Let the Tax Cuts Die

Back when Bush cut taxes for everyone, a change in the tax code that mainly benefited this nation's wealthy elite, I saw a reduction of $300 or so in my tax bill.

Big whoop!

That's why I am not in the hand wringing mode over the prospect that the Bush era tax cuts are set to expire for everyone in a few weeks if the Republicans and Democrats don't start singing Kum By Ah together over the so-called "compromise" reached between Pres. Obama and congressional Republicans.

I say, let the whole thing die! The cuts have been around too long. All they have done is give us record deficits, benefited those who did not need help, and punished those who did.

Let us remember that the Bush changes basically did away with the reforms Bill Clinton made in the US Tax Code, reforms that were passed without a single Republican vote. All that did was give the US record prosperity,its first budget surplus since 1969, and a real reduction in the number of American's living in poverty.

Bush didn't seem to like that arrangement and shoved the whole thing in reverse. In doing so, he not only spent the surplus, but blew a hole in the budget to the tune of $2.3 trillon.

According to The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

Allowing tax cuts to expire for married filers with incomes above $250,000 and single filers with incomes above $200,000— the top 2 percent of U.S. households— will avert $826 billion in added deficits and debt over the next ten years. The savings from allowing the top two marginal tax rates to expire for those high-income households constitute $443 billion of that $826 billion.

If we truly want to reduce the deficit as everyone says, we cannot afford these cuts any long. The federal government can have my measly share of the savings to help save future generations the burden of paying off my debt.

So, let the Bush tax cut debacle die. It should have been strangled in its crib.