A typical American family can use the tax relief to pay for one year’s tuition at most community colleges, to pay for child care for about four months, or to pay for gasoline costs for two cars for one year.
(The President’s Agenda For Tax Relief, February 15, 2001)
The typical family is defined by Uncle Sam as a family of four, with earnings of $50,000 annually. Our combined income as a family of four brings in $35,747 according to the adjusted gross income from our year 2000 income taxes. Our 'tax relief' was touted as being $600.00 for married filing jointly. Yet the small print says or 5% of gross income whichever is less. I hear that it's really more like a tax credit against next year filings. Oh well, the check arrived this week in the amount of $262.00 and it will be spent on back to school items like the $100.00 graphing calculator Number Two Son is required to have for his trig class that the public school system can't afford to provide.
Where did it come from? Well according to pundits it's based on a prediction of an estimated 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion.
Right now, our taxes have never been higher. Right now, our surplus has never been greater. To me it’s just plain common sense that you deal with the first by using the second.
So said Senate Democrat
Zell Miller Of Georgia in a January press conference this year. He continues:
second. . . . This plan would make our tax code more progressive by cutting federal income taxes for people all across the income spectrum. And the largest percentage cuts would go to those Americans who earn the least. Under this proposal, six million more families will no longer pay any federal income taxes at all. That’s one out of five families with children.
Where does that leave our family of four? An editorial from The Wall Street Journal supports this tax 'relief' with this information.....
The Bush tax cut does not favor the rich. . . . Rather, higher income families get lower percentage reductions. Those earning $50,000-$75,000 a year would see an average cut of 30%; families earning $75,000-$100,000 would see an average cut of 18%; and those earning more than $100,000 would have an average reduction of 10%.
It puts us someplace between the cracks in this plan.