Bush cuts Social Security to the poor to fund tax cuts for the wealthy

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We know George W. Bush rarely reads, but did he read Robin Hood upside down? Or, backwards? If Congress allows Bush to continue with his present budget policy, he will become the anti-Robin Hood--stealing from the poor to give to the rich.

Bush’s tax policies have always favored the wealthy. “Americans making $1 million or more will receive $93,500 from the [life of the] tax cut, according to the Tax Policy Center. Over the next four years, the bottom 60 percent of taxpayers [as a group] will receive just 9 percent of all the tax cuts, while just the top 1 percent receives 39 percent of the cuts.” In fact, according to data from Citizens for Tax Justice, 74 percent of taxpayers will get $100 or less in 2005.

Surprisingly, the Bush tax cuts are the single greatest factor behind our annual budget deficits. The Bush tax cuts account for $266 billion of the current $521 billion deficit. This represents more than half of our budget deficit this year and more than the increased defense expenditures triggered by 9/11.

Bush has made extension of the tax cuts a major campaign theme and policy issue. In his 2004 State of the Union address, Bush said, "Unless you act, Americans face a tax increase. What the Congress has given, the Congress should not take away.”

Extending Bush’s tax cuts over the next 10 years will cost $1.5 trillion. The impact of these tax cuts is so dramatic that last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan suggested we will need to cut Social Security benefits to avoid a damaging increase in interest rates.

"This dramatic demographic change [retirement of the Baby Boomers] is certain to place enormous demands on our nation's resources -- demands we almost surely will be unable to meet unless action is taken," Greenspan told the House Budget Committee. "That action is better taken as soon as possible."

Greenspan proposed raising the age at which retirees may begin to draw their full Social Security benefits, as well as reducing their benefits.

According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, Social Security lifts 11.4 million elderly people out of poverty. Even with their benefits, 3.8 million elderly still live in poverty. For every future cut made to Social Security, the number of poor old people will increase.

Essentially, Bush is robbing from poor elderly people who rely on Social Security to finance these outrageous, unfair, unbalanced tax cuts for the rich. This is just one way in which Bush's policies hurt our most vulnerable citizens.

Want more information on this story? Read Paul Krugman's editorial this week in the New York Times. Krugman highlights how Greenspan helped create the Social Security surplus by recommending increases in middle class payroll taxes in the 1980's. But now, Greenspan and Bush are planning to take the money working families paid into Social Security to fund unnecessary tax cuts for wealthy Americans.

Tell your Congressional representatives to repeal Bush's tax cuts.

Comments

[Connie Hernandez]

I,think that our president Mr.needs to think the welfair of our country's problems and about his rich group Im sure that the who elected himhad good intentions. However I think their going twice when he goes for his second term,they ,ll hold pensand ask themselves,is this what I really want for my country?Idon'think so.If this up I'm worried. Thank your kind attention.