This bundle of news from the
Washington Post:
House and Senate Republican negotiators gave final approval today to a five-year, nearly $70 billion tax package that
extends President Bush’s deep cuts to tax rates on dividends and capital gains, while sparing some 15 million middle-income
Americans from the alternative minimum tax.Republican leaders hope to pass the agreement swiftly. House consideration is scheduled for tomorrow night, with the Senate
likely to send it to the White House for the president’s signature by the end of the week. But the package remains controversial,
with Republican leaders saying that it is essential to sustaining a strong economic recovery while Democrats and a few Republicans
say the cuts will mainly benefit the wealthy and add to the long-term deficit.[...]Middle-income households would receive an average tax cut of just $20 from the agreement, according to the joint Brooking
Institution-Urban Institute Tax Policy Center, while the 0.2 percent of households with incomes over $1 million would get average
tax cuts of $42,000.
The article goes on to mention that the provision includes an increased ability to transfer Traditional IRA funds to Roth IRA’s,
creating additional tax revenue now, but reducing future tax collections.
I, for one, am all for lower taxes, and I can accept that some of Bush’s tax changes do encourage investment and development of the
economy. However, I still have the big issue that the government is deficit spending in a huge way. The administration and GOP
seem to have no problems sticking with their mantra of “lower taxes”, but sadly the talk of reigning in uncontrolled spending seems
to have been all-but-forgotten.