[lit-ideas] It's Your Money, Don't Let Them Take It Without A Fight
- From: "M.A. Camp" <macampesq@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 20:48:54 -0500
It's Your Money, Don't Let Them Take It Without A Fight
Chicago Sun Times
^<http://www.suntimes.com/output/otherviews/cst-edt-ref10.html>|
10-10-05 | Joseph Bast
Governments in the United States take approximately 40 percent of the
country's total income in taxes. In other words, nearly half of all the
income generated each year is sent to governments to spend.
The good news is that a growing number of people pay no federal taxes at
all. According to a recent Tax Foundation report, 29 million people had no
federal income tax liability in 2000, and the number was expected to reach
44 million in 2004. The bad news is that people who do pay taxes much pay
more to make up for those who pay nothing.
Writes Daniel Mitchell at the Heritage Foundation, "According to data from
the Internal Revenue Service, the top 1 percent of income earners pay nearly
35 percent of the income tax burden; the top 10 percent pay 65 percent; and
the top 25 percent pay nearly 83 percent. The bottom 50 percent of income
earners, on the other hand, pay barely 4 percent of income taxes."
Federal income taxes are only a small portion of the taxes we pay. We also
pay federal payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, state income
taxes, state and local sales taxes, property taxes, death taxes and excise
taxes.
Except for excise taxes, these taxes fall most heavily on the most
productive members of society. This doesn't make excise taxes better: They
fall randomly and unfairly on people based on their habits and needs without
regard to their ability to pay or their use of public services.
The growth of government spending is what makes this tax burden necessary.
The federal budget grew 14 percent in President Bush's first three years,
with discretionary spending growing nearly 50 percent. The 2006 Bush budget
would increase the Department of Education budget by 40 percent since 2001
and the Department of Commerce budget by 85 percent. Bush's 2006 budget was
supposed to be an "austerity" budget that finally would rein in spending,
but it started with a proposed 3.6 percent increase in federal spending and
has taken wing from there. The energy and transportation bills signed by the
president are budget busters, and the just-announced spending to "rebuild
New Orleans" is likely to make 2006 another record-breaker.
If government is too big, as Republicans love to chant, why is it growing
larger and at a record pace with a Republican president and Republicans in
control of both houses of Congress? Why did it grow at a slower rate when
Bill Clinton was in the White House?
Meanwhile, state governments have been indulging in their own spending orgy.
Between 1990 and 2000, total state spending grew by a staggering $512
billion, or 89 percent. All of that new built-in spending is moving through
today's budgets like a pig through a python, causing state politicians to
cry about "budget cuts" even as they reap record revenue increases due to
the reviving national economy.
Voters need to hold to the fire the feet of elected officials, and
especially Republicans who pretend to be pro-taxpayer. Officials who cut
taxes and balance budgets need to be rewarded with success at the ballot
box, and those who raise taxes and increase spending should be targeted by
taxpayer groups and lose elections.
Tax and expenditure limits, such as Colorado's Taxpayers' Bill of Rights,
are a structural solution to the problem of too much spending during good
economic times and tax hikes during bad times. (It limits government
spending to growth in population and inflation and returns surpluses to
taxpayers.) Efforts are under way across the country to adopt TABOR through
referendums and initiative where they are allowed, or legislatively if not.
Those efforts deserve everyone's support.
Voters need to be far more aggressive in opposing excise taxes and so-called
sin taxes. These taxes often pass by dividing the public -- pitting smokers
against nonsmokers, beer drinkers against nondrinkers, tourists against
residents, and so on. They are easily hidden from taxpayers, a good example
being the Spanish-American War tax on telephone service.
Privatization and outsourcing of government services are widespread, have
been closely studied, and typically increase the quality of services
provided while reducing spending. They need to be promoted and aggressively
defended against attacks by public-sector labor unions and their allies on
the left.
It's easy to complain about taxes and then do nothing to lower them, but how
free are you when governments take half or more of your income? Even serfs
in the 16th and 17th centuries typically owed their feudal lords only a
quarter of their crops and livestock, and often much less.
Our forefathers fought a war for independence over taxes that were far lower
than those we now pay without complaint. It's time we got up off our sofas
and demanded real tax relief.
--
Cheers,
M.A. Camp, Esq.
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