I am a self-proclaimed budget hawk, who believes our incessant deficit spending, massive debt, and bloated ineffective government are America's Achilles heel, sooner or later the bill must be paid. I prefer sooner as not to saddle my children and grand children with our generations sins. However, I feel the targeting of one class of people in effort to rectify years and years of poor money management is not the answer; especially when those being targeted already pay more than anyone else.
Recently President Obama stated he wanted to tax the rich (any single person making more than $200,000.00 or any married couple making more than $250,000.00) in effort to help close budget gaps, of course throngs of Americans agree, those who are not being targeted agree. That is to say, those 99% of Americans who will not be paying for the governments failures of responsible spending agree that others should pay, just as long as its not them, as long as someone else pays, Americans are all for it, as long as they can still live at the expense of others, as long as they don't have to pay. Is this not the very description of hypocrisy? Do you think others should pay for your actions, do you not hold yourself accountable? Do you believe only certain people should shoulder the responsibilities and burdens of freedom? Do you not count yourself among them? If so, what does that say about you?
It seems to me that all of a sudden, THOSE people aren't paying their "fair share?!" Who are these people that claim to have the power and ability to target others and demand the transference of legally earned monies from one person to redistribute to others?! Is the equality promised to us by our founding fathers? Is this the equality they bled for?
Here are some interesting facts I've come across:
Who Pays Income Taxes and how much?
Tax Year 2008 (2008 is the latest IRS information)
Percentiles Ranked by AGI | AGI Threshold on Percentiles | Percentage of Federal Personal Income Tax Paid |
Top 1% | $380,354 | 38.02 |
Top 5% | $159,619 | 58.72 |
Top 10% | $113,799 | 69.94 |
Top 25% | $67,280 | 86.34 |
Top 50% | $33,048 | 97.30 |
Bottom 50% | <$33,048 | 2.7 |
Note: AGI is Adjusted Gross Income Source: Internal Revenue Service | ||
Five Key Reasons to Reject Class-Warfare Tax Policy
So, taking these things into consideration, what is it President Obama and people expect, what do they consider would be a "fair share" percentage? As it stands, the Obama's definition of the "rich" already pay 40% of all income taxes. The top 10% pay nearly 70% of all income taxes, and the bottom 50% of income earners only pay 2-3%, so who is it that truly isn't paying their fair share?!
I think we have all been conditioned to think that because someone has a larger income than ours, the government (i.e. the people) should take more from them. That somehow those whom are considered "rich" should be punished for making money, make no mistake about it, the income tax is a penalty for making money, some are more heavily targeted that others as a means to an end of a socialistic/progressive movement that started in this country in the early 1900s. What ever happened to the idea of equality under the law?
Something else that bothers me about President Obama's ideas of taxation is the obvious marriage penalty. Obama states a person may make $200,00.00, before being taxed at a higher rate, yet a married couple can only make $250,000.00 before being burdened with his higher rates. My question is why the obvious penalty? If he were concerned with fairness it would $400,000.00 for a married couple; however, it is obvious fairness is the last thing this president is concerned with, he simply wants to increase revenue by increasing the taxes of only one portion of society without seriously addressing his spending habits, to me that is as un-American as it gets.
If higher taxes are indeed required to balance the budget then let the pain be felt by all, not just a select few. Everyone should have skin the game; however, I believe the instant the people who are pointing and screaming "take their money," "take it from the rich," suddenly realize the burden of of a balanced budget will be bore by all, attitudes would change drastically. It's funny to me how we as a people are so eager to spend other people's money, money we had no hand in earning. I believe that all should pay their "fair share," all should pay their own way in life, not expect to live off the toil of others, or expect the government to redistribute the wealth from one sect of society to another.
I had another thought; why is it all of sudden are politicians stating millionaires and billionaires aren't paying their "fair share," so they must be more heavily taxed; yet, those very same politicians define those not paying their "fair share" have an income of $200,000.00 (single rate) and $250,000.00 (married rate). Does this actually make sense to anyone?!
How many millionaires/billionaires make $250,000.00 per year? The answer is, ALL of them. Now, how many people who make $200,000.00-250,000.00 are millionaires/billionaires, the answer is a very very small percentage of them. So, once again the political rhetoric is purposefully misleading and its only aim is demonize anyone making more than $200,000.00, which of course includes the majority of small businesses, the very engine of the US economy.
These politicians use the terms millionaires/billionaires in effort to fan the flames of class war fare and to attempt to make people forget they are really talking about the majority of small businesses and the majority of America's working professionals (doctors, lawyers, etc.)
A final word of caution, if the President of the United States gets to decide who is "rich" and who isn't. When will your income bracket be targeted next? The definition of "rich" is definitely a moving target, and as any who has ever paid Alternative Minimum Taxes (AMT) simply because they make X amount of money can testify to the fact of taxes targeting the "rich" seem to target more and more people every year and it's doing so by design. Wake up America, this is the system Congress created, this is the system of control, this is the system they built, this is the system they will keep.
This entire debate also highlights the failings of our tax code. The entire system of taxation needs tore down and rebuilt, from scratch. To put things into perspective:
Complex Inferiority
Jacob Sullum | April 13, 2011
The federal tax code, which in 1913 could be published as a single 400-page book, today occupies some 72,000 pages. In the last 10 years alone, reports National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson (your designated friend at the IRS), "there have been approximately 4,428 changes to the tax code." The instructions for filling out Form 1040, which took up two pages 75 years ago, are 179 pages long this year.
When pondering these things I often turn to those I deem wiser than myself and those whom I think were far wiser than any politician currently in office:
"Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable, it is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence..." — Abraham Lincoln (reply to the New York Workingmen’s Democratic Republican Association, Mar. 21, 1864)
"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our selection between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat in our drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labors and in our amusements, for our callings and our creeds...our people…must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live. We have not time to think, no means of calling the mis-managers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow suffers. Our landholders, too...retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirs, but held really in trust for the treasury, must...be contented with penury, obscurity and exile…private fortunes are destroyed by public as well as by private extravagance.
"This is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of society is reduced to mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering... And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression."— Thomas Jefferson
"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."— Thomas Jefferson
No comments:
Post a Comment