Analyst says Democrats' budget would hit families hard

Jim Brown
OneNewsNow.com
March 29, 2007

A budget analyst says a plan by Democrats in Congress to implement the "largest peacetime tax increase in U.S. history" would deliver a damaging blow to American families.

Critics of the Democrats' proposed budget for fiscal year 2008 estimate it would increase taxes $900 billion over five years and $3.3 trillion over ten years. Brian Riedl, senior budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, says if the Democrats' budget were enacted into law, the typical American household would see an average tax increase of $2,641 per year over the next ten years.

Riedl says the proposed plan does not do a single thing to address growing entitlements for millions of retiring baby boomers -- an issue he describes as "the greatest economic challenge of our era."

"We're about to have 77 million retiring baby boomers added on to our Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid rolls. The costs are enormous," says the analyst. "I mean, this would force us to either double all tax rates or pretty much eliminate every other government program if we don't do anything about this."

Yet the Democrats, Riedl says, prefer to "kick the can down the road" and ignore it.

"They reject the president's reform proposals [and] they say, we'll let the future worry about it," he laments. "And what's even more cynical and irresponsible about that is that the head of the Senate Budget Committee, Kent Conrad (D - North Dakota), went on 60 Minutes and said that Congress knows this is a problem, but too many members lack the courage to address it." And so does Conrad's own budget, the Heritage Foundation spokesman adds.

Riedl says the Democrats' budget would repeal all of President Bush's tax cuts, including the child credit, bring back the marriage penalty and the death tax, as well as raise taxes on investors.





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