So much for the President who never met a tax he didn't want to cut. According to David Cay Johnston of The New York Times, tucked into the tax cut legislation recently signed into law by George W. Bush this past week was a major tax increase for American teenagers saving for college.

The $69 billion tax cut bill that President Bush signed this week tripled tax rates for teenagers with college savings funds, despite Mr. Bush's 1999 pledge to veto any tax increase.

Under the new law, teenagers age 14 to 17 with investment income will now be taxed at the same rate as their parents, not at their own rates. Long-term capital gains and dividends that had been taxed at 5 percent will now be taxed at 15 percent. Interest that had been taxed at 10 percent will now be taxed at as much as 35 percent.

The increases, which are retroactive to the first day of the year, are expected to generate nearly $2.2 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, which issues the official estimates.

Usually, it's fairly difficult to talk about the real effects of George W. Bush's tax policy without getting into detail and nuance. Sure, many Americans have seen their tax burden decrease in recent years, but the cuts haven't been doled out equally -- most of them went to the wealthy and the wealthier -- and in the long run, the budget cuts and tax increases that arise in the future as a result of the Republicans' reckless fiscal policy will undoubtedly hit all voters. Certainly people can understand this logic, but it doesn't have the same bang as "I cut your taxes."

But now we're getting into a new realm for President Bush and the Republican Congress. Not only are they imposing the stealth tax hike of massive deficits on the American people, they are actually raising Americans' taxes.

And whose taxes are they raising? Teenagers whose parents and grandparents had the foresight to plan ahead for college. Talk about the wrong sort of disincentives! If anything, Congress and the President should exhort American middle class families to save for their children's education, not tax those savings to pay for a few more billion of dollars in tax cuts for the extremely wealthy.

The Bush administration and the Do Nothing Republican Congress might believe that the American people will put up with their corporatist shenanigans, but they are wrong. The damage of this bill has been done -- Americans will soon see that the Beltway Republicans will do anything to appease their extremely wealthy donors, including trampling on teenagers saving for college (a television ad made for itself, if ever there was one) -- and soon the GOP is going to have to account for its backward policies.

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