The Voodoo of Dubva-nomics

摘要

When congress passed president bush's tax bill last week, it had all the major elements he wanted: an immediate general income-tax-rate cut, a big tax break for dividends (plus another for capital gains he didn't request), and new deductions for small businesses. The total cost over 10 years, $350 billion, is less than half the $726 billion Bush asked for, but much of the gap is accounting tricks. The President need not worry that this bill won't cost enough. Bush's victory is intellectual as well as political. This bill reflects an extraordinary, even radical shift of the tax burden from the rich to the middle class. And in the weeks leading up to the bill's passage, Bush made a remarkably detailed and sophisticated case for it, most notably in Albuquerque, N.M., on May 12. Detailed, sophisticated and wrong-which makes his victory all the more impressive.