The 9/11 Tax Giveaway

And how one treasury official tried to stop it.

Timothy Noah - Slate - A mere four months earlier, the Bush administration had pushed a $1.7 trillion tax cut through Congress. Now, just as Weinberger feared, Bush tried to use 9/11 as a pretext to accelerate that tax cut ("The terrorists attacked us, but they did not diminish our spirit"). It didn't work on the first go-round; the relatively uncontroversial $42 billion tax cut that Congress passed in March 2002 merely accelerated depreciation for businesses and extended unemployment benefits by 13 weeks. But in January 2003, President Bush proposed an additional $925 billion tax cut. Once again, Bush did precisely what Weinberger had warned against—he intertwined an enormous and divisive tax-cut proposal with the post-9/11 war on terrorism

So, in addition to "opening up partisan wounds," Bush's exploitation of 9/11 to pass the third tax cut was completely unnecessary. And by ballooning the budget deficit to an estimated 477 billion, it will likely harm the economy over the long term.