CONGRESSIONAL Republicans are hoping to pass yet another budget-busting tax cut this summer and manipulate Democrats into voting for it by using poor children as the bait.
In 2001 and 2003, Congress passed legislation providing a child tax credit for the middle class that gradually rose to $1,000 per child, but Republicans excluded working-class children who needed help the most. In the 2003 law, families earning between $10,500 and $26,625 got nothing, including 260,000 children of active-duty servicemen and women. All told, about one child in four was excluded.
Working-class families were left out because their breadwinners are too poor to pay much federal income tax. Republicans argued that anyone who paid little or no income taxes had not earned tax relief. Of course, these families do pay sales taxes, payroll taxes, excise taxes, and property taxes.
Republicans are now proposing to extend token benefits to lower-income families, but their price is a dramatic expansion of the tax breaks for well-to-do families with incomes of up to $309,000 -- that's the richest 2 percent of American families. The preexisting law wisely phased out all child tax credit benefits at family incomes of $149,000. The new Republican proposal would more than double that income ceiling at a cost to the deficit of $89 billion over 10 years.
--------------------------------------------------------
An open letter to John Kerry, John Edwards, and the DNC:
http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/OpenLetter.htm 
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
