Preparation for the State of the Union Address for non-wonks - on tax cuts

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on January 31, 2006 - 9:21am.
on Economics

...tax cuts haven't unleashed investment, but they have contributed to inequality.
...while working Americans are laboring harder, hourly wages and weekly salaries — the financial lifeblood of most Americans — have been flat or falling, after inflation, since the middle of 2003.
Dividends flow mainly to the top 5 percent of the income ladder, and health benefits, while valuable, are increasingly provided in lieu of salary. So the fact that personal income, writ large, is up "by 7 percent since I've been your president," as Mr. Bush boasted recently, isn't a measure of what is in most Americans' pockets.
...almost half of all dividends are earned by people making more than $200,000, and more than half of all capital gains are earned by people with incomes over $1 million.
This month Congress's budget agency forecast that if the tax cuts are made permanent and the alternative tax fixed, the United States will face large and growing deficits over the next decade, with red ink of between $3.5 trillion and $4 trillion over that time.

Prometheus 6