This June 7 editorial in the New York Times - The Bush Economy - is extremely pertinent to some of the tax reform legislation being considered by Congress right now. The article points out that if all of Bush's tax cuts are made permanent, in ten years people making between $100,000 and $200,000 will pay five to nine percentage points more of their income in federal taxes than those making over $1 million per year. Those making less than $80,000 per year will see their share of taxes rise slightly or stay the same.
As the article says, at this level the tax cuts are about "giving more money to those who have nothing to do with it except amass enormous estates for their heirs." And some of the current legislation being considered by Congress is unfortunately not helping us move in the other direction.
Many Senators, from both sides of the aisle, are currently focusing a good deal of time to discussions on reforming both the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax (AMT). Repeal of the estate tax, which passed the House but most likely doesn't have the 60 votes needed in the Senate, would cost close to a trillion dollars in lost revenue over ten years. (Irresponsible reform could be almost as damaging.) Repeal of the AMT - rather than reform to make the tax more fair - would add nearly $1.2 trillion to deficits and the federal debt over the next ten years, assuming the tax cuts are made permanent.
Lawmakers seem to be jumping at the chance to "fix" fairness issues in our tax system by looking to repeal the estate tax and the AMT. However, these reforms would only further protect the super-wealthy in our society from paying their fair share of taxes, and would leave more of the tax burden on everybody else. Congress should be looking for ways, instead, to raise revenues and constrain spending in order to bring down these unsustainable deficits; which, in the long term, will not only worsen our fiscal situation, but will worsen it disproportionately for the bottom 90 percent of taxpaying Americans.
