First of all, tax cuts don’t “cost” anything, because it’s money the government never gets. The government doesn’t have any money except that which we give it. We’re the ones who decide how much the government will get; the government doesn’t decide how much of our paychecks we “need.” Besides, tax cuts aren’t a “cost.” It’s a sale on the cost of working. It’s like a company advertising their product, or making some other investment. If Bush’s tax cuts increase revenue up to the $674 billion price tag and it will there will be no cost, and bye-bye deficit!
If it brings in, say, two dollars for every dollar of tax relief, we’ll have more money in the treasury and thus safeguard programs like Social Security! The idea behind tax cuts is to get the economy to grow. The economy is not static. The pie is not one size forever, with no new slices. The object is to grow so we have more people working and paying taxes. Presidents Kennedy and Reagan proved this with their tax cuts. The Democratic Congress spent every new dollar and more that Reagan brought in, but the fact is that the revenue coming into the treasury nearly doubled over his two terms.
Similarly, if the Democrat plan, at $136 billion, causes no increased activity in the economy because it’s nothing but one-time tax rebates instead of cuts and a huge pile of cash to state governments, then, yep, it’s a cost. The Bush plan alone offers genuine stimulus to put money in your pocket every year for the next ten years. Since 70% of the economy is consumer spending, that extra cash is going to make the economy boom which is the last thing the Democrats want to see. After all, they’re banking on a losing economy to propel them back into power in 2004. Nice guys, huh?