When you are out of college you could quite possibly be in the middle of a economy in recession, prolonged by mistrust of big corporations and a tax cut that both broke the bank and failed to stimulate the economy.
I thought of writing this column while watching a feature story on President Bush’s tax cut plan. The package, which will cost 600 billion dollars, will speed up delivery on tax-cuts that have already passed Congress. A competing Democratic plan will cost less than 200 billion.
The plan was typical of Republicans, but the most ridiculous part of it was its name, something along the lines of the “Support for the Continuation of the Economy’s Revival Plan.”
The drafting process probably went something like this: “George, who has the most money in America?”
“The CEO’s and Dick, you know those nice people, like the oil companies and the energy merchants – like Enron!”
“Now, who will get the most money back from an across the board tax cut?”
“The rich!”
“And who will benefit most?”
“The rich!”
Having failed at economic “stimulus” through “trickle-down economics,” yet still facing a recession, the Bushies are going to do the same thing they did before. An average family of four will get a tax cut of $1,000. People could use $1,000, many of them could use $83,000, but they’re not the ones who will get $83,000 in tax-cuts.
In the end we’ll see the same results as we do every time the rich get their taxes cut, namely, the poor who were the first to be affected by the recession, will be the last to be effected by the trickle-down of the upper-class’ cash.
The reality is that trickle down economics doesn’t work. The only real positive effect that giving more money to the rich has is to create more jobs for the people who haven’t got jobs in the first place.
Perhaps some people will get raises, but it’s likely that many of them will have to use their new income to supplement social services once provided and soon to be cut by the U.S. government.
These days working people make up a lot of the people who are getting support from charities. The number of working homeless is growing and this is during what Bush is calling a “recovery.”
Just remember, people just out of college are going to be among those working people in a lot of debt when they get out of college. Hope the United StatesSS “continues to recover” at a faster rate between now and then.
