ECONOMY -- BUSH HIKES TAXES ON CHILDREN AND FAMILIES

ECONOMY -- BUSH HIKES TAXES ON CHILDREN AND FAMILIES: According to a
new study by the Joint Economic Committee, the legislation currently
advocated by the Bush administration and Congress that would change the
threshold for the child tax credit could negatively affect about four
million working families
(http://jec.senate.gov/democrats/Documents/Releases/childtaxcredit20sep04.pdf)
and more than nine million kids. The legislation, says the Boston
Globe's Thomas Oliphant, which is being pushed as a way to help working
families, provides yet another "graphic illustration of how shoddy
legislation written by people who mostly focus on big-shot lobbyists can cause
ordinary Americans to plummet through the cracks
(http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/09/21/sticking_it_to_working_families/)
." Though the child tax credit was originally designed to help working
and middle-class families, Congress is moving to increase its
availability for those at the upper end of the income scale. The Washington Post
writes, " There's no justification for such a hike
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37118-2004Sep20.html) :
Well-off families don't need government subsidies to raise their
children... Now poor families get relatively little help from this bill."
Leonard Burman of the Urban Institute and John Karl Scholz of the
University of Wisconsin
(http://www.americanprogress.org/atf/cf/%7bE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521-5D6FF2E06E03%7d/CTCTHRESHOLD.PDF)
estimate 4.4 million lower-income households will receive a smaller tax
credit -- or none at all -- next year as a result of the new
legislation.