In case you were wondering where all that Bush tax relief was going:

If you are in the bottom 20%, making about $12K per year, your “tax relief” is 0.7% of your income (or ~$84/year).

But if you were in the top 1% of income earners, making on average about $1.5M, your relief is 3.9% of your income (or ~$564,000.00/year).

As I recall, in the first year, Bill Gates got about $30Million in “tax relief”.

In total across the country: if you are in the bottom 20%, your share of the total tax pie reduction is 1.1% (or $2.0 billion this year).

If you are in the top 1% of income earners, then your share of the total is %37.6 (or $72.6 Billion this year)

So, in one way, when Bush said last night that the average tax increase would be about $1,800 per wage earner if his tax cuts were not made permanent he was not lying.

On the other hand, if you are an average American making an average income, your tax increase if the tax cuts expire will be about $200/year.

Funny thing about that average – it is greatly skewed by the top 1% under the Bush tax plans. (And the Reagan and Bush Sr. tax plans before him).

I just got really curious last night during the state of the union speech when Bush made that $1,800/year per tax-payer comment last night regarding his tax cut. Because I knew I never saw anything close to $1,800 back in 2001 or any year since.

And funny thing: if you go to whitehouse.gov <link> and read the transcript of the state of the union address, the $1,800 quote does not appear. But if you go here: (also on whiehouse.gov) <link> it does appear. Strangely when you go to link for the SotU address on whitehouse.gov, or Google it, you get an edited version of the SotU address. You have to follow a link for the “Full Transcript” to get the full, unedited version. Most news services have posted, or are linking to, the edited version. So when I first Googled this to make sure I had my facts straight (was it $1,800 per wage-earner, or was it $1,800 per tax-payer?) my first impression was that I had hallucinated this part of the speech because it was nowhere to be found. Nice accountability. Good truthiness.

Tax figures from http://www.ctj.org/

Read it for yourself here: <link>

In any discussion of the economy, when a Republican quotes an average, you should immediately request the value of the median.

564k is closer to 39% of 1.5 million, not 3.9%. You, or your source, likely meant 56.4k. Honest mistake, I hope.

Meanwhile, you are kinda making this more complex than it needs to be. 12k is, after all, poverty under most definitions. There's a saying that comes to mind about blood and turnips.

Someone earning 12k will logically not benefit from tax cuts. They benefit from INCREASED SPENDING.

It seems 50k is the magic number in which tax cuts begin to matter to an individual. This is evidenced by the way people voted in 2004. The 55% of voters making more than 50k leaned towards Bush, the 45% of voters making less than 50k leaned toward Kerry.

I should have noticed that a single-digit percent refund would not return 1/3rd of your income. Honest mistake, thanks for the catch.

So if someone making $12K/yr is living in poverty, why are we taxing them any amount while giving huge tax relief to Bill Gates?

Of course, I think we should have a flat tax with no deductions except a personal deduction that is pegged at the poverty line ($12K would not be a bad figure). Of course, the home mortgage interest would have be fazed out over some period or the fallout would be worse than the current sub-prime fiasco that was created by this administration (it is in another Slate article).

What specific policies of this Administration "created" the sub-prime fiasco?

Who is this guy? First time on here, and I noticed there is one bad egg already.

thewolf05827:

What specific policies of this Administration "created" the sub-prime fiasco?

Do you need someone to go out and find these "policies" for you, or are you just throwing in a wrench here, to stop the gears from turning? How about you go out into the world, and find these sub-primes for yourself, and bring them back here?

What will be next? I've read most of your postings, the harlequin stance you have taken so many times on here..."Prove it?" will be next right, or is that just what has happened?

Seems the new guy already has you figured out!!

Did not take very long either!!

You're certainly welcome to accept, unexamined, whatever is presented here as fact-- but I'm not obligated to. How revealing that you think a critical approach to matters of substance constitutes "throwing in a wrench" rather than trying to understand the truth.

Just get used to the old buzzard, this is his way of panhandling for attention.

Ignore him new guy, your better off.

The truth...seems to me that now would be left up to the poster of this post, but I have to question if it is the truth you seek, or a need to put out a fire of negative republican remarks!

Very quaint, and convenient of you to pop up when ever there is a negative remark about republicans, just to toss in the old monkey wrench. Maybe I'm wrong, but I have to wonder?

Bravo for life's little ironies.

By George (not bush) I think he's got it!!!!

Thewolf asks, "What specific policies of this Administration "created" the sub-prime fiasco?" The answer is when you socialize risk and privatize reward you remove all discipline from financial markets. When you allow institutions to become "too big to be allowed to fail" and then refuse to regulate them, you encourage all kinds or reckless behavior and get crisis after crisis, each one requiring taxpayer bail-outs the sow the seeds of the next disaster. You don't tell speculators that they can't lose whatever they do and expect them to act prudently. Bush didn't invent this policy. Alan Greenspan probably deserves the most "credit," but he certainly approved of it.

Sure sounds like your complaint is that the Administration didn't do something you think it should have-- and not the other way around.

You're better off just ignoring the monkey wrench thewolf05827, he has only one agenda on the fray, and thats looking for attention.