Don’t Worry, It Won’t Affect YOU…

I am so sick and tired of hearing the refrain “don’t worry, it won’t affect YOU” when it comes to discussing tax laws.

These were the words used by politicians and supporters of the income tax when it was originally sold to the American public in 1913 with the passage of the 16th Amendment to the US Constitution.

Thus my disdain for the warped logic exhibited in this NY Times story on the elimination of the estate tax.:

“Two months after the House of Representatives voted to repeal the estate tax starting in 2011, the pro-repeal camp in the Senate still doesn't have the votes to finish off the tax. Some senators, thankfully, are refusing to approve another wildly unaffordable tax cut for the wealthiest of the wealthy. But there is still cause for concern: with repeal doomed, senators from both parties are talking about changing the tax in ways that would be as bad as repeal itself…

Moreover, a low tax rate would starve the Treasury. A 15 percent rate, combined with a $3.5 million exemption, would cost 87 percent as much as repeal…

A reasonable compromise would be to keep the tax at the levels that will be in effect in 2008 - an exemption of $2 million a person, and after that, a tax rate of 45 percent. Under that formula, the estate tax would affect a fraction of the top 1 percent of Americans and would average less than 20 percent. Senator Schumer and his colleagues must realize that the need for tax fairness and fiscal sanity is greater than whatever political pressure they feel.”

The Times is passionate about the issue: “wildly unaffordable…starve the Treasury…tax fairness and fiscal sanity…political pressure”

Say what?

Think about this situation with me for a minute. Throw out your little hat saying Democrat or Republican, forget about all the crap that’s been force fed to you by government schools and the mainstream media your entire life. Try looking at things this way…

You start out as just some average slob that spends four years of your life and a bunch of your parent’s money going to college.

After college, you get that first job and spend the next twenty of so years working your way up the food chain. You eat bagels, drive ten year old cars, pay taxes, raise kids, and live your life like a good American.

Finally, you get tired of the 9 AM to 5 PM routine and you manage to start your own business. Life is good.

You spend the next twenty years working 7 AM to 9 PM building your business and, to quote Missouri Democratic Congressman Richard Gephardt, you appear to have “won life’s lottery” because you’ve made more money than the rest of the “average working slobs” that you started out competing with.

You’ve also spent a hell of a lot of money on accountants and you’ve spent a hell of a lot of your money paying taxes—income taxes.

Then the day comes when your time on this earth is over with and you die, leaving slightly more than a moderate sum to your family. Isn’t that fair? After all, you’ve worked your ass off, you’ve paid income taxes on all of your money you’ve earned over the past FORTY YEARS, and now the government wants to step in and take nearly half—45%--of everything you have left in excess of $2 million?

Not no, but HELL NO.

The Times says that the senators need to “realize that the need for tax fairness and fiscal sanity is greater than whatever political pressure they feel.”

How much longer are we expected to believe that “tax fairness and fiscal sanity” is embodied in stealing money from people that EARN IT and giving it to people that DIDN’T EARN IT?

How much longer are we going to allow “bureaucrats” and “activists” to look at our society, decide what the living standards should be, and then steal the money they believe they need from the “wealthy” in order to impose these standards on the “working families.”

You want know what I believe?

LIFE IS A BITCH!

You Know?

You come into this world naked, in sub-Saharan Africa or the USA, you are smart or you are stupid, black or white, male or female, and there is no guarantee that you won’t be molested as a child, or raped as an adult, or have the opportunity to be college educated and work your entire career for NASA. You can either play the cards in the hand that life deals you, or you can walk away from the table, curl up in a hole somewhere, and die a miserable death.

It really gripes me when the politicians and “activists” come in and try to insulate people from this reality. Pass another law. Raise another tax. It’s just that simple in their minds.

If you saw a bum (excuse me, a “homeless person”) sitting on the street and you wanted to help him improve his situation, would you believe that it was ethical for you pick up a gun, come to my house, stick the gun into my face and demand that I give you $10,000 to help the bum find shelter and food?

No?

Then how can you support allowing the government to come to my home, stick a gun in my face, and demand that I give them $10,000 on your behalf in order to provide an entire sub-culture of bum’s food, clothing and shelter?

What about air conditioning and a cell phone? What about a PlayStation and high speed internet? What about an I-pod? What about health insurance and a retirement plan? What about a trip to Disneyworld?

Where does it all end?

There are too many people out there today that believe that THEIR happiness depends on MY money, and standing in a grocery store checkout line while you talk on a cell phone paying for your purchase with food stamps (or with increased dignity with your new Electronic Benefits Card) makes my head explode.

There is a potential solution out there.

One of my idols, Atlanta radio talk-show host Neal Boortz and US Congressman John Linder have written The Fair Tax Book touting the benefits of a National Retail Sales Tax.

What a great idea it is. The National Retail Sales Tax would allow you to bring home every dollar that you earn, and only pay taxes when you spend your money. Every citizen would get a monthly tax rebate equal to the tax paid on the basic necessities of life—food, clothing, shelter. Poor people would pay no income tax and no sales tax, other than at the level existing in the individual states.

The National Retail Sales Tax would also capture income earned in the cash only “underground economy” (illegal workers, drug trade, etc.) because it would capture the money when it is spent, rather than when it is earned.

Unfortunately, there are too many politicians out there that will refuse to give up the power of spending other people’s money on their voters and constituents to allow any substantial change in the tax laws...

And that's a crying shame.