Obama opposes extending the Bush Tax Cuts. As the Administration works to end those tax cuts, it is important to look at the simple question: did they work?

Erick Erickson provided us with the facts:

A lot of the media and all of the Democrats seem to forget one simple fact about the Bush tax cuts: they were passed in response to a recession occurring as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney entered office.

Moe Lane wrote an excellent post about the impact of the Democrats not extending the Bush tax cuts, but what about what they actually did.

We should not forget that.

The 2001 Economic Growth and Recovery Tax Act was George Bush's version of Barack Obama's stimulus plan. However, instead of creating a bunch of temporary government jobs and subsidizing the expansion of government, it cut tax rates, increased the child tax credit, increased the standard deduction for married couples, and increasing contribution caps for a variety of savings programs. The result? The recession ended in November of 2001.

But, September 11, 2001, happened as the economy was recovering and throughout 2002, the economy grew at an anemic rate. The Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 revved up the 2001 tax cut package and cut taxes again on dividends and capital gains.

The result?

Under George W. Bush's "tax cuts for the rich" the rich paid more in taxes in 2005 than any time in the prior 20 years. In fact, as the Wall Street Journal noted, thanks to George W. Bush's tax cuts for the rich, the richest one percent went from paying 25% of all income taxes in 1990 to 39% in 2005. The richest 5% went from paying 44% of all income taxes in 1990 to paying 60% of all income taxes in 2005.

http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/07/27/the-facts-about-the-bush-tax-cu...