For more than a year, the Taxpayers Union for Financial Freedom has had the same charts posted under "Important Numbers" in an attempt to explain the tax cut we all got. These charts go back to when the idea was first proposed.

On January 31, 2001, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) presented testimony on The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2002 -- 2010. This was prior to arguments and final resolution of Bush's tax cut. At the time, a $1.6 trillion personal income tax cut was proposed.

The basis for the Bush tax cut came from the CBO's projection of surpluses which looked like this:

Notice that we are over $5 trillion in accumulated surpluses over ten years and that this chart includes overtaxes in both personal/corporate income and entitlement taxes. The latter includes Social Security overcharges and eighteen other entitlements ranging from gas taxes for highways to unemployment taxes.

In fiscal 2000, the year of our greatest surplus, income taxes were $87 billion in surplus overcharges. Entitlement overcharges were $149.8 billion with Social Security alone accounting for $95.4 billion. All together, that amounted to a $237 billion surplus.

In fiscal 2001, when we actually got a smaller tax cut, the income tax overcharges had been estimated to come in at $107 billion.

The following chart illustrates what projections would have looked like if Bush had his full $1.6 trillion tax breaks spread over the next ten years or so.

Please notice that now we are down to about $3.7 trillion and that there is still an income tax surplus after the tax break (blue). Actually, it would be more than the amount shown here since this deals with a higher refund and restructuring of the income tax brackets than we received.

Before the war broke out, personal and corporate income taxes were estimated to be $107 billion in fiscal 2001. President Bush gave us a magnanimous $35.2 billion refund, and the democrats are still complaining about that.

Entitlements like Social Security are completely unchanged (red). The income tax break had nothing to do with payroll or other entitlement taxes that were not reduced one bit, nor do the changes in tax brackets.

Obviously, income taxes and payroll taxes are two different things. Separate charges just as they show up on your pay stubs separately. But that doesn't stop the democrats from mixing them together like apples and oranges and coming up with all sorts of lies and fairy tales.

The democrats have even made the absolutely ludicrous claim that the Bush tax cut jeopardizes Social Security payments to the retired and disabled. Can you believe that? Social Security is producing an enormous surplus/profit that the politicians are stealing for years to come and the democratic idiots want us to believe the little refund we are getting in personal income taxes will harm the currently retired.

There's no telling just how far these lying hypocrites will carry scare stories to frighten seniors with things absolutely untrue. Unfortunately, there are people who believe them, who actually listen to them, and others from the Mayberry news services who pass on their lies.

Here are just a couple of recent quotes from major newspapers:

"The United States is more than $6 trillion in debt; we have returned to deficit spending (projected to be at least $165 billion this fiscal year); the Social Security Trust Fund is being raided to pay for a tax cut that never made sense, and we are in a war that is going to drive government spending (and the deficits) even higher." Columbus Dispatch, 8-10-02

Democratic senate candidate Ron Kirk "said further tax reductions in the face of a deficit would require taking money from the Social Security trust fund, an act that he said would be 'irresponsible.'" Bulletin Frontrunner and the Houston Chronicle 8-8-02