Posted on: Wednesday, March 26, 2003

EDITORIAL
This is a terrible time for Bush's tax-cut bill

Senate Democrats are being credited with a major coup for cutting in half President Bush's proposed $726 billion tax-cutting package.

On the contrary, they need to be chided for failing to cut the other half.

Bush's first round of tax cuts, totalling $1.6 trillion, was a bad idea to begin with — even before an expensive war in Iraq. That's because these tax cuts have already succeeded in destroying one of the nation's most remarkable achievements of the 1990s — a budget surplus.

Even without the war in Iraq and any new tax cut, we're already committed to deficit spending for the rest of Bush's term. The $5.6 trillion surplus foreseen in the Clinton years is now unrealized . This year's deficit has swollen so far to $400 billion or more.

What's frustrating is that the White House has insisted on squandering this opportunity simply to make the rich richer. The children of today's poor and middle classes will struggle to pay for this profligacy.

This at a time when the economy is struggling to stay out of recession, thousands of jobs have been lost and cash-strapped state governments are slashing the services that poor people most need.