Press Releases Legislative Alerts Congressional Ratings Heroes and Enemies Maps Email ATR Site Map Search
Home Press National Issues State Issues The Pledge Special Projects Get Active Join Donate
Legislative Alerts
Open Letters
National Projects
Cost of Government Day
Congressional Caucuses
Legislative Advisory Project
Congressional Ratings
K Street Project
National Issue Areas
Speeches and Testimony
Join ATR
Take Action!
Search ATR
Get Acrobat Reader

Fundamental Tax Reform

ATR Commentary

Is Bush's Tax Plan Really so Massive?

Throughout the presidential campaign and especially since George W. Bush won the election, the constant refrain from Democrats, notably Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle, has been about the inappropriately "massive" size of the Bush tax cut plan.

However, as an editorial in today's Investor's Business Daily makes clear, the tax cut proposed by President-elect George W. Bush is hardly as "massive" as Daschle and Gephardt would have us believe.

The tax cut proposed by Ronald Reagan, and passed by a Democrat-controlled Congress, was 3.3% of GDP. Moreover, the tax cut proposed by John F. Kennedy and passed by a Democrat-controlled Congress a year after his death was 2% of GDP.

The Bush proposal is just 0.9% of GDP.

What makes the protestations of Daschle and Gephardt especially egregious is the fact that both of them voted in favor of the Reagan tax cuts, which were more than triple the size of Bush's.

When Daschle and Gephardt supported the Reagan tax cuts, we lived in an era of budget deficits. In this era of budget surpluses, partisan politics is the only possible reason for their opposition to Bush's modest tax cut proposal.