Examiner Staff Writers Tens of thousands of Washington-area families, already feeling squeezed by the recession, are facing skyrocketing taxes.
President Obama and the Democrats say they want to help the nation’s economic recovery by letting Bush-era tax cuts for those making $250,000 or more expire at the end of the year.
Under President Clinton, the government took 39 percent of the top tax bracket’s income. Bush reduced the tax rate to 36 percent. But his cuts expire at the end of the year. Democrats hope the reinstatement of old taxes on the wealthy will generate up to $850 billion over 10 years.
“Sometimes you feel like you’re being punished for making good decisions,” said Debbie Rose, a mother of three in Loudoun County, whose husband is a strategy consultant with a major information technology firm.
Cato Institute scholar Dan Mitchell, a foe of tax increases, says those who focus on the “rich” to fund the government aren’t paying attention to history.
“In the grand scheme of things, of course it’s much better to be making $250,000 in Montgomery County or McLean, Va., than it is to be 99 percent of the rest of the world,” he said. “That said … the people of Montgomery County or McLean are not exactly the plutocrats of yesteryear.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 181,000 D.C.-area families make $200,000 or more per year. University of the District of Columbia sociologist G. Derek Musgrove says the U.S. is overdue for a rethink about wealth distribution. But he isn’t sure either party is capable of leading the discussion.
“Contemporary political debate is mangled by two political parties that want to be populist in a time of genuine working- and middle-class anger at inequalities of the system. And two parties of rich people at that,” Musgrove said.
Michael Linden, a tax and budget expert at the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, said the Bush tax cuts have to go — not for class reasons, but for practical reasons.
“Nobody likes to see their taxes go up,” he said. “But we’re seeing a pretty substantial budget deficit — caused mainly by the Bush tax cuts.”
