The White House says that, on average, Americans will receive $1,083 under President Bush's Tax Cut Plan. This may be true. However, it is deceiving. Put another, and more understandable way, the average American will receive $289.

What will Bush’s tax plan do for you?

If you earn/year You are due to receive


$0-$16,000 $6
$16,000-$29,000 $99
$29,000-$46,000 $289
$46,000-$77,000 $657
$77,000-$154,000 $1841
$154,000-$374,000 $3524
$374,000 and up Avg. $30,127

President Bush $16,511
Dick Cheney $104,823

Who will pay for this tax cut? You and Your children.

You: Working families are paying the price. Unemployment is rising, with 108,000 jobs lost in March 2003 alone. With states facing massive fiscal crises, local governments have been forced to cut the vital services Americans rely on: public schools, health care, homeland security, and more. Many states have even been forced to consider tax increases as a result of their budget woes.

"In March 2003, more than 108,000 jobs were lost and the unemployment rate held at 5.8 percent. In addition, unemployment insurance claims hit their highest level in one year; more Americans stopped looking for work last month because they were discouraged over job prospects, and the critical growth in the service sector has abruptly ended. Under President Bush, unemployment has increased 41% and long-term unemployment has increased by 170%." [Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4/3/03].

Your children: When Bush took office, the national debt, including the amount owed to Social Security, was $4.5 trillion and headed sharply down. But Bush’s new budget projects a $7.5 trillion debt by the end of 2008. The President refuses to offer an estimate for the size of the debt a decade from now, but the likely figure under the President policies is close to $10 trillion.

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It's interesting to compare Bush's reaction to this looming fiscal disaster with how Ronald Reagan, reacted when the 1981 tax cuts sent deficits through the roof. Initially, Reagan's tax cut program was considerably bigger than Bush's. Reagan wasn't worried about the officially projected revenue losses from his tax reductions because he'd been convinced that cutting taxes would actually lead to higher revenues. But when that supply-side pipe dream failed to pan out, Reagan quickly shifted gears, signing tax increases in 1982, 1983 and 1984 that offset almost half of his 1981 tax reductions (and helped start an economic boom). That still left a huge hole in the budget, but at least Reagan partially learned from his mistakes.

By contrast, the worse the budget news gets for Bush, the more enamored he becomes of his tax cuts. When asked about deficits, the president fatuously blames overspending even though he has enthusiastically supported the only significant spending increases we've seen, for defense and security. Bush's indifference to the budget disaster he has created seems to reflect his vaguely held adherence to a revisionist right-wing theory, which holds that all that really matters is the amount the government spends, not whether it happens to be paid for or not -- and when it comes to spending, less is always better. As Republican strategist Grover Norquist famously put it, "I'd rather have a small government and a big deficit, than a big government and no deficit."