Politics: The poor gets poorer.

Everybody knows that Bush's tax cut to the weathly left out the poor, and only houses that made more then 30-40K a year got some tax break. This of course outraged me since a majority of the poor make under 20K a year from minimal wage jobs. Anyway lets fast forward to today....

Congress is thinking of lower the child tax breaks. Currently the tax break set in 2001 states that each child in the household of the poor (thats under $10,000) is allowed a tax break per child upto $1000 or %10 of the household income. So a single house hold family making $9K can ask for $900 back in taxes.

The inflation of course should take account and should be raised upto $10,750. However the tax break will increase to 15% meanwile that max is lowered to $700/child. In 2011 it is expected to drop to $500/child. Now keep in mind that minimal wage hasn't been increased since 1997.


"According to the Joint Tax Center, it would cost approximately $4.3 billion to fix this inequity for the millions of families who are currently seeing their child-tax credit shrink. That's less than 5 percent of the total tax bill. (Doing this would also simplify the tax code.) As it stands, the cost of the tax credit isn't paid for, meaning the cost is likely to fall directly on the backs of the middle-class and poor through future spending cuts."

"IT'S A PATTERN: This is part of an overall pattern (http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040906fa_fact) in which the lower and middle classes are being left behind to pay for tax cuts for the rich. The alternative minimum tax (AMT), for instance, is increasingly falling on the shoulders of the middle class (http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/local/sfl-ybsternspot20sep20,0,7479557.story?coll=sfla-business-front) . Last month the Congressional Budget Office revealed President Bush's tax cuts since 2001 "have shifted more of the tax burden from the nation's rich to middle-class families (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/16/politics/main636398.shtml) ." And as the Washington Post reports, the effects of these policies are coming home to roost: "Income inequality has grown. In 2001, the top 20 percent of households for the first time raked in more than half of all income (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34235-2004Sep19?language=printer) , while the share earned by those in the middle was the lowest in nearly 50 years." (Meanwhile, President Bush has refused to close loopholes or roll back tax cuts for those earning over $200,000 a year because he acknowledges "the really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway.")"