A question of fairness.

Byline: The Register-Guard

President Bush has retained such stubborn allegiance to his ill-advised tax cuts that he is counting on Americans to come down with election-year amnesia when he explains the rationale for his rebates to the rich.

Bush told "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert that his tax cuts were the cornerstone of an "economic stimulus plan" designed to boost a struggling economy.

That may be the 2004 version of the reason for the tax cuts, but it's not what Bush was telling voters on the campaign trail in 1999. Back then, the government was rolling in surplus revenue, and the budget bonanza was projected to last for a decade.

The original reason for the tax cuts was simply to give "excess" money back to taxpayers, consistent with standard Republican ideology. If all else failed, Bush could defend the cuts at that time because the government could afford it.

But when the wheels came off the stock market and the U.S. economy went over a cliff in late 2000, the surpluses used as the basis for the original tax cuts vanished. No problem. Bush's new, improved rationale for the tax cuts was that they were a necessary short-term jolt to the economy to jump-start a recovery. After they worked their magic, they would expire. Sunset provisions would be written into the legislation.

This reworked reasoning worried then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who warned that future tax cuts needed to be supported by appropriate revenue projections. But Bush was undeterred.

Now, the tax cuts have the added political advantage of allowing candidate Bush to bait his rivals with charges that anyone opposed to making the tax cuts permanent is "going to raise your taxes." He credits the tax cuts with the lion's share of responsibility for the current economic recovery, conveniently ignoring their impact on plummeting federal revenue, which is at its lowest point in 50 years.

The revenue shortfall attributable to the tax cuts accounts for $272 billion of this year's projected record $521 billion deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office. But the problem gets worse every year, especially balanced against the kind of heartless spending cuts contemplated by Bush's irresponsible fiscal policies.

Making Bush's tax cuts permanent will cost an estimated $1 trillion over the next decade. Within five years, taxpayers earning $1 million or more a year will be paying $155,000 less in income taxes as a result of the tax cuts, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

While the millionaires are wondering what to buy with their refunds, Bush has targeted programs for the poorest and most vulnerable citizens for disproportionate reductions as part of his pledge to cut discretionary spending. Of course, defense and homeland security are exempt, loading the entire burden of the spending cuts onto about one-sixth of the discretionary budget.

Meanwhile, the costs of continued military intervention and reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq are not included in any budget estimates.

Middle-class taxpayers got chump change from Bush's tax cuts, but even if politicians find it politically necessary to preserve tax breaks for the middle class, rolling back the handouts to the rich would lop about $180 billion off this year's total deficit.

Here's the Cliff's Notes argument against making the tax cuts permanent: The cuts are manifestly unfair, on three levels - they unfairly favor wealthy taxpayers; they unfairly burden future generations by aggravating damaging deficits; and they unfairly shift the onus of necessary spending cuts onto vital programs for the poorest and most vulnerable Americans.

How many different ways will voters have to be shown the fundamental unfairness of Bush's tax cuts before they demand action from Congress?