"To base a tax cut of this magnitude on uncertain and yet-to-be-achieved budget surpluses is the height of fiscal irresponsibility," Nader said. "The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), on whose projections the President depends, concedes that its estimates of the surpluses could be off by varying amounts each year ranging from $52 billion in 2001 to as much as $412 billion by 2006 a year."

Nader said the priority placed on the tax cut by President Bush, is a "clear indication that the new Administration has no plans to deal with the serious problems of child poverty, lack of affordable housing, health care, the revival of our inner cities and depressed rural areas and the rebuilding of a decaying public works structure throughout the nation or other long-standing needs."

"The proponents of the $1.6 trillion tax cut are essentially saying that they see no unmet needs for the nation now or over the next decade," Nader said. "The tax cut is locking the door on America's future, and this lack of vision on the part of the Administration will ultimately cost the nation many times the price of a $1.6 trillion tax cut."

Nader said the Bush plan should also be rejected on the grounds that it is unfairly loaded in favor of wealthy citizens, and provides no real tax relief for lower income families. He said 40 percent of the tax cut will go to the wealthiest one percent of the population which is about double the share of federal taxes these citizens pay. The share of the tax cut for the top one percent income bracket will exceed the share of the cut received by the bottom 80 percent of the population combined.

Nader said President Bush's proposal to eliminate the inheritance tax -- levied only on the estates of the richest two percent of the population -- illustrated how much the Administration had tilted the tax cut for the wealthy.

Nader noted that $650,000 of an estate is already exempted from tax -- $1.3 million for a husband and wife. Under existing law, the exemption will be raised to one million dollars in 2006 (two million dollars for a couple).

In 1998, 2.3 million persons died, but only 47,482 left estates subject to any federal estate tax. Only 1,418 of the estates that were taxable represented family owned businesses or farms and these entities paid less than one percent of all estate taxes.

Nader said the lobbyists for wealthy clients, nevertheless, are using the family farm and small business issue as a smokescreen to promote the wipe-out of the inheritance tax across the board, at a cost of $27 billion annually to the Treasury.

Nader said the family-owned farms and small businesses could be exempted from the tax without seriously reducing Treasury receipts and "without giving the wealthy another loophole through which to avoid taxes."

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