Republicans Set Aside Middle-Income Tax Cuts to Focus on Rich

(GOP to America: How shall we screw you?...let us count the ways!)

cont'd: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aUuyWDCDyRIk#

Republicans Set Aside Middle-Income Tax Cuts to Focus on Rich

By Ryan J. Donmoyer
May 8 (Bloomberg) -- Republican lawmakers, facing the prospect that their power to cut taxes may soon be curbed, plan to extend breaks that mostly benefit the wealthy and Wall Street at the expense of reductions for middle-income households.

Six months before elections that may return a Democratic majority in at least one house of Congress, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois are focusing on extending the 15 percent rate on investments and repealing the estate tax. They won't push extensions of lower rates for all taxpayers and expanded breaks for married couples and families with children, which expire after 2010.

``In politics, timing is everything; you do what you can when you can, and this is what's queued up right now,'' says Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, the No. 4 Republican in the Senate. Given the federal budget deficit, it would ``be hard to generate public support overnight'' for making permanent the other tax cuts, he says.

Democrats say the Republicans are favoring tax breaks that do little for middle-income Americans; 50 percent of all U.S. households earn between $26,859 and $120,100, according to the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research institution in Washington.

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