The top 1 percent of taxpayers, making $373,000 or more a year, will reap almost 38 percent of all the benefits in President George W. Bush’s millionaire tax cut. The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives approved the final tax bill May 26 and sent it to Bush for his signature.

During the weeks of debate, Bush’s original giveaway was trimmed slightly, but according to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, most of the $1.35 trillion in tax breaks follows Bush’s original formula that earmarks the largest piece of the pie for the wealthy. The bottom 60 percent of taxpayers will get about 14 percent of the benefits, while those in the bottom 20 percent will see just 1 percent of the tax benefit, according to Citizens for Tax Justice. 

When House and Senate members met to resolve the differences between their versions of the tax scheme, they were able to craft an even more generous break for the wealthy.

“They made the unfairness of this tax package much more severe in the waning hours. In the dark of night, in a closed room, they dramatically increased the tax relief going to the very wealthiest among us. They’ve taken this from a tax bill that gave 33 percent of the benefit to the wealthiest 1 percent, to a tax bill that gives nearly 40 percent of the benefit to the wealthiest 1 percent,” said Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) at a press conference following passage of the bill.

Along with the huge tilt toward the rich, the bill will eat up most of the projected federal surplus, leaving little for important working family investments.

“What this means,” said Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), “is that the Social Security and Medicare trust funds are no longer viable. What this means is that we won’t have the resources to make the commitment to education, prescription drug costs and the other priorities for the American people.”

Budget experts accused Bush and the bill’s backers of using accounting gimmicks and chicanery to mask the true cost of the millionaire giveaway.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said the true cost of the bill through 2011 is $1.9 trillion, not the $1.35 trillion the bill’s backers claim, and the cost in the next 10 years, 2012-2021, will soar to $4.3 trillion.

The CBPP report calls the claim that the bill complies with the $1.35 trillion limit set out by the budget resolution as “essentially a fiction.”

“If baloney were electricity,” said Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), “this tax bill could solve our energy crisis.”