Blueprint: Cut rates, marriage penalty, & death tax

The Bush plan will:
• Provide real money for real needs.The Bush tax cut helps middle class families pay for today’s bills and save for tomorrow’s needs.
• Cut taxes for every taxpayer through lower marginal rates. Replace the current five-rate tax structure of 15, 28, 31, 36 and 39.6% with four lower rates of 10, 15, 25 and 33%.
• Provide the biggest percentage cuts to low and middle income taxpayers. Middle class families will receive significant tax relief - for example, a typical family of four making $35,000 will get a 100 percent income tax cut, worth about $1,500 a year.
• Double the child tax credit. Raise it from $500 to $1,000 per child.
• Cut the marriage penalty. Provide a new deduction for couples that pay higher taxes merely because they are married.
• End the death tax. Completely eliminate the death tax, which will benefit middle class families.

Expand charitable donation deductions all around

Tax-related Proposals to Promote Faith-Based and Community Organizations:
• Expand the federal charitable deduction to taxpayers who do not itemize
• Permit a credit against state taxes for contributions to charities addressing poverty
• Permit individuals over 59 to contribute IRA funds to charities, without having to pay income tax on the amount withdrawn
• Raise the cap on corporate charitable deductions from 10% to 15% of a company’s taxable income

Keep charitable deduction as incentive for giving

According to McCain’s plan, people who give charitable contributions in the form of stock, real estate, bonds, or artwork could no longer take a tax deduction for the current, appreciated value of the gift. Instead, the donor could take a deduction only for the original cost of the asset. The McCain campaign describes this as closing a loophole for the very rich, while the Bush campaign says it would kill off incentives for giving.

“Wealthy Americans shouldn’t get a tax write-off for contributing a fancy painting or an overvalued stock,” said McCain’s spokesman. “Bush is protecting his wealthy donor base at the expense of the middle class.” By eliminating the deduction, the spokesman said, 25,000 additional working-class people would get a tax cut.

Don’t balance the budget on the backs of the poor

Allow IRA withdrawals for charitable contributions

Tax plan will focus on jobs and inner cities

Eliminate certain sales and property taxes

Reduce homeowner property taxes

Replace corporate property tax with sales tax

Gore’s targeted tax cuts apply to too few people

“Well,” Bush said, “not too many of you are targeted for that tax cut. Now how many of you own a rooftop photo-voltaic system?” Again, no hands.

“You’re beginning to get the drift of ‘targeted,’ ” Bush said. “It’s always the same in my opponent’s plans - it sounds good until you read the fine print.”

Gore’s convoluted “targeted cuts” exclude too many people

Bush asked, “How many of you own hybrid electric-gasoline engine vehicles? That’s one of the criterion necessary to receive tax relief,“ referring to an element of Gore’s environment and energy plan that proposes to reward people who buy such vehicles with one-time tax credits of $1,000 to $6,000. ”How many of you own a rooftop photo-voltaic system?“ Bush then asked, ridiculing Gore’s suggested tax credit for people who put solar panels on the roofs of their houses or businesses. ”If you had one, you’d get tax relief.“

Clinton/Gore couldn’t deliver on 1992 tax cuts

GORE: As for 20,000 new bureaucrats, as you call them, you know the size of the federal government will go down in a Gore administration. In the Reinventing Government Program, you just look at the numbers. It is 300,000 people smaller today than it was eight years ago. Now, the fact is you’re going to have a hard time convincing folks that we were a whole lot better off eight years ago than we are today. But that’s not the question. The question is, will we be better off four years from now than we are today?

Don’t make Shermanesque promises on taxes like dad

A: It was a death of a thousand cuts, and it took a thousand to defeat him. He couldn’t get his base intact. And the cause of that was breaking the “read my lips” tax pledge.

Q: But didn’t his compromise on taxes help set groundwork for the recovery?

A: Some economists say it helped. I think the lesson is not to give a Shermanesque pledge during a campaign.

Q: But having made it, was he right to compromise later?

A: I would have advised him not to have done it, as political advice.

Q: But that’s making a policy for political reasons.

A: As I said, that would have been my political advice. There were other reasons [besides tax policy that] he lost. Perot. Third, there was the beginning of a generational change. Fourth, he did not wisely spend political capital earned from Desert Storm on domestic politics. Fifth, his campaign wasn’t designed well. And part of the reason he lost was history. He was at the end of a very long run.

