[meaghanchan]

Any tax break has to come from somewhere. If a country that is deeply in debt is running a surplus for a number of years, one might think that the responsible thing to use the surplus to pay down some of the debt.

Instead, the surplus was sent back to the American public, and yes, as that analogy shows, benefitted mainly the wealthiest Americans.

Now, our country is even deeper in debt.

I see people on these boards complain every day about people who are in debt-- whether it's their spouses sabotaging their efforts to be debt-free, or relatives or neighbors who are deeply in debt but buying themselves luxury cars or brand new electronics.

Maybe a better analogy for the tax cuts is a family- A family who has just received, thanks to the prosperity and growth of the late 1990s, a huge bonus. That family, deeply in debt, could have used their bonus to pay down some of their credit cards, or put some money in savings. Instead, they divided up the money and gave each member a little cash, to spend on whatever they wanted.

I think it's valid to say that maybe this money wasn't spent in the best way it could have been (and yes, I still think that 'tax cuts for the wealthy' is a valid description of how it was spent) and I predict that the consequences of our growing national debt are going to be pretty dire.

Edited to say: Apologies, I had no idea I was responding to a post that was so old.