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Equality Time
(Page 2 of 2)
It is in fact true that middle-class Americans got hit with whopping tax increases during the '80s, despite the Reagan tax cuts. What nobody wants to remind us of, however, is what exactly those tax hikes did: bail out Social Security, a program that takes money from those who work and gives it to those who don't.
Social Security excluding Medicare consumes 23 percent of the federal budget, more even than the defense budget. And unlike defense, Social Security is growing; it will require further tax increases to stay solvent. As long as Bill Clinton won't cut Social Security benefits across the board–by holding down cost-of-living adjustments or extending the retirement age for future beneficiaries–he is implicated in both past and future tax hikes.
The 1981 tax cuts in no way made the middle class worse off. To act as though they did is to betray either ignorance or bad faith. And neither Clinton nor his economic team is ignorant.
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