|
The Cost of the Bush Tax Cuts Joint Committee on Taxation & CTJ Estimates ($-billions) |
||||||
| First Five Years | Next Four Years | First Nine Years | Tenth Year | TEN YEARS | ||
| 2002-06 | 2007-10 | 2002-10 | 2011 | 2002-11 | ||
| Joint Committee on Taxation estimate of the size of the Bush tax cuts — without AMT rate reduction or increased interest costs) | $ 460 | $ 861 | $ 1,321 | not available | not available | |
| CTJ estimates: | ||||||
| 1(a) | Bush tax cuts without AMT rate reduction, before increased interest costs (like JCT above) | $ 463 | $ 857 | $ 1,320 | $ 256 | $ 1,576 |
| 1(b) | Bush tax cuts without AMT rate reduction, with increased interest costs | 507 | 982 | 1,489 | 340 | 1,829 |
| 2(a) | Bush tax cuts with AMT rate reduction, before increased interest costs | 511 | 1,020 | 1,531 | 306 | 1,837 |
| 2(b) | Total cost of the Bush tax cuts with both AMT rate reduction and increased interest | $ 558 | $ 1,241 | $ 1,799 | $ 403 | $ 2,202 |
|
Note: CTJ’s estimate of the size of the Bush tax cuts over their first nine years if the AMT is not adjusted is virtually identical to the estimate by the Joint Committee on Taxation. Counting increased interest payments on the national debt, such a tax cut (with no AMT rate reduction) would entail a total cost of $1.8 trillion over ten years. The Bush campaign has said, however, that it will take unspecified steps to fix the AMT problem; not to do so would push millions of taxpayers into the AMT and deny them the tax cuts Bush has promised. If we include the almost inevitable AMT fix, then CTJ’s $2.2 trillion estimate of the total cost of the Bush tax cuts remains accurate. Sources: Citizens for Tax Justice, May 3&10, 2000; Bush Campaign, May 2, 2000. |
||||||