Tax Cuts for "Working Families"

I’ll open this discussion on income taxes with the following statement:

“YOU CAN’T GET AN INCOME TAX CUT IF YOU DON’T PAY INCOME TAXES.”

Did you get that? Adding a further collorary to this concept:

“DON’T EXPECT AN INCOME TAX RETURN IF YOU DON’T PAY INCOME TAXES.”

I’m afraid that at least half of the US population has lost track of these concepts. Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry loves to talk about tax fairness for Americans. If he and Mr. Edwards (two so called “limousine liberals”) were to win the election this November, he says that the first thing they would do next January is to roll back all of President Bush’s tax cuts..

Mr. Kerry’s campaign dialogue is peppered with references to President Bush and the Republican Congress enacting “tax cuts for the rich” instead of “tax cuts for working families.” A report issued in late August by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shows that nothing could be further from the truth.

Kerry wants tax cuts for “working families.” Let me ask the question, exactly what is a "working family?" Does the term “working family” mean that both parents, all of the children, and the family pets each hold full time or part time jobs? Does the term “working family” only apply if you make less than $50,000 per year in total income? Does the term imply that people making over $100,000 don’t work for a living and/or don't have families ?

In fact, Senator Kerry, the Democrat’s, and other liberals of all stripes and colors use of the term “working family” plays to the most basic form of envy and class warfare that has been a staple of politics since the income tax was enacted.

As this editorial in the Detroit News (a newspaper in a city full of Kerry’s so called “working families”) so eloquently opines, Bush hasn’t gotten the credit he deserves. Consider this. After the hated tax cut, in 2001 the top 10% of taxpayers earned 38.3% of the total taxable federal household income, but they actually paid 66.7% of the federal income taxes. The top 20% of taxpayers earned 51.1% and paid 74.8%.

What else do they want? I know, I know…”those evil rich people don’t need all of their money.”

Seriously folks, how can you cut taxes on someone that already doesn’t pay taxes? The bottom 20% of income earners already gets an earned income credit and a resulting tax refund equaling 5.7% of their non-taxable income. The bottom 40% of households earned 9.7% of the total household income and had a negative tax rate of 2.8%. This means, even after Bush’s tax reform, that the imperial federal government of the United States uses the IRS to take money from the top 60% of income earners and give it to the bottom 40%. The Dem’s figure that if they can just increase this figure from 40% to 51% that they will be guaranteed re-election to local and national offices for eternity. (See Mob Rule – Part I)

When faced with the above facts supporting that the tax cut is truly across the board, the liberal Democrats then take another track. They start jumping up and down about how the tax cut fueled a record setting Federal Budget Deficit. Again not true. While the 2003 deficit is a record number of total dollars, at 3.1% it was in fact smaller as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) than it was in 1976 under Carter (4.1%,) in 1985 under Reagan (5.1%,) and 1992 under Clinton (4.4%.) The problem is spending, not income.

Why does that matter, you might ask. Here’s an example: Say that one year a business has a $50,000 net income, but expenses also equaled $50,000 and the owner choose to borrow and additional $10,000 during the year to fund new product development costs. The next year, however, the new products sell well and the gross income doubles to $100,000, but expenses go up proportionally and the owner keeps working on expanding the business so the total debt increases to $15,000.

Record deficit scream the stockholders! Wrong you government school educated imbeciles. While the amount spent in excess of income rose by $5,000, the debt as a percentage of income actually fell from 20% to 15%, a deficit spending reduction of 25%. Put away the calculator and college diploma, simple 6th grade math tells the story. Why can’t the AP, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times get this right?

As a last resort, the Democrats and other liberals come out and claim that the middle class is unfairly burdened by FICA/FUTA/Social Security taxes. In former President Reagan’s words: “there (they) go again…” FICA/FUTA/Social Security taxes apply equally to everyone at all income levels and are in fact stolen by the federal government from today’s wage earners to pay the obligations they have accumulated and owe to unemployed, disabled, and retired members of past generations of taxpayers. Further, the so-called rich taxpayers already pay these taxes on disproportionate amounts of their incomes and at most only see pennies on the dollar in benefits because they earn and save too much money in private retirement accounts.

President Bush didn’t invent these taxes, but I seem to remember several famous Democrats like Roosevelt and Johnson whose fingerprints are all over these bait and switch programs. Yes they are unfair and need reform or outright elimination, but every time Bush and the Republican congress even try to talk about changes and improvements, they suffer under the age old liberal tactic of “scaring the old people” to get votes. “The Republicans are gonna take away your Social Security benefits…run to the polls and vote for us and we'll save you...”

Numerous web sites like http://www.bushtax.com/ go even further with their arguments, indicating that, beyond the excessive amounts of money “given” to the rich in this country by existing tax cuts, the Federal government’s tax policies have actually shifted additional costs to the middle class in the form of increased property taxes and greater tuition costs at state colleges and universities as the state governments see a reduction in the federal gravy-train of grants and other funding.

Give me another break, plu-eaze. So more and more "working families" own their own homes and have to pay corresponding property taxes and more and more children of "working families" are graduating from high school and entering college and incurring the associated tuition costs. Here's an option for you--rent a house and get a job at McDonalds after you finish 12 grades of government school.

And here is the real problem--up to the late 1970’s or early 1980’s most state governments operated with a budget surplus. Since that time, most states and many cities have engaged in a spree of hiring employees, building new programs, and generally increasing their spending—following the federal business model—and now they are all facing deficits of THEIR OWN MAKING. It is not the federal government’s job to step in and bail the Governors, state legislatures, and city councils out of their mess. Let the voters go to the polls and correct their spending problems at the state and local level this fall.

Rational spending policies and letting people keep more of their hard earned money will allow the Federal Budget to take care of itself. Continued income redistribution and expanding dependence on government for employment, health care, and retirement will be the death of us all fiscally.