in terms of increasing inequality, the effect of bush's tax cuts on the upper, middle and lower class is contentious. some economists argue that the cuts have benefited the nation's richest households at the expense of the middle and lower class, while libertarians and conservatives have claimed that tax cuts have benefitted all taxpayers. economists peter orszag and william gale described the bush tax cuts as reverse government redistribution of wealth, "[shifting] the burden of taxation away from upper-income, capital-owning households and toward the wage-earning households of the lower and middle classes."