Tax Cut Revisionism

http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2010/12/tax-cut-revisionism

From David Leonhart's column in today's New York Times:

The second, more likely option is to extend all the tax cuts — and to package them with other tax cuts and spending likely to do more to help the economy than the Bush tax cuts. (Remember, after President George W. Bush signed the cuts in 2001, the economy lost jobs for the next two years, and economic growth during his presidency was mediocre.)

What are commonly called the "Bush tax cuts" include not only the income tax cuts passed into law in 2001 (with a phased-in implementation) but also the dividend and capital gains tax cuts of 2003, which were passed in a law that also accelerated the income tax reductions, which weren't originally supposed to take full effect until 2006. Mr. Leonhardt's argument doesn't hold water.

by Ira Stoll  |  Dec 1, 2010 at 2:05 pm Related Topics:  Taxes receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free futureofcapitalism.com mailing list