Building Trades News

The apologists for the Bush Administration have continually argued that federal taxes in America have never been higher. At the same time the Republican-controlled Congress has enacted further tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, while the middle wage earners are left with a higher and higher percentage of the country’s tax bill.

In 1950, the highest income tax rate in this country was 90 percent on annual incomes over $400,000. That tax rate was even higher when America was fighting World War II. But over the last 55 years, the income tax for the highest earners has been whittled away to 37 percent – after expenses. That leaves workers, their families and future generations with a huge and irresponsible tax burden.

Estimates are that every American alive today has over $150,000 in tax responsibility – and that number is growing every day. Now the Administration is trying to create new accounting procedures that would make its ever-growing deficit spending disappear as though the deficits had no effect on the budget or the economy.

Another proposal would create a “Division of Dynamic Analysis” within the Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Policy. Not only would this new administration-controlled Division cost more than $500,000 to establish, but it would be used solely to provide research to back up Bush and the Republicans continuous calls for more tax cuts for the rich.

I know that up to 40 percent of members of craft unions are registered Republicans, but these proposals aren’t partisan, This issue negatively affectis the 90 percent of American families who make under $275,000 per year – virtually every craft worker’s family, regardless of party.

These proposals are so off base that even the Wall Street Journal is speaking out against them, regularly deriding the staff of the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation for what the editorial page regards as the “inaccuracy of the Joint Committee’s estimates, calling them ‘the gnomes at Joint Tax who never get it right’ and asserting that Congress would be better off with estimates prepared by the Three Stooges – Larry, Curly, and Moe,” wrote Joel Friedman and Robert Greenstein for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The Joint Committee on Taxation has already undertaken “dynamic analysis.” That tells me that the Administration, mired in a “sea of red ink” is looking to hoodwink the public further, to cut the richest Americans’ taxes further, at the expense of adding to the $150,000 burden of future generations.

The Bush Administration and the Republican Congress are purposely ballooning the Country’s budget deficits and attempting to cover their trail so that every social program – including America’s Retirement system, Social Security, Medicare, Early Start Education, College Loans and FEMA, will collapse under the weight of the financial burden placed on wage earners. The rich are getting their cut now, through continued, unfair and unwarranted tax cuts, and the Administration continues to cover-up the true costs to the American economy and average families.

What can we do? Join with the AFL-CIO and the Building & Construction Trades Department in their efforts to expose what is happening with one party rule, and participate in their political efforts to change Congress. Go to the AFL-CIO web site, www.aflcio.org, and review the petition drives and direct community involvement.

Americans must be given a true picture of the effects that these unfair, uneven and unconscionable tax policies have and will have on the future of our children. It is one of the most important things that we can do.