Bush articulates rationale for regressive tax policy

[Rspaight]

From a recent rally:

He [Kerry] said he's only going to raise the tax on the so-called rich. But you know how the rich is, they've got accountants. That means you pay. That means your small business pays. It means the farmers and ranchers pay. That's the wrong medicine for this economy, and we're not going to let him prescribe it.

So, in other words, "Why not cut taxes on the rich? They get all the loopholes you need an expensive CPA to find, and you middle- and lower-class schlubs will just have to make up the difference anyway. So what's the point in even trying to make it equitable?"

Yeah, we know how the rich is.

Ryan

[Patrick M]

From a rally in Michigan:

We've got only two months left in the campaign, but the fellow I'm running against already has made about $2.2 trillion of new spending promises. No telling what's going to happen when we come down the stretch. So I said the other day, how are you going to pay for it? He said, oh, I'll just tax the rich. You've heard that talk before, haven't you? The rich hires accountants -- and guess who gets stuck with the tab? You do. But we're not going to let him win, are we? (Applause.)

[lukpac]

I like how he talks about "the rich" as if he was part of "the not rich".

[Patrick M]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases ... 817-9.html

You know, you've heard the talk in this campaign -- I'm running against a fellow who has made over $2 trillion of new spending promises. And so they asked him the other day, they said, how are you going to pay for it? He said, well, I'm going to tax the rich. You can't raise enough money by taxing the rich to pay for all his promises. So guess who is going to end up paying? Yes. But we're not going to let him. We're going to win in November. (Applause.)

[Patrick M]

I like how he talks about "the rich" as if he was part of "the not rich".

"First, let me make it very clear, poor people aren't necessarily killers. Just because you happen to be not rich doesn't mean you're willing to kill."—Washington, D.C., May 19, 2003

As seen in last Sunday's Doonesbury.

[Patrick M]

8/26:

In order to make sure we keep jobs here in America, we must keep your taxes low. (Applause.) Running up the taxes on the working people and the small businesses of America will slow down its economic recovery. Now, I'm running against a fellow who's already made over $2 trillion of promises in the course of the campaign, and we haven't even gotten to the stretch run yet. (Laughter.) We're not even coming down the pike. No telling what he'll promise in October. (Laughter.) The problem is, he hasn't said how he's going to pay for it. Well, he said one thing, he said he's going to tax the rich. You've heard that before, haven't you?

AUDIENCE: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Guess what? The rich dodge and you pay.

AUDIENCE: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: But we're not going to let him. We're going to beat him come November. (Applause.) And it's going to start with carrying the great state of New Mexico. (Applause.)

[lukpac]

I can't believe nobody has called him on this "the rich won't pay anyway so let's forget about them" act.

[Bennett Cerf]

I can't believe everything Bush gets away with. Hell, I still can't believe he got away with this pretend ad hominem (in bold) in one of the 2000 debates.


GORE: Well, I don't know about all these percentages that he throws out, but I do know that -- I speculate that the reason why he didn't answer your question directly as to whether my numbers were right, the facts were right about Texas ranking dead last in families with health insurance and 49th out of 50 for both children and women, is because those facts are correct. And as for why it happened, I'm no expert on the Texas procedures, but what my friends there tell me is that the governor opposed a measure put forward by Democrats in the legislature to expand the number of children that would be covered. And instead directed the money toward a tax cut, a significant part of which went to wealthy interests. He declared the need for a new tax cut for the oil companies in Texas an emergency need, and so the money was taken away from the CHIP program. There's -- you don't have to take my word for this. There is now a federal judge's opinion about the current management of this program ordering the State of Texas to do -- you should read that judge's language about this. I believe there are 1.4 million children in Texas who do not have health insurance. 600,000 of whom, and maybe some of those have since gotten it, but as of a year ago 600,000 of them were actually eligible for it but they couldn't sign up for it because of the barriers that they had set up.

MODERATOR: Let's let the governor respond to that. Are those numbers correct? Are his charges correct?

BUSH: If he's trying to allege that I'm a hard-hearted person and I don't care about children, he's absolutely wrong. We've spent $4.7 billion a year in the State of Texas for uninsured people. And they get health care. Now, it's not the most efficient way to get people health care. But I want to remind you, the number of uninsured in America during their watch has increased. He can make any excuse he wants, but the facts are that we're reducing the number of uninsured percentage of our population. And as the percentage of the population is increasing nationally, somehow the allegation that we don't care and we're going to give money for this interest or that interest and not for children in the State of Texas is totally absurd. Let me just tell you who the jury is. The people of Texas. There's only been one governor ever elected to back-to-back four-year terms, and that was me. And I was able to do so with a lot of Democrat votes, nearly 50% of the Hispanic vote, about 27% of the African-American vote, because people know I'm a conservative person and a compassionate person. So he can throw all the kinds of numbers around. I'm just telling you our state comes together to do what is right. We come together both Republicans and Democrats.

[lukpac]

I kind of wish it was Gore again this year.