As the country awaits the transition of power from the Bush administration to the Obama administration in January, take the time to examine the President-Elect’s approach to poverty issues:
“Fighting Poverty and Creating a Bridge to the Middle Class” [PDF]
Sample:
Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they deserve. Obama and Biden will create a new “Making Work Pay” tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. This refundable income tax credit will provide direct relief to American families who face the regressive payroll tax system. It will offset the payroll tax on the first $8,100 of their earnings while still preserving the important principle of a dedicated revenue source for Social Security. The “Making Work Pay” tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans. The tax credit will also provide relief to self-employed small business owners who struggle to pay both the employee and employer portion of the payroll tax. The “Making Work Pay” tax credit offsets some of this self-employment tax as well.
See also the campaign’s Poverty page.
It will be interesting to follow how these and other proposed changes (big and small) play out in 2009.