issues2000

More headlines: Dick Cheney on Tax Reform

(Following are older quotations. Click here for main quotations.)


Don’t let Gore’s tax credits determine how to live your life

CHENEY [to Lieberman]: Especially in the area of taxation, we want to make certain that the American people have the ability to keep more of what they earn and then they get to decide how to spend it. Gore’s proposal, basically, doesn’t do that. It, in effect, lays out some 29 separate tax credits. And if you live your life the way they want you to live your life, if you do in fact behave in a certain way, then you qualify for a tax credit and at that point you get some relief.

LIEBERMAN: This is an important difference between us. We’re focusing our tax cuts on the middle class, in the areas where they tell us they need it. One of those many tax credits for the middle class that Dick just referred to, includes a $500 tax credit for stay-at-home moms, just as a way of saying we understand that you are performing a service for our society, we want you to have that tax credit.

Source: (X-ref Lieberman) Vice-presidential debate Oct 5, 2000

You have to be a CPA to understand Gore’s plan

CHENEY: The bottom line, though, is 50 million American taxpayers out there get no advantages at all out of the Gore tax proposal, whereas under the Bush plan, everybody who pays taxes will, in fact, get tax relief.

LIEBERMAN: The number of 50 million Americans not benefiting from our tax cut program is absolutely wrong. It’s an estimate done on an earlier form of our tax cut program, and it’s just plain wrong. And, secondly, although Governor Bush says that his tax cut program, large as it is, gives a tax cut to everybody, earlier this week, the Joint Committee on Taxation-a nonpartisan group in Congress-has said that 27 million Americans don’t get what the governor said they would in their tax cut program.

CHENEY: You have to be a CPA to understand [the Gore-Lieberman tax plan and who benefits from it]. The fact of the matter is that the plan is so complex that an ordinary American’s never going to be able to figure out what they even qualify for.

Source: Vice-presidential debate Oct 5, 2000

Use tax cuts to return part of surplus to American people

“We think it’s important to take a part of that surplus that was created by the American worker and give it back to the people who earned it. If we don’t, it’ll stay in Washington and it will be spent.’’ Bush’s plan calls for using about $1.3 trillion for tax cuts by lowering income tax rates. He would also reduce the marriage penalty tax, eliminate the inheritance tax and double the child tax credit from $500 to $1,000.
Source: AP Story, NY Times Sep 25, 2000

Gore’s tax plan benefits interests, specific activities

One of Mr. Cheney’s arguments is that Mr. Gore’s more modest tax cut relies too much on tax credits for which only some people will qualify. “The Gore plan basically is really a spending program administered by the I.R.S. with a whole bunch of specific provisions in it that you get only if you have solar panels or drive a battery-powered car or if you’re engaged in some kind of activity that they want to encourage.”
Source: Michael Cooper, NY Times Sep 11, 2000

Other candidates on Tax Reform: Dick Cheney on other issues:
George W. Bush
Dick Cheney

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