Bush Tax Cuts — Deficits Up, Inequality Widened

The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts delivered their largest benefits to the highest earners — the top 1% received an average annual tax cut of over $570,000 between 2004 and 2012 — while turning a projected budget surplus into a sustained deficit. Four hundred and fifty economists, including ten Nobel laureates, publicly opposed the 2003 cuts as unlikely to boost growth and likely to worsen both inequality and the deficit; the subsequent expansion was measurably weaker than the historical average.

George W. Bush — Republican Party

In power 2001–2009