March 28, 2008
As Candidates Warm to Bush Tax Cuts, Economists Warn of Long-Term Effect
By Lori Montgomery, Washington Post
The Washington Post, needing expert commentary for an article about which tax cuts are least productive, called the Tax Foundation's new vice president for economic policy, Robert Carroll, who also teaches at American University. Referring to personal credits and deductions that were enacted as part of the Bush tax cuts, Carroll said, "Those are the provisions that detract from long-term growth even if you finance them with a reduction in government spending. If you pay for them with future tax increases, I think that would be awful."
The Post continued:
The tax cuts, the signal economic achievement of the Bush administration, are among the three biggest federal tax reductions since the end of World War II, comparable in size to the Reagan tax cut of 1981 and the Kennedy tax cut passed in 1964, according to the nonprofit Tax Foundation. By the time the Bush cuts are scheduled to expire, it's projected that they will have saved taxpayers $1.6 trillion.