Hiding the Real Cost of Tax Cuts

News and Opinion for Democrats Against Bush -- Part II

Financial Tricks Hide the Real Cost of Tax Cuts

"Proponents of both bills are using budgetary sleight-of-hand to make the tax cuts and their impact on the burgeoning federal deficit look smaller than they really are. ... The full costs barely begin to show up inside the standard 10-year estimates produced by Congressional scorekeepers." --Edmund L. Andrews, New York Times

New York Times November 9, 2003

ECONOMIC VIEW

Lawmakers Push Costs of Tax Cuts Out of Sight

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

The complete article may be purchased from the New York Times archives at-- http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50F12FD385D0C7A8CDDA80994DB404482

Excerpt--

Washington

PERHAPS it is time for Congress to pass a Truth-in-Advertising Act for tax cuts.

Both the House and Senate are pushing ahead with bills that would overhaul corporate tax laws, offering new tax breaks to everybody from rust-belt manufacturing companies and Texas oil drillers to multinational conglomerates like Procter & Gamble. ...

But there is another issue that has received far less attention: proponents of both bills are using budgetary sleight-of-hand to make the tax cuts and their impact on the burgeoning federal deficit look smaller than they really are. ...

The issue is not just about shifting costs from one year to the next. It's about pushing the costs out of view by keeping them outside the standard forecasting window. Although the cost estimate looks ahead 10 years, most of the tax cuts go on indefinitely.

... Yet it is the longer term that the federal government faces huge fiscal difficulties as baby boomers start collecting Social Security and Medicare benefits. ...

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FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.