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This last week, President Bush presented his
“extraordinarily” large $1.6 trillion tax cut to the
Congress. In an
effort to paint the Bush plan as modest, Capitol Hill
Republicans did the President “one better” when they
proposed a $2.2 trillion reduction. Conservatives, as we should be, were ecstatic with the
President’s pitch for lower marginal rates across the board.
Meanwhile, the distinguished socialist from South Dakota,
Minority Leader Tom Daschle flanked by his Congressional chum
Dick Gephardt, were enjoying their favorite pastime-positing
about exactly why a surplus of a few trillion dollars
shouldn’t be returned to the American taxpayers.
Something about a Lexus and a muffler…I’m really not
sure.
The distinguished socialist, a three term Senator and a
lifelong politician (I might add that this public servant is
routinely whisked around Washington in a limo), is terming the
Republican plans merely giveaways to the rich, or the wealthiest
1% of income earners as he and algore were apt to say many
months ago. Additionally,
they contend that 12 million children are in families that
don’t receive a tax cut.
Oh the horror…if it were true.
And of course, the
liberals feed the machine with, to use their lingo,
“mean-spirited, fear-mongering” tactics:
“That George W. Bush is a barbarian, a cruel nasty
one-eyed ogre who eats minority children for breakfast and
enslaves women at the White House.”
Rrrright.
It seems to escape
them that the top 1% pays 33.6% of all income taxes and that the
top 5% pays a whopping 54% of federal income taxes.
And that according to the Heritage Foundation “This
percentage has grown substantially over the past twenty years:
in 1979 the top 1 percent paid 19 percent of all
individual income taxes.”
So it necessarily follows, logically, that the wealthy,
who make the most money and therefore are taxed the most, are
going to receive a larger cut in terms of actual dollars than a
single mom making $30k a year.
And more than that, one has to be paying taxes to get a
tax cut; you can’t cut someone’s taxes if they don’t pay
any to begin with! These
basic economic truths are simple to grasp for conservatives but
for some reason, dim-witted liberals and their robotic followers
find such elementary concepts difficult to grasp.
It must be like trying to clutch the wind for these
clowns…downright impossible.
Lest I digress for good, though, I return from my
tangent. Let’s
see…oh yes. This tax cut plan forwarded by the President is
really…puny. It
is the proverbial drop in the bucket, a very small step for a
party that wields relatively unlimited power for at least the
next two years. Indeed,
if you compare this tax reform to the Gipper’s back in 1981,
it looks puny. Sure,
Reagan had much more to cut, seeing as the highest marginal
rates were above 70 percent, but his proposals were phased in
over three years. Bush’s
package isn’t fully implemented for six years and he has less
to slash! Americans
need tax relief now! Collectively,
federal taxes top 20% of GDP!
And Americans are working over four months of the year to
fund the federal government at all levels. (www.whitehouse.gov/news/reports/taxplan)
Not only does the
President’s rate reduction move at the pace of a three-toed
sloth, but also his actual reductions in quantitative terms, are
not nearly enough. Not
when you consider that the Senate Finance Committee’s ten-year
surplus projection is $27.9 trillion.
That’s $27.9 trillion that belongs to the American
taxpayers, folks.
Certainly, the
President is proposing additional items including elimination of
the estate and gift tax, an easing of the so-called
"marriage penalty" and a doubling of the per-child
credit to $1,000. But
per-child tax credits, while an excellent thing for families
with children, doesn’t address those of us married without
kids. And what about the parents who’s posterity has left the
nest for good; what about these married couples who are trying
to plan for retirement and could use the extra income for
security and investment? A
further reduction in marginal rates would do a world of good.
We can afford it, and besides, it’s the right thing to
do. For politicians
like Gephardt and Daschle to lie so brazenly when they tell a
dumb-down American public that a tax cut is actually the father
of budget deficits and sky-high inflation is the height of
arrogance! More
disposable income of the pockets of the American consumer is
what drives this nation’s engine.
Any honest analyst
will tell you that the periods of giant deficits and
out-of-control inflation of the past quarter century find their
root in outrageous government spending. i.e., military budgeting
(which is constitutional because it “provides for the common
defense”) and socialist welfare programs of every stripe.
Tax cuts, by their very nature as simply a return of
money to an over-charged public, are not spending!
And any attempts to see a slash in rates as such are
simply the ignorant arguments of leftist politicians who’s
thirst for power overrides their desire to see their own
downtrodden bastions of electoral success freed to pursue
economic and political liberty.
Americans need a bold, carefully articulated and well-defended
tax cut two or three times the size of the congress’ $2.2
trillion dollar proposal. Thanks
to a Republican controlled congress, we are currently enjoying
our fourth straight year of budget surpluses.
And if you ask me, it’s about time that a hefty chunk
of this excess taxation be returned to the workers and
corporations of this great nation-the people that create our
prosperity and shamefully allow the likes of Bill Clinton to
audaciously take credit for times of plenty.
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Buy Books
Taxing
Ourselves: A Citizen's Guide to the Great Debate over Tax Reform
by Joel Slemrod, Jon M. Bakija
Does
Atlas Shrug? The Economic Consequences of Taxing the Rich
by Joel Slemrod
The IRS v. The People
by Jack Kemp (Editor), Ken Blackwell (Editor), Rush Limbaugh
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