Should the Bush Tax Cuts be Extended?

Last week one of the blogs on my blogroll, A Taxing Matter, posted an entry analyzing whether the Bush tax cuts should be extended or not. Below are some of the author’s findings.

“The federal government has borrowed $1.6 trillion from 2001-2008 to pay for the tax cuts.

Consequence: all Americans will have to pay for this tax-cut-related debt, reducing their after-tax income.

One third of the benefits of the cuts go to the top 1 percent of households; one fifth of the benefits of the revenue reductions went to the top 0.3% of households that earn more than $1 million per year. Consequence: inequality in America is increasing, with the top 1% grabbing more of the anemic growth AND the benefits of the Bush revenue reductions; meanwhile, the bottom is stagnating

Investment and economic growth have not equaled other growth periods. Consequence: with anemic growth and other policies that favor the wealthy, the vast majority have been hurt, not helped, by the tax cuts

Making the cuts permanent would cost $3.4 trillion just over the next decade, including borrowing costs – three times what is needed to close the Social Security funding gap!”