{"id":529209,"date":"2010-04-15T17:35:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-15T21:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/former-bush-aide-republicans-are-the-reason-47-of-americans-dont-pay-income-tax-2010-4"},"modified":"2010-04-15T17:35:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-15T21:35:00","slug":"former-bush-aide-its-the-gops-fault-so-many-americans-dont-pay-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/529209","title":{"rendered":"Former Bush Aide: It&#8217;s The GOP&#8217;s Fault So Many Americans Don&#8217;t Pay Taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"float_right\" src=\"http:\/\/static.businessinsider.com\/image\/7837544b383d9c496505cd00-324-243\/georgewbush-waving-tbi.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"georgewbush waving tbi\" width=\"324\" height=\"243\" \/><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Former Bush economist Keith Hennessey makes a lucid argument about why <a href=\"http:\/\/keithhennessey.com\/2010\/04\/15\/off-the-rolls\/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+KeithHennessey+%28Keith+Hennessey%3A+Your+guide+to+American+economic+policy%29\">actually, Republicans are to blame for the 47% who don&#8217;t pay income tax<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Of course the tax day talking points are already dying down&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>But the reason so many Americans don&#8217;t pay taxes is a credit &#8212; that is <em>money back<\/em> &#8212; for having children and having low wages. These credits were established by a Republican-majority congress in the late nineties, and expanded by George W.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/keithhennessey.com\/2010\/04\/15\/off-the-rolls\/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+KeithHennessey+%28Keith+Hennessey%3A+Your+guide+to+American+economic+policy%29\">Hennessey&#8217;s blog<\/a> has the legislative timeline:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In 1997 every &ldquo;normal&rdquo; married couple with two children that earned  $24,000 or more (in today&rsquo;s dollars) had to pay at least some income  taxes.&nbsp; The top nonpayer threshold for a family of this size was just  under $24,000.&nbsp; This means there were some four-person families with  income just below $24,000 that owed no income taxes.<\/li>\n<li>In 1997 a Republican majority Congress and President Clinton enacted  the Balanced Budget Act.&nbsp; At the insistence of Congressional  Republicans, this law created a $400-per-child tax credit which began in  1998.&nbsp; This caused the top nonpayer threshold to jump more than $7,000,  to about $31,300.&nbsp; Millions of families with kids with incomes between  $24,000 and $31,300 were &ldquo;taken off the rolls&rdquo; because the child tax  credit wiped out the small income tax liability they owed.<\/li>\n<li>As a result of the 1997 law, in 1999 the child tax credit  automatically increased to $500 per child, and the threshold for a  married family with two kids grew to $32,800 in today&rsquo;s dollars.<\/li>\n<li>In 2001 President Bush and the Republican Congress enacted a major  tax law that increased the child tax credit to $600.&nbsp; This law also  introduced the 10% income tax bracket, which lowered by 5 percentage  points the lowest income tax rate.&nbsp; The combination of these two tax  changes raised the top nonpayer threshold to $38,700.&nbsp; That law further  phased in over time increases in the child credit to $1,000 per child.<\/li>\n<li>The 2003 tax law enacted by President Bush and the Republican  Congress accelerated the $1,000 per child amount to be effective  immediately.&nbsp; This increased the threshold to $47,400 in 2003.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s a  huge jump.&nbsp; It was incredibly popular, and it helped create political  impetus for the 2003 law which also accelerated rate reductions and cut  capital gains and dividend rates.<\/li>\n<li>The 2008 stimulus (President Bush + Democratic majority Congress)  included stimulus checks of $1,200 per married couple, plus another $300  per child.&nbsp; This increased the threshold to $56,700.&nbsp; This was a  one-time increase, however, and the non-stimulus threshold for 2008 was  about $44,500.<\/li>\n<li>In 2009 President Obama and a Democratic majority Congress increased  this threshold to $51,400 with the new &ldquo;making-work-pay&rdquo; tax credit.&nbsp;  This was enacted on near party-line votes.&nbsp; That threshold drops  slightly to about $50,300 this year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Keep that in mind for next year&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/tax-day-tea-party-photos-2010-4\">tax day furor<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>Don&#8217;t miss: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/20-more-tax-facts-that-will-make-your-head-explode-2010-4\">20 More Tax Facts That Will Make Your Head Explode<\/a><\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/former-bush-aide-republicans-are-the-reason-47-of-americans-dont-pay-income-tax-2010-4#comments\">Join the conversation about this story &#187;<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/TheMoneyGame\/~4\/0eDS2ifYCKI\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Bush economist Keith Hennessey makes a lucid argument about why actually, Republicans are to blame for the 47% who don&#8217;t pay income tax. Of course the tax day talking points are already dying down&#8230; But the reason so many Americans don&#8217;t pay taxes is a credit &#8212; that is money back &#8212; for having [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-529209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}