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Ten years ago this month, Congress enacted the third major tax cut of the George W. Bush administration. Its centerpiece was a huge cut in the tax rate on dividends. Historically, they had been taxed as ordinary income, but the Bush plan, enacted by a Republican Congress, cut that rate to 15 percent. The tax rate on ordinary income went as high as 35 percent. This initiative originated with the economist R. Glenn Hubbard, who had been chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers when the proposal was sent to Congress. Mr. Hubbard was a strong believer that the double...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: This is hilarious. As you know, ladies and gentlemen, beginning with the first day of the year, and because of the fiscal cliff deal, the temporary partial tax cut on the Social Security tax expired. There was a temporary partial exemption on the payroll tax. I've been asked if most people noticed it. They didn't notice it until they were told about it. It added up to, depending on your income, it could be a thousand dollars a year that you had extra because of this partial tax. Anyway, on January 1, that partial temporary tax cut...

Princeton, New Jersey (CNN) -- Somewhere in Texas, former President George W. Bush is smiling. Although some Democrats are pleased that taxes will now go up on the wealthiest Americans, the recent deal to avert the fiscal cliff entrenches, rather than dismantles, one of Bush's signature legacies -- income tax cuts. Ninety-nine percent of American households were protected from tax increases, aside from the expiration of the reduced rate for the payroll tax. In the final deal, Congress and President Barack Obama agreed to preserve most of the Bush tax cuts, including exemptions on the estate tax. When Bush started...

House Speaker John Boehner is playing a heroic role right now. In his efforts to prevent the Bush tax cuts from expiring, Boehner is aggressively taking on President Obama's leadership ineptitude on the economy. In essence, Boehner is pushing a Republican policy to wrap up a debt-limitation bill and extend the Bush tax cuts in one fell swoop before the election -- and before all the last-minute, crisis-oriented political machinations that would come in a lame-duck Congress, threatening another credit downgrade and leading to a business-hiring freeze and plunging stock market, all of which happened last year. Tax-cut certainty is...

Barack Obama won the great tax-cut showdown of 2010 - and House Democrats don't have a clue that he did. In the deal struck this week, the president negotiated the biggest stimulus in American history, larger than his $814 billion 2009 stimulus package. It will pump a trillion borrowed Chinese dollars into the U.S. economy over the next two years - which just happen to be the two years of the run-up to the next presidential election. This is a defeat? At great cost that will have to be paid after this newest free lunch, the package will add as...

* Moody's: long-term US credit worries not being addressed * Risk is tax cuts extended again in 2 years * Moody's sees no change in US ratings in 18-24 months NEW YORK, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Moody's Investors Service is worried the extension of U.S. tax cuts agreed by President Barack Obama and Republican leaders could become permanent, hurting U.S. finances and its credit ratings in the long run. Steven Hess, Moody's lead sovereign analyst for the United States, said on Tuesday doesn't foresee any change in the U.S. AAA ratings in the next 18 months to two years. He...

Ferguson: Why No Jobs? Tax Hikes Ahead Monday, July 26, 2010 11:46 AM By: Dan Weil Harvard economic historian Niall Ferguson has an explanation for why unemployment remains stubbornly high at 9.5 percent. It’s the threat of tax increases as the Bush tax cuts end this year. “Why is it that small- and medium-sized businesses in the United States today are not hiring? Why is it that they're not expanding?” he said on CNN. “It's because they see the tax hikes coming that are implied by this fiscal policy.” The United States is running a budget deficit estimated by the...

Following comments from Senate Democrats expressing willingness to extend Bush tax cuts, the White House dispatched Tim Geithner to kill the buzz. Tim just announced Obama's plans to let the tax cuts expire for wealthy Americans in January, according to WSJ. Which is what people expected all along. WSJ: Mr. Geithner said there is "still some uncertainty about how strong the recovery is going to be," which may be impacting spending decisions by businesses and individuals. But he discounted that as a reason to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for top earners, saying most private forecasts show moderate economic growth...

I belong to a Methodist Church in a rural area with a small congretion of 30 or so. This past Sunday the Pastor started his sermon by saying how much good the Bush tax cut could have done if it had been used to alleviate poverty.

<p>With a gigantic IRS 1040 income-tax form covering a slightly ajar door presumably leading to a room filled with tightly guarded information, the headline of Newsweek's current cover story screams: "The Dirty Little Secret of the Tax Cut: Why It's Smaller Than You Think." Inside, the article greets the reader with the bold assertion: "Why Your Tax Cut Doesn't Add Up." But the only thing that doesn't add up is the article itself. It is replete with misstatements and distortions masquerading as the real-life experiences of Americans since President Bush's tax cuts were enacted in 2001 and 2003.</p>

Letter to the Editor After reading Greg Ehrhardt's letter to the editor titled, "Note to Democrats: The rich are here to stay," I was delighted someone finally pointed out many college students are deficient in their knowledge of economic issues. My hope was that maybe Ehrhardt would have bothered to read a history book, or at least an economics book, before he wrote this response. As I read his letter, I felt a nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach, and an overwhelming sense of impending doom that could only be caused by one thing: Republican rhetoric. It seems...

Alan Greenspan Undercuts Bush Tax Cut By MARY DALRYMPLE, AP Tax Writer WASHINGTON - Federal Reserve (news - web sites) Chairman Alan Greenspan (news - web sites) undercut President Bush (news - web sites)'s case for new tax cuts Wednesday, saying a provision the White House badly wants should be offset by either spending cuts or tax increases elsewhere. Meanwhile, a key House Republican proposed lowering capital gains tax rates as an alternative to the top Bush priority — eliminating taxes on stock dividends. Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif., told Republicans on his panel that the idea...

Cheney defends Bush tax-cut plan Critics continue attack, saying proposal benefits rich, will increase deficit 01/11/2003 By G. ROBERT HILLMAN / The Dallas Morning News WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney rebutted critics of the administration's sweeping tax cut proposals Friday in what is becoming an increasingly difficult sell among Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. And within minutes of his rebuttal, Senate Democrats were back on the attack. "I believe there ought to be a tax cut, but I don't believe that we ought to have a $675 billion, 10-year tax cut at a time when we...

Last week marked the one-year anniversary of the tax cut President Bush signed into law. Contrary to what you will hear from its liberal detractors - and some of its conservative boosters - this was a tiny tax cut compared to anticipated federal revenues or the overall economy. But it marked the first reduction in personal income tax rates in several years and restored billions of dollars to their rightful owners, the American taxpayers.Tax reformer Grover Norquist cited estimates that the tax cut will help create 800,000 new jobs this year. By lowering marginal rates, however slightly, the tax cut...