There's more from the Detroit News - apparently, they've done a special report based on a six-month investigation of the impact of Bush's taxation policy on the working poor. Their conclusion is that the tax cuts have harmed the poorest in our society and the facts bear some paying attention to:
The poorest 20 percent of workers, who earn on average $16,600 annually, will get a tax break of $250 this year, which is less than 2 percent of their income. That amounts to about 68 cents a day.By comparison, the richest 1 percent, with average incomes topping $1.1 million, will receive $78,460 in tax cuts this year. That is nearly 7 percent of their income.
For the poor, inequities of the Bush tax cuts are further exacerbated by the long-standing disparities in the Social Security tax, which has increased nine times since 1977.
Earnings are taxed for Social Security at a rate of 6.2 percent on income up to $87,900. But there is no Social Security tax on income above that amount. For America’s poorest workers — those who struggle to make ends meet — every dollar is subject to the Social Security tax.
The richest 10 percent, who make on average $288,800, will pay less than 2 percent of their income for Social Security.
In fact, while most workers pay into Social Security all year, millionaires — who pay less than half a percent — would be finished paying it by the first four weeks of the year.
For taxpayers who earn more than $87,900, it amounts to an estimated $85 billion break.
Meanwhile, the Bush tax breaks for the richest 10 percent this year alone will total $148 billion.
That is twice as much as the government will spend on job training, $6.2 billion; college Pell grants, $12 billion; public housing, $6.3 billion; low-income rental subsidies, $19 billion; child care, $4.8 billion; insurance for low-income children, $5.2 billion; low-income energy assistance, $1.8 billion; meals for shut-ins, $180 million; and welfare, $16.9 billion.
The reduction in government assistance that accompanied the tax cuts couldn’t come at a worse time.
The number of Americans living in poverty has risen 10 percent since 2000, after falling in the late 1990s. Nearly 36 million Americans — one in eight — now live in poverty and tens of millions more are considered working poor.
The economy has lost nearly a million jobs — 241,000 in Michigan alone — since it slid into recession in March 2001.
That has increased the demand for government programs from millions of Americans who are now more likely to know hunger, homelessness and chronic need.
America’s working poor — its secretaries, cooks, laborers, clerks and others — are finding it difficult to meet even basic needs.
Go read the whole thing and then tell me you're voting for Bush.
NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: This is TRUTH. This is journalism.
Comments