Originally appeared in the Harrisburg Patriot News, July 3, 2011
Ten years ago last month, President George W. Bush signed a bill cutting taxes by $1.35 trillion over 10 years. It was the first of several Bush tax cuts that ended up costing two and a half trillion dollars over a decade.
Dan Gleiter, The Patriot-News Ten years later, what have we gotten for this tax cut? Where is the prosperity President Bush promised?
Pennsylvania’s official unemployment rate in June 2001 was 4.8 percent. Today, the seasonally adjusted rate is 7.4 percent. Nationwide, the unemployment rate was 4.7 percent. Today, it is hovering around 9 percent.
At the end of last year, supporters of Bush’s policies pushed through an extension of the Bush tax cuts for another two years. Many lawmakers say they want to extend the tax cuts again into 2013 and beyond, which would almost double the federal budget deficit.
A few people — the super rich — are better off because of the Bush tax cuts. Their fortunes will continue to improve if those cuts are extended.
According to Citizens for Tax Justice, the wealthiest 1 percent of Pennsylvania residents, who will have an average income of $1.2 million in 2013, will save $65,480 in that year.
In contrast, the poorest 60 percent of the state’s residents, with an average income of $30,268, would save only $469 in 2013. Fair? Hardly.
Those who want to increase the deficit again by extending the tax cuts are the same lawmakers who claim that the deficit forces them to slash public services.
In Harrisburg, Gov. Tom Corbett and the General Assembly enacted painful cuts in public services, including a massive $1 billion cut to education.
In Washington, Republicans also are proposing cuts. House Republicans have proposed ending Medicare as we know it and radically cutting back Medicaid.
By 2030, the vouchers proposed to replace Medicare will leave seniors paying 68 percent of the cost of health insurance up from 25 percent today.
The cutbacks made necessary by the Bush tax cuts have delayed our economic recovery.
While the private sector has created 1 million jobs since the recession officially ended in June 2009, our federal state and local governments, at the behest of Republicans who want to keep cutting taxes on the rich and corporations, have eliminated 1.1 million jobs.
No one wants to see government waste. But reductions needed to pay for the Bush tax cuts not only undermine our economy today, they threaten our future. How can we expect Pennsylvania and our children to prosper in the future if we undermine their education? How will seniors purchase private health insurance, especially when so many of them have pre-existing conditions?
Presently, Medicaid picks up the cost for 62 percent of Pennsylvanians who need long-term care. How will we take care of our aged parents when support from Medicaid is eliminated?
All these federal and state cutbacks can be traced back to the Bush tax cuts. So Congress should commemorate their 10th anniversary by ending them. And that is just the first step.
To put our nation on a path to real economic recovery, Congress needs to pass a budget that creates jobs. It can raise the money for that by passing Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s (D-Ill.) Fairness in Taxation Act, which taxes millionaires and billionaires. And it can close corporate loopholes that allow corporations to profit when they ship jobs and profits overseas.
What does a job creating federal budget look like?
First, instead of cutting Medicare and Medicaid, it would build on the Affordable Care Act to guarantee health care for all. Doing so would create 200,000 jobs in the next 10 years in Pennsylvania alone. Second, it would help cash-strapped states such as Pennsylvania avoid cuts in education and then invest in early childhood education and programs that make college more affordable.
Third, it would invest in the green jobs that are our future. Ten years after we sought prosperity by increasing the rewards to the wealthy, it’s time to change direction.
We must build an America that works for all of us by investing in all of us.
That will create an economy that rewards hard work with good American wages and benefits and affordable health care that gives low-income families the opportunity to move into the middle class.