When Is A Tax Hike A Tax Hike?

By a 216-210 vote, House Democrats have passed a budget that would allow President Bush's tax cuts to expire.

The plan would award spending increases to the Pentagon and domestic programs, but gets rid of 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.

House Democrats yesterday pushed their budget blueprint to passage, promising a big surplus in five years by allowing tax cuts passed in President Bush's first term to expire. Those tax cuts include lowered rates on income, investments and large estates, and contained tax breaks for married couples and people with children, among others.

Rep. Roy Blunt called the vote the passage of "the largest tax hike in American history."

400 Billion bucks of taxes, said Blunt.

So if you allow a tax cut to expire, is it automatically a tax increase . . . for the rest of time?

"Read through this budget from preface to postscript, and you'll find new taxes and an awful lot of new spending. You'll find faulty assumptions and misguided premises. You'll find a house of cards stacked on a bed of worms," Rep. Roy Blunt said.

So who will see their taxes go up by Blunt's calculations?

*48 million married couples, by an average of $2,899
*42 million families with children, by an average of $2,181
*26 million small business owners, by an average of $3,960