The “Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation of 2003” bill (HR 2) that President Bush signed into law with much fanfare on May 28 is chock full of tax cuts that “sunset” – that is, they revert back to pre-2003 law. When combined with the previous Bush tax cut, “The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001,” which is also full of tax cuts that slowly phase in and then end altogether, the result is like something out of Kafka. However, the difficulty for the IRS of creating forms and instructions to reflect yearly changes and taxpayer confusion are not the worst consequences of these bills.

According to the results of a joint NPR-Kaiser Family Foundation-Kennedy School of Government poll released last month -- and confirmed by almost every other poll on Americans' attitudes toward tax cuts - we are all in favor of tax breaks, until we understand what we have to give up in return.

For the second time, in as many years, the President and his tax-slashing allies in Congress have passed a budget that calls for massive tax cuts. Though the recent precedent-setting effort of congressional Republicans last week to pass a budget resolution by agreeing to different tax cut packages leaves much uncertainty about just how large a tax cut the country will be saddled with, a large tax giveaway seems assured. Within the next several weeks, we will learn whether this round of tax cuts will be limited to the Senate's $350 billion or be as high as the House's $550 billion, but this is just the beginning: the budget resolution actually provides for a total of $1.3 trillion in tax cuts over the next 10 years. Whatever is decided, the tax cuts will be far more than the country can afford. As a result, most of us, and future generations, will be stuck footing the bill for a huge expenditure that will do little, if anything, to stimulate the economy, lower the unemployment rate, close the ever-widening gaps in state budgets, meet the educational needs of our children, or address the shortfall in Social Security or pay for a prescription drug plan for our seniors.

As discussed in newspapers across the country, support for preserving the President's costly $726 billion tax cut package (misnamed the "Growth Package") is weakening. On March 25, the Senate voted to shrink the $726 billion package down to $350 billion. (In an earlier vote, the House passed the full $726 billion tax cut - and more than $260 billion in cuts to veterans' assistance, Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps and other programs - in a very close vote, 215-212.)