Bend over

President Bush wants to eliminate taxes on investment and savings, and to do it, he may seek to end local and state tax deductions, and the deductions businesses receive to offer health insurance, according to the Washington Post. I don't pretend to know a lot about economic policy, but on the face of it, eliminating those deductions would seem to be bad news for the middle class. The deduction on local property taxes helps people afford homes, and props up home values. Now, in the long run, the market likely would respond with lower housing costs, but current homeowners would reap a lower return on their investments, and if they factored their deduction into their ability to make payments, might run into problems with their finances.
(I discussed this with Fester at his blog awhile back. I'm assuming that Bush doesn't want to eliminate the mortgage interest deduction.)

I'm also not sure how wise it is to take away an economic incentive for businesses to provide health insurance, especially when the administration's only answer to the nation's health care crisis are medical savings accounts. More people without health insurance means less preventative care, which means greater catastrophic health care costs, which means higher medical bills for all of us.