Features

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, the Republican from Texas, recently bragged that she was the key instigator in persuading the Senate Finance Committee, as part of its pending “marriage penalty reduction” bill, to raise the income level at which a couple enters the 31 percent income tax bracket. The Finance Committee had already decided to raise […]

How important are tax cuts? Judging from the campaigns of the major presidential candidates, you’d think they were pretty important. Republican George W. Bush has made a huge, broad-based tax cut–$483 billion over five years, as much as $1.7 trillion over 10 years–a centerpiece, if not the centerpiece, of his campaign. And even Democrat Al […]

Dept. of Boneheaded Studies In 1999, two states, New Hampshire and Tennessee, considered adopting a broad-based income tax. This sent antitax lobbying groups into a frenzy of “studies” purporting to show that such a step would be a disaster for the economies of the two states. The lamest of the reports was published in mid-October […]

Tax-Cut Fever Alan Greenspan has blessed a tax cut, the budget surpluses are said to be bigger than ever, and Republicans control all branches of the federal government. Are we ready to rumble with George W. Bush’s gigantic tax cuts? Can we cut taxes even more? Take a deep breath. The projected surpluses. […]

Gore Plan Prevails Remember how George W. Bush regaled the voters last year with his criticism of Al Gore’s “targeted” tax cuts? “You only get a tax break if you do exactly what the government tells you to do,” Bush frequently carped. Well, Bush has now revealed the fine print of his own tax […]

In 1974 Congress created the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) “to provide the Congress with objective, timely, nonpartisan analyses needed for economic and budget decisions.” Over the last quarter-century, members of the minority party (be they Republicans or Democrats) have sometimes raised concerns about how the CBO’s numbers have been crunched. But, in general, the office […]

What’s gotten into Alan Greenspan? Until recently, hewas in clear agreement with the Democrats about how to deal with thefederal budget surplus: Oppose tax cuts and use the surplus to pay offthe national debt. But on January 25–five days after the inaugurationof George W. Bush–Greenspan abandoned that position and endorsed Bush’smammoth tax cut. The explanation […]

E state taxes are a problem that most Americans would like to have. Not many do. To qualify, one has to have a nice piece of change–at least $1.3 million for a married couple and, taking loopholes into account, more like $5 million. At present fewer than 2 percent of Americans achieve that kind of […]

Voodoo Tax Calculator George W. Bush’s Web site includes a “Bush For President Tax Calculator” that ostensibly lets taxpayers “See How Governor Bush’s Tax Plan Helps Working Americans.” But the calculator often simply doesn’t work. If you type “single, two kids, making $22,000,” for example, you’ll be told that your current income tax is $110 […]

George W. Bush’s transition team and House Minority Whip Tom DeLay may have had an unacknowledged motive to delay passage of the 2001 budget: An idea going around in December was to put off the budget bill until February so that it could be combined with repeal of the federal estate tax. Because budget reconciliation […]