If Tax Cuts are Permanent, Top 1% Get a Trillion Dollars in Tax Relief

February 8, 2007, Washington, D.C.

Under the Bush scheme to make tax cuts permanent, the top 1 percent of households will receive more than 1 trillion — yes, that's trillion, with a T — in tax relief over the next 10 years.

Meanwhile, the president's 2008 budget proposal would put workers' retirement security at risk, force seniors to pay more for doctors' visits and prescriptions and cut off hundreds of thousands of low-income children from publicly funded health care.

"The president's budget is filled with debt and deception, disconnected from reality, and continues to move America in the wrong direction," said Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. "This administration has the worst fiscal record in history and this budget does nothing to change that."

The proposed budget includes plans to divert a portion of Social Security payroll taxes to private accounts, a scheme Bush won't let go of even though it went nowhere under a Republican Congress.

As for the handouts to America's richest citizens, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities say they total more than the government spends on veterans' medical care, K-12 education and vocation schools and countless other domestic programs.