The Wonk Room

McCain Tax Plan Gives Nothing To Families In Poverty»

Our guest bloggers are Ben Furnas, Robert Gordon, and James Kvaal, who are a research associate and fellows at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, respectively.

Later this morning, Sen. John McCain will visit New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward as he continues his tour of impoverished America. His rhetoric is great, but so far the scorecard for his “poverty tour” is four days, one new idea: another corporate write-off, this one allowing “companies to write off the cost” of providing high-speed Internet in low-income communities.

Sen. McCain is proposing $3 trillion in tax cuts that would offer nothing to people living and working in poverty. More than half would go to corporations, and much of the rest to high-income taxpayers in the form of AMT relief.

Even McCain’s one tax cut that really will help the middle class — doubling the personal exemption for dependents from $3,500 to $7,000 – will do little or nothing for working poor families. These families usually do not pay any income taxes and thus will not benefit, even though they pay thousands of dollars in sales and payroll taxes. Meanwhile, the largest tax cuts will go to families at the top.

Read more here.