Some Thoughts on the Bush Tax Cut Debate

It is suggested that allowing the Bush Tax Cuts to continue for everyone EXCEPT those making somewhere over $200,000 ($250,000) is the right thing to do. It will reduce the deficit and the people it would affect should be paying more taxes. It is implied they do not pay their fair share. It will bring in (depending on who is speaking) $700 Billion to $1 Trillion over ten years.

Ten years is a convenient time frame for politicians. The numbers seem large when you express them over ten years. It might as well be a life time. It is hard to estimate next year’s numbers, let alone 10 years out. There will be many elections over that time and many, many things will change. One must wonder what kind of odds Las Vegas would place on that number being correct. If it is close, then we’re looking at over $70 Billion a year.

Will collecting this tax revenue reduce the deficit? It might if congress freezes the budget and does not allow our current deficit to increase. Has that been introduced? Has this new tax revenue been designated only to reduce the deficit and not for any new program or to fund an existing program? Has congress been successful in passing “a no earmark or entitlement” provision? In fiscal year’s 2008 Total Federal Budget, there were approximately 11,500 earmarks totaling about $16.5 Billion for the year. Don’t know what the 2009 number is. But $16.5 Billion is approximately 25 % of the expected revenue from the tax proposal. Do we really want to take that money out of the public’s hand so politicians can spend it at will?
Should families that struggled to start a business, borrow against their homes and credit cards, hire people from the neighborhood and give their employees benefits, and finally make over the magic number of $250,000, be put in the same category as multi-millionaires and billionaires? Our government makes it seem that all successful businessmen fall into that category. Should our country have the attitude that because someone becomes successful or their family has had success they should fund whatever programs congress decides on?
Most people don’t mind paying taxes. Most feel that the United States has given them the opportunity to earn a living and lead a good life. They realize that many services are needed and funding for those services should come from tax revenue. What is often objected to is the disregard that is showed by our government on how the money is spent. They throw around billions of dollars as if it’s a rounding error.

For every $1 billion congress spends 100,000 families have to pay $10,000 in taxes. Maybe those 100,000 families could use that money to benefit their own families. (Food, Education, Housing, Utilities, etc..)
It’s time the congress makes the first move before taxing anyone anymore. Freeze the spending, eliminate earmarks, eliminate new entitlements, examine all existing entitlements, cut all government budgets by some % (that’s what business does), examine all the benefit packages of government employees and the list goes on and on.

Let them do that before they take more of our money.

You can preview my book:

Essays From a Fed-Up Middle Aged, Middle Class American" By: Andy Strum
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