Posted on 06/10/2003 9:41:03 AM PDT by mikeb704
Some economic facts of life are obvious. You can’t take money out of a bank account unless someone has put money in it. You can’t get a rebate on a product if you don’t buy it. You can’t take advantage of lower interest rates if you don’t take out a mortgage.
Only in Washington, D.C. can basic economic truisms be turned on their head. That’s the case with the expanded child tax credit.
Less than a month ago, Mr. Bush signed a multibillion dollar tax cut that will issue checks of up to $400 to most middle-income families. The reimbursement is the result of an increase in the child’s tax credit to $1,000 from the current, partially refundable $600.
But then the Left went into a collective hissy fit because the legislation didn’t do enough. Sure, it provided refunds to taxpayers. But why in the world should those who don’t pay taxes not be eligible as well? Should people be denied a tax cut merely because they don’t pay any federal income tax? Talk about unfair.
"These are hardworking couples who put in a hard day’s work," argued Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR). No one said they weren’t, but no matter. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) took a break from hawking her new book of fiction to wail: "This administration is waging war on poor children."
"George Bush promised to leave no child behind, and with the stroke of his pen yesterday, he left 12 million children behind," said Democrat presidential candidate and Mr. Ed look-alike Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts.
Jumping on the issue were the dependable Washington Post and New York Times. The Post ran an editorial titled "Children left behind" in which it bemoaned, "Stiffing these children." The Times’ Bob Herbert wrote: "The fat cats will get their tax cuts. But in the new American plutocracy, there won't even be crumbs left over for the working folks at the bottom of the pyramid to scramble after."
According to the Post’s David Broder, "Something got screwed up in terms of your priorities if you think it’s more important to get rid of the dividend tax than it is to take care of 11 million kids."
Peter Jennings began his ABC World News Tonight broadcast with, "We’re going to begin here in Washington tonight because now that the President’s tax cut has become law and people thought the dust of debate had settled here, it turns out that a whole lot of people in the country who could use the money are not going to get it...."
And so the debate was framed. As usual, it was the cold, heartless, fat cat protecting Republicans against the warm, loving, ultra virtuous Democrats and other libs. And, as is so often the case, it’s all for, you guessed it, THE CHILDREN.
It was no contest. Republican whip Roy Blunt of Missouri audaciously proclaimed that his party had nothing to fear in terms of a backlash as long as Americans understood that it’s only the families who don’t pay taxes who wouldn’t be getting a tax cut. "This is a tax credit, not a . . . number-of-children benefit program," he pointed out.
That’s fine but for one small problem. Most American’s don’t have an understanding of the issue. They hear sound bites and watch what Big Media tells them and then move on to more important matters, such as keeping up with what’s called reality TV. They don’t realize that the expanded child’s credit is not a tax cut. What the Left wants, predictably, is more welfare. Which is exactly what this debate is all about.
Blunt’s boss, House majority leader Tom DeLay, has expressed his opposition to expanding the child’s tax credit to non-taxpayers as the Senate did last week. Monday, the president decided to get on the bandwagon before it rolls over him. He’s now encouraging the House to go along with the Senate.
Mr. Bush is yielding to the inevitable, made inevitable by our lack of interest in policy issues. I’m disappointed in him and I’m disappointed in us.
This is a textbook example of how the Left keeps racking up victories no matter who’s in the White House and no matter who controls Congress.
For some Dems, if you're not living off the public one way or another, you're a fat cat.
But this does cost, yet no one says it does.
The network news is like something from another dimension...
They do NOT pay income tax and so should not get a refund, especially when they already get the EITB, which is welfare!!
FICA is a tax, not an investment. Most of the people who don't make enough to pay income tax but do pay FICA will be lucky if they seen 10 cents of every dollar FICA steals from them.
They seem to want it both ways.
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