Argue if you care to about Bush's other policies, but concerning the $1.35 trillion tax cut that is the centerpiece of his domestic program, I can assure you that the new president cannot be accused of uttering many straight words to the American people.

The tax cut is not essentially about tax cuts. It is about the kind of nation the American public wants. It's about whether we, as a country, want to use our government to improve our lives or whether we'd rather try to make it disappear, forsaking in the process a long history of government-funded social programs, including scholarships, infrastructure and Social Security. It's about whether we want a government that responds to the needs of the changing times or turns away from them.

But before we return to that issue, let me set the record straight on some of the ways the Bush administration has deceived us in supporting tax cuts.

The tax cut is premised on the expectation that the federal government will produce a few trillion dollars of surplus over the next 10 years. But the contention that the fiscal surpluses projected by the Congressional Budget Office, on which the tax cuts are based, are in any way reliable is nonsense.

The forecasting also depends on an increase in total budget expenditures that more or less only matches inflation over the next 10 years. This Congress is not likely to achieve that increase -- nor should it. The result is that in order to pay for the tax cut, the federal government will almost certainly have to run down the Social Security trust fund.

	Print story E-mail story

Then there is this by now well-known piece of White House chicanery: Tax cut proponents have excluded from budget calculations the amount of revenue lost in the 10th year of the 10-year program, revenue that could add an additional $300 billion or so to the tax cut.

Another formidable piece of deceitfulness -- an admittedly effective one -- has been what we might call the "overcharge" rhetoric. President Bush tells us that he is simply giving back to the American people the money that they were "overcharged." To those inclined to believe him, this no doubt sounds like straight talk. He is giving back "your money." But as Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said recently, it may be your money, but it is our social programs.

Taxes are not a fixed price one charges the public, like retailers do for a carton of orange juice. They are calculated as a proportion of incomes that rise and fall with the fortunes of the economy. If the American people are now being "overcharged" for government services, it is because the economy is strong and their incomes are high, not because they are paying more than the value of the services they are receiving. Are Americans being undercharged when the nation runs a fiscal deficit? And will President Bush therefore raise taxes if we dip back into the red?

The Bush administration claims that all taxpayers are getting a break under the plan. Moreover, these advocates say that under any tax cut, the rich will always disproportionately benefit because they pay more in taxes.

The truth is, you can distribute tax benefits any way you choose, and this tax cut is a whopping advantage to the rich. More than 35 percent of the benefits of the tax cut will go to the top 1 percent of earners. About 50 percent will go to the top 10 percent of earners. And 70 percent of the benefits will go to the top 20 percent.

It is not clear to me how history will judge a nation that gives a tax break to the rich just after the top 1 to 10 percent accrued more personal wealth than at any other time since the robber-baron period of the late 1800s.

Long ago, the nation decided that the rich would help the not so rich because financial privilege does confer advantage. A progressive income tax was adopted in the early 1900s. (It was first tried during the Civil War.) Now, when the rich are really rich, we seem to have forgotten the lessons of the past.

The Free Software Project
Read Andrew Leonard's book-in-progress on Linux and open source -- and post your comments.