If you work for a living in George W. Bush's America, you're a sap.
Take a quick look, or a long one, at the tax code as Bush has altered it during his three years as president, and you're compelled to conclude that work has become a distinctly inferior kind of income acquisition in the eyes of the law. Bush tax policy rewards investment and inheritance. Relying on work for your income, by contrast, turns you into a second-class citizen.
In his first round of tax cuts in 2001, Bush got Congress to phase out the estate tax by 2010. Last year, with Republicans in control on Capitol Hill, he reduced the top tax rate on dividends from 39.6 percent to 15 percent, and brought the capital gains tax rate down from 20 percent to 15 percent as well.
This year, his new budget proposes that families be allowed to shield as much as $30,000 yearly on their investment income, which will abolish all remaining taxes on such income. Meanwhile, the income tax cuts to most middle-class families don't exceed a couple of hundred dollars, and payroll taxes for employees remain untouched. In part, this devaluing of work is simply an expression of Bush family values. As Kevin Phillips points out in his new biography of the Bush dynasty, the Bushes don't do anything so vulgar as going into professions. Rather, the clan lives by its connections. For George W. and his brothers, work has meant riffling through Pappy's Rolodex. Theirs is the cronyest form of capitalism.</i>
This is how wealth concetrates in the hands of a few, and leads to the kind of feudalistic mentality and social stratification prevalent in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. Howdy, the rest of his clan and their inbred, blue blood fellow travelers are nothing but a bunch of royal wannabes. The rest of us can go to hell.
.