Add targeted cuts to comprehensive tax cut

Polls against tax cuts don’t affect that they’re right

Remove unfairness from the tax code

“A tax-cutting person” in TX, would do same for US

$1B “capital-friendly” tax cut in Texas

Read my lips: I will cut taxes

Tax plan, helping poor & rich, gives economy “second wind”

Lower tax rate for poor as well as rich

Tax relief will spur growth and help pay national debt

Tax cut for all is affordable and right thing to do

Bush defended his tax-cut proposal. I’m not changing my opinion on it. It’s the absolute right thing to do for America. Bush’s plan would reduce federal tax rates across the income spectrum, lowering the highest rate to 33% from 39.6% and the lowest rate to 10% from 15%.

The surplus is the people’s money-return it

But they’ve got it backwards. The surplus is not the government’s money. The surplus is the people’s money. Now is the time to reform the tax code and share some of the surplus with the people who pay the bills.

No one should pay more than 1/3 in taxes

• On principle, everyone should be free to pass on their life’s work to those they love. So we will abolish the death tax.
• On principle, no one in America should have to pay more than a third of their income to the federal government. So we will reduce tax rates for everyone, in every bracket.
• On principle, those in the greatest need should receive the greatest help. So we will lower the bottom rate from 15% to 10% and double the child tax credit.

It’s the people’s money, not the government’s

Bush would also double the child tax credit to $1,000 a child, and increase the income level at which the credit phases out. He would allow two-income couples to take a deduction of up to $3,000, to reduce the marriage penalty, and would phase out the tax on large estates.

Bush argues that b giving a tax cut to the working poor, his plan would help people struggling to climb into the middle class. He also contends that the plan would appropriately return excess revenue to the people who had earned it in the first place.,

“We’re dealing with the people’ money, not the government’s money, and I want to give people their money back,” Bush said. “And if you’re going to have a tax cut, everybody ought to have a tax cut.”

Biggest tax cuts to those who pay the biggest tax bills

Use prosperous times to get money out of Washington

Cut top tax rate to 33% while cutting lower income taxes too

McCAIN: I have never engaged in class warfare. [But] there’s a growing gap between the have’s and have-not’s in America and that gap is growing and it’s, unfortunately, divided up along ethnic lines. We ought to cut middle-income and lower-income taxes. But I’m not sure we need to give two-thirds of that tax cut [money] to the wealthiest 10% of America.

BUSH: I believe everybody ought to get a tax cut. I believe it’s important to cut the top rates. I think it’s important to drop the 39.6% [top tax rate] to 33%. I also know it’s important to make sure people who are on the outskirts of poverty get a tax cut as well. And my plan does both.

Leaving money in Washington means bigger budget spending

BUSH: I have a plan that takes $2 trillion over the next 10 years & dedicates it to Social Security. My plan has been called risky by voices out of Washington. In my judgment what’s risky is to leave a lot of unspent money in Washington, because guess what’s going to happen. It’s going to be spent on bigger federal governments.

McCAIN: Your tax plan over the next five years not only spends all of the surplus, it spends $20 billion in addition to that. But this idea that somehow if the money is left. -- you don’t understand the role of the president. The president of the US will veto bills that spend too much. I’ll veto bills that force Congress to spend less. That’s what’s being president is all about.

Put surplus into people’s pockets, not Washington’s pockets

BUSH: In human terms, [a couple earning] $42,000 a year in income, under [McCain’s] plan, will receive a $200 tax cut. Under the plan that I proposed, they receive an $1,852 tax cut. The fundamental difference is that the additional $1,600 will go to Washington under your idea. And under my idea it goes into people’s pockets. There is enough money to take care of Social Security. There’s enough money to meet the basic needs of our government and there is enough money to give the American people a substantial tax cut.

Put surplus into people’s pockets, not Washington’s pockets

Proposes tax cuts of $483B over 5 years

Lower tax rates to 10%-25%-33%; end inheritance tax.

The plan would double the child credit to $1,000 & allow more affluent families to claim the credit. It would benefit many married couples by reviving a deduction based on the lower-earning spouse’s income. And it would phase out over eight years the inheritance tax on large estates. The plan does not contain any reduction in taxes on capital gains.

“It’s a plan that will reduce the upper rate,” Bush said. “It’s a plan also that recognizes that our current system is not fair. If you’re a [poor] single mother with children, as you move toward the middle class, you pay an enormous rate.”

Praises Congress’ $792 billion tax cut

Vows to reduce marginal tax rates

Reduce tax rates; return surplus to taxpayers