HGs World Commentary
Commentary by H.G. Listiak
Dean Tax Plan


Tuesday 01/06/2004

Welcome to my world. Howard Dean, at least for the moment the Democrat's front runner in their uphill battle to wrestle the White House away from President Bush, has made a lot of noise about the Bush tax cuts, despite the fact they have lit the fuse to our current economic dynamite. Dean says he wants to relieve the economic squeeze on working class families and he has a plan. It's just that his numbers disagree with his campaign rhetoric. Here's how it breaks down. Currently the capital gains tax is 15%, Dean wants it 20%. The divident tax is 15%, Dean wants it 39.6%. The high income tax rate is 35%, Dean wants it 39.6%. The middle income tax rate is 25%, Dean's plan puts it at 28%, and the low rate at 10% would go to 15%. The per-child credit is a thousand dollars, Dean wants it 500. The marriage penalty is now gone, but Dean wants it re-instated. Here's what the Dean plan would mean to Mr. and Mrs. America. Currently, a married couple with one child making 40 thousand a year pays income taxes of about 1500 dollars. Under the Dean tax plan they would pay about three thousand, about double. For a family with two children, knocking down 80 thousand a year, the extra Dean tax would be about 18 hundred dollars more than they are paying now. I fail to see how this will ease the squeeze on average Americans. Dean says this will bring prosperity, but it's hard to see how since small businesses, responsible for nearly 70% of our work force, will be hammered hard. If the business makes over 87 thousand a year, they would owe a 15% payroll tax, upping the 38% small business rate to 53%, which is enough to put many self employed businessmen and women out of work, hardly prosperity. The bottom line here is that the Bush tax plan, although taking its time, is working. What candidate Dean proposes puts us almost back to where we were, and that wasn't working very well at all, as I see it ... I'm H.G. Listiak.



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