Many liberals claim that the Bush tax cut only benefits the wealthy. Anyone with basic math skills can prove this is not true. Actually, “President Bush tax cut” cuts the most on the lowest income bracket. The income tax goes as follows for filing single:

Current Tax:

New Tax

This chart breaks down per income tax bracket on the differences of income taxes comparing President Bush tax cut vs. current taxes.

As we can see from this chart, the tax bracket $0-$6,000 has the greatest decrease in taxes which is 33%. The only tax bracket that was not effected was the tax bracket $6,000-$27,050. The second greatest decrease in taxes is 19% from tax bracket $65,550-$136,750. This is proof that President Bush tax cut is not only for the wealthy, but also for the lower and middle income tax bracket.

Other benefits from President Bush tax cut includes:

• Doubling the child tax credit to $1,000 per child and applying the credit to the Alternative Minimum Tax
• Reducing the marriage penalty by reinstating the 10 percent deduction for two-earner couples
• Eliminating the death tax
• Expanding the charitable deduction to non-itemiser
• Making Research and Experimentation (R&D) tax credit permannet

I came across this article “Understanding Income Inequality in the United States”. This article quotes vice presidential candidate John Edwards saying,

“two Americas…one privileged, the other burdened…one America that does the work, another that reaps the reward. One America that pays the taxes, another America that gets the tax breaks.”

In essence, he is saying that the poor does all the work and the rich takes the benefits. This is jargon and I can prove it. Lets take two people, person A and person B. Lets say person A makes a yearly income of $25,000 and person B makes a yearly income of $250,000. Using the current tax bracket, person A pays 15% income tax a year and person B pays 33% income tax a year. Therefore, person A pays $3,750 in taxes per year were as person B pays $82,500 in taxes per year. That means person B pays 2,200% more in taxes then person A. So why do John Edwards say, “One America that pays the taxes, another America that gets the tax breaks.” Now lets look at the lives of person A and person B. Typically, making $25,000 a year, a person would either be a clerk, filing papers, or working in a non-professional area. A person that makes around $250,000 is typically a business owner, or some type of executive at a large corporation. Making higher income levels typically requires high education or a higher risk factor. To make a high income level is a very hard thing to do. I once heard a saying, “If it is easy, then every one will do it.” Meaning, if getting rich is easy, then everyone would be rich. So, why did John Edwards say, “one America that does the work, another that reaps the reward.” Maybe it should be the other way around.

This article also states that the top fifth of the US households, whose income is above $84,000, pay 82.5 percent of the total federal income taxes where as the lower income families pays 1.1 percent.

Still, the top fifth of U.S. households (with incomes above $84,000) remain perennial targets of class-warfare enmity. These families, however, perform a third of all labor in the economy. They contain the best-educated and most productive workers, and they provide a disproportionate share of the investment needed to create jobs and spur economic growth. Nearly all are married-couple families, many with two or more earners. Far from shirking the tax burden, these families pay 82.5 percent of total federal income taxes and two-thirds of federal taxes overall. By contrast, the bottom quintile pays 1.1 percent of total federal taxes.

In one sense, John Edwards is correct: There is one America that works a lot and pays a lot in taxes, and there is another America that works less and pays little. However, the reality is the opposite of what Edwards suggests. It is the higher-income families who work a lot and pay nearly all the taxes. Raising taxes even higher on hard-working families would be unfair and, by reducing future investments, would reduce economic growth, harming all Americans in the long run.

It really boils my blood when people like vice presidential candidate John Edward talks jargon. Misinforming public America about economics and making lower income people feel that they are doing most, if not all the work and paying most of the taxes. This is non-sense! Especially in a presidential election. The sad thing about this is, sense his statement flowed and sounds persuasive, many uninformed people are going to believe him. Urrr… I know this is not a perfect world, but a presidential election should be based off of facts and not images, on what one believes and not on what just gets votes. I would respect John Kerry and John Edwards a lot more if they just stuck to the truth instead of an image.