Bush Ensures Higher Tax on Middle Class

Alright, so it wasn't actually a tax increase.  But using what has come be known as "Bush Logic" (i.e. that each time Kerry voted against a tax cut he was voting for higher taxes), the administration unilaterally established higher taxes for middle class Americans today.

But why?  Isn't Bush promising tax cuts for everyone?  Isn't he in favor of tax breaks?  This bill wasn't going to reduce Bush's tax cuts for the super-wealthy.  Why on earth would the administration block a tax cut bill? 

Here's the reason:

But Republican Congressional officials said the administration did not want a deal that Democratic lawmakers might support, giving them a tax-cutting credential, too.

I'm sorry, maybe you didn't catch that.  In other words...

"If the Democrats had been on the same side, it would have taken a lot of arrows out of the quiver,'' said one Republican staff member.

See, the Bush Administration doesn't really care about tax cuts.  They care about how popular tax cuts will make them.  They care about attacking Democrats for supposedly wanting to increase taxes.  So, if you have a bunch of Democrats voting for a tax cut for the middle class, well, you can see how that would sort of expose the Republican attacks as being meritless.   

If you needed any more evidence that this administration was all politics no policy, here it is.   Well at least he doesn't use polls, right?  Wrong.