Word: cuttingly
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...suspend disbelief for a moment. Assuming the surplus does come through, what would the tax-cut plans really do for people? Bush says under his plan, a hard-working family earning $60,000 would be spared an additional $2,050 in taxes; under Gore's, he says, they would save nothing. But Gore points to an eerily similar-looking family and says just the opposite. So who's lying...
Neither is. Whether you benefit from each plan depends on the size of your income, how you choose to spend it and how many family members you're supporting. Generally speaking, you can believe the hype about the two plans. Bush's tax cut is almost three times as costly as Gore's and heaps most of its benefits onto wealthy Americans. Bush offers a couple of middle-class goodies--doubling the existing $500-per-child tax credit and reducing the marriage penalty--but since the thrust of his plan is an across-the-board cut, the wealthy folks...
...These are tax cuts that, if you do exactly what Al Gore says--if you not only spend your money the way he wants but you finance that spending the way he wants--he'll give you some of your money back," says Larry Lindsey, the former Federal Reserve governor who designed the Bush proposal. Quips Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer: "Al Gore's tax cut is a tax cut for the rich. All the lawyers and the accountants who will have to fill out all those complicated forms will benefit the most...
...real average family, the middle 20% of taxpayers making between $24,000 and $39,300, would do better than Gore suggested. They would be able to use Bush's tax cut to treat themselves to two cans of Diet Coke a day. Refreshing, perhaps, but not life changing...
Maybe that's why, ever since Bush introduced his plan late last year, public reaction has been medium to cool. Poll after poll has shown that a large tax cut is not high on Americans' lists of priorities. Bush's response to the public's reluctance has not been to back away from his idea; instead he just keeps reiterating its benefits and feasibility. "Maybe I didn't explain what I was trying to explain very well," he said in New Orleans on Thursday, before trotting out a middle-class family that would profit from his plan. "Let me start...