Rich Lowry has an excellent evisceration of the idea that the Bush tax cuts raised tax rates on the middle class by causing other taxes to increase. Lowry first rips apart the idea that most middle-class families got only $304 in tax relief, then proceeds to show why it’s fallacious that cost of living and other increases are the results of Bush policy.
The whole "Bush tax" argument is ridiculous anyway – Dean has already promised to remove the Bush tax cuts in their entirety, which means at the very least the middle class will take a $304 hit (which is only if you believe the BS that that’s what they gained by the tax cuts in the first place). The insinuation is that by raising taxes on the federal level all of a sudden prices will deflate, your state taxes will go down, and you’ll get more money. In fact, what would happen is that the economy would go back into major contraction, tax receipts would plummet accordingly, and the average taxpayer would end up seeing their tax rates skyrocket in a futile attempt to make up the difference – provided they weren’t already in the poorhouse because Dean’s irresponsible corporate tax increases had caused businesses to have to shed jobs to stay competitive.
The "Bush tax" is a myth that deserves to be put to rest, and Lowry does a deft job of intellectually devastating its arguments – not that such an argument has ever relied on facts in the first place.
