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Raiding our children’s lives: Just send the bill to 2015

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Jay Bookman, columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, offers the sort of economic analysis that even an econo-dope like me can grasp. To fund the wealthiest Americans in the present, he says, we must steal the future from our own children. Let him explain why below, but this is the definition of a plundering class, and one reason why, imperial dreams and hubris aside, this administration may prove incapable of constructing a lasting empire, no matter the military power at hand.

Marie Antoinette may never have said of the desperate French peasantry, “Let them eat cake,” but it seems the Bush administration has a similar, if slightly modernized, suggestion for the tax-cut enriched, “Let them buy SUVs.” As a minor part of their massive tax cut plan, they are, the Detroit News tells us, trying to expand a loophole in the tax laws wide enough to drive a free Humvee through.

With our children’s money, they’re ready to support the only lifestyle that they consider suitable for planet Earth. This is another kind of futurelessness. It’s obvious we’re going to have to offer NASA a set of tax cuts too. We need to find some other oil-rich planets soon. Tom

We can thank our children for tax cut
By Jay Bookman
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
January 23, 2003

The best way to analyze President Bush’s proposed $670 billion tax cut is to ask the most basic question of all: Where’s the money going, and where’s the money coming from? More bluntly, who wins and who loses?

In this case, the answers to both questions are clear. To finance this tax cut, we would have to borrow enormous sums of money from our children and grandchildren, literally mortgaging their futures without their knowledge or approval. They would be the losers. It’s going to come out of their pockets and purses.

Having robbed the future, we would then turn around and give the proceeds of that theft to our wealthiest contemporaries, people today who are already doing considerably better than most of our children ever will.

The best way to analyze President Bush’s proposed $670 billion tax cut is to ask the most basic question of all: Where’s the money going, and where’s the money coming from? More bluntly, who wins and who loses?

In this case, the answers to both questions are clear. To finance this tax cut, we would have to borrow enormous sums of money from our children and grandchildren, literally mortgaging their futures without their knowledge or approval. They would be the losers. It’s going to come out of their pockets and purses.

Having robbed the future, we would then turn around and give the proceeds of that theft to our wealthiest contemporaries, people today who are already doing considerably better than most of our children ever will.

Jay Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor. His column appears Thursdays.

To read more of Bookman click here

SUV tax break may reach $75,000
Environmentalists Bash Bush Plan
By Jeff Plungis
The Detroit News Autos Insider
Monday, January 20, 2003

WASHINGTON — President Bush’s economic stimulus plan could triple the size of a little-known tax loophole that some small business owners are using to finance purchases of large SUVs.

One of Bush’s proposed tax cuts would raise from $25,000 to $75,000 the amount small business owners — including doctors, lawyers and financial advisers — can write off when buying an SUV for business purposes.

Since the SUV loophole was first reported by The Detroit News last month, several consumer groups and lawmakers have raised concerns about the fairness of the provision. The debate signals more trouble for a popular vehicle segment crucial to Detroit automakers, whose profits have been sustained largely because of the SUV boom over the last decade.

How did tax policy become the latest clash in an escalating cultural war over SUVs?

To read more of this Detroit News piece click here