Reply #33: My take is... [View All]

I can give you my simplified perspective of it all.

The Bush tax cuts are kind of like Kerry's campaign this last quarter where he spent 7 million dollars and only took in 4 million dollars. Under the Clinton tax plan it would have been the reverse. Under Bush, spending has gone way up while revenue has been cut. On top of the Bush debt and additional expenses (wars, homeland security, etc.) most all the candidates want to add new programs such as healthcare which adds an additional expense. Dean and Gephardt want to eliminate all of the Bush tax cuts and go back to what we had under the last Democratic president. Some, such as Edwards and Kerry, want to leave in some of the tax cuts to the middle class. Because of the debt and expenses what this means is that the government will spend like a $1000 in order to give someone a $300 tax cut. While this doesn't make economic sense it could win political points, although there could be those that see this as an affirmation that the Bush tax cuts were partially correct and so some of those points would go to him as well in the public perception. Both Dean and Kerry will be slammed by the GOP about raising taxes from their records. From a negotiating with Congress standpoint, Dean would begin with a stronger bargaining position since the president won't get all he asks for anyway. If you begin with the position of keeping part of the Bush tax cuts then you could have a situation of well, we'll keep these if we can also keep these others which of course will leave less money for the new programs. It would be better to get rid of all the Bush tax cuts and then do some real tax reform rather than work with some cobbled up Bush tax plan, imo. People want the programs but they don't want the taxes to pay for them, and so it'll be a challenge for the candidate to sell to the public their programs and show that they are really going to benefit.