Tuesday's Thoughts - Taxing our way to prosperity

If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else’s expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves.

– Thomas Sowell

The Bush 'tax cuts' are going to expire...good news! Those EEEVIL rich people will finally start paying some of their fair share! Everyone should be happy! Move along, now...nothing to see here...

So says our "beneficent" federal government. Only a couple of small, pesky little facts that we need to be aware of...

First, according to the IRS web site, the top 10% wage earners in the U.S. paid 69.94% of the total income tax revenues for tax year 2008, with the top 1% wage earners covering 38.02% of the revenues. Conversely, the bottom 50% (that's FIFTY PERCENT) of wage earners were responsible for a whopping 2.7% of income tax revenues. And these numbers don't include approximately 40-45% of the American population who pay NO INCOME TAX WHATSOEVER.  Kind of puts that whole "fair share" argument into the crapper, huh?

Another annoying fact..the "expiring" tax cuts will affect pretty much everyone, not just the EEEVIL rich.. The National Taxpayers Union has a great 1-page summary of what to expect from these upcoming tax increases. You can read it HERE. A couple of quick items from it:

- 10% [income tax] bracket rises to an expanded 15%
- The 25% bracket rises to 28%
- The 28% bracket rises to 31%
- The 33% bracket rises to 36%
- The 35% bracket rises to 39.6%
 - The marriage penalty increases.
- The return of the death tax...from 0% to 55%...Basically, you know all that money you want to leave to your children (and already have paid taxes on, I might add)? More than half of it goes to the federal government upon your death.

These aren't "expiring tax cuts"...this is the single largest tax hike in U.S. history, and it's a travesty. The government mouthpieces spout off comments, like, "we can't afford to give up this revenue by extending the cuts."  Let's spell this out...They aren't "giving up" anything...IT'S NOT THEIR MONEY!!! It's yours, and they want to STEAL more of it to satisfy their addiction! This is the kind of arrogance that we need to purge from Washington.

Read the article linked above. It's very informative.

Just something to ponder...