How the Bush Tax Cuts Made Us Poorer

Pulitzer Prize-winner David Cay Johnston provides the data confirming what we all knew was true, but many were afraid to say out loud:

Total income was $2.74 trillion less during the eight Bush years than if incomes had stayed at 2000 levels.That much additional income would have more than made up for the lack of demand that keeps us mired in the Great Recession. That would mean no need for a stimulus, although it would not have affected the last administration’s interfering with market capitalism by bailing out irresponsible Wall Streeters instead of letting the market determine their fortunes.

In only two years was total income up, but even when those years are combined they exceed the declines in only one of the other six years…

Had incomes stayed at 2000 levels, the average taxpayer would have earned almost $21,000 more over those eight years. That’s almost $50 per week.

These numbers make Democrats’ decision not to even hold a vote on the Bush tax cuts all the more appalling. We know they aren’t good economic policy, and we know that most Americans want at least part of those tax cuts repealed. We also know that Democrats aren’t refusing to hold a vote because they want to let the tax cuts naturally expire – we know they are planning to potentially ram through an extension of those tax cuts for the long haul.

As these numbers show, that would be a huge mistake.