Early voting has begun for the latest presidential election. If you must watch major media coverage, please pay no heed to stories about supposed partisan fighting. If anything, it is partisan in-fighting. These sideshows represent mere tangling over the spoils.
In true partisan spirit, Democrats and Republicans together carry forward the banner of socialism as they march America further into the muck. From “The Bailout and the Vanishing Taxpayer:”
We have heard much in the press lately about the American taxpayer being forced to rescue the sharpies on Wall Street from their own greed and irresponsibility. Anti-bailout sentiment cuts “across class lines” on Main Street because “the taxpayers are on the hook for the bad judgment of others,” as the Washington Post put it.
Now for a reality check. Many Americans probably won’t pay a cent of the cost of this bailout. That’s because a rapidly increasing percentage of U.S. households legally pay no income taxes, and many others pay so little in taxes that they already get back more from the federal government in services than they send to Washington. The number of taxpayers who generate a surplus for the federal government—that is, pay more in taxes than they receive in services—is small and shrinking, which is why the only way that the folks on Main Street will pay for this bailout will be if Main Street is where the mansions are in your town.
The declining portion of households who pay taxes is a direct result of policies pursued by both Republicans and Democrats over the last 15 years or so.
It’s called buying votes. And it works like a charm from both sides of the aisle.
While deductions and credits have always served to eliminate the tax bill for some low and lower-middle income workers, from 1950 through roughly 1990, the percentage of households with no income tax burden stood constant at slightly more than one-fifth of all filers, according to the Tax Foundation. But since 1990, Washington has added all sorts of tax credits—subsidizing everything from “lifetime learning” to adoption expenses—that have further reduced the tax tab, and in the process raised the proportion of households with no federal tax liability to 33 percent.
A big culprit in this evolution is the current Bush administration and its tax packages…
Both presidential candidates would vastly accelerate the trend.
Republicans and Democrats act primarily in concert with respect to core economic issues. Neither party favors sound money. Neither party can or will reduce the size of government. Both parties protect the inflationist, interventionist system because they benefit from it immensely. Both have become corrupted as a result.
And yet we hear incessantly about the need for bipartisanship. The media feeds us a tale of rancor and acrimony, intrigue and maneuvering. Why? It must be good for business. After all, professional wrestling reportedly delivers big ratings, revenues, and crowds even though everyone knows it’s a scripted sham, not an actual contest.
In the end, how we actually pay for the bailout is just part of the issue. The larger point is that if McCain or Obama follow through with their tax plans, we’ll continue a trend that makes us look more and more like some European social welfare state, where many people have a stake in growing government entitlements, which fewer and fewer taxpayers finance. At some point along that road, change becomes impossible because too many citizens benefit from the system in place, while those who pay the freight for this system try whatever they can, including starting businesses elsewhere, or reducing their output, to avoid the disproportionate tax bite.
That’s a prescription for a static economy largely bereft of opportunity. On the other hand, we probably won’t have to worry about volatile markets in such a world.
It must be quite an experience so lavishly to spend other people’s money in such mind-boggling amounts. As a result of this advancing theft, more and more people depend on the government to a greater and greater extent while they personally sacrifice to pay for less and less of it — all the while congratulating each other for their sense of justice and their selfless pursuit of public fairness.
“A body in motion tends to remain in motion; a body at rest tends to remain at rest.” A system corrupted tends to stay corrupt. Where is the will to change this system, to interrupt this seemingly inexorable slide into socialism? Our foreign creditors are happy to bleed us dry, and our citizenry apparently can’t be bothered.
One presidential candidate promises to “spread the wealth around.” The other candidate recommends that the federal government spend 300 billion dollars on mortgages to force banks to renegotiate the terms. Both voted for the bail-out bill and will likely continue the march along this line. Guess which candidate accused the other of being a socialist. What a sad farce.
This is no two-party system. It’s one big party.
Thus, these trends continue, unabated.
Here’s the thing, though: crime does not pay.
via “The Bailout and the Vanishing Taxpayer.” Photo source.
