Over the Christmas holidays I had to stop mid-conversation for fear of exciting a close family member. He’s a lifelong Democrat and there is no hope for saving him from that ailment. He also has heart trouble and tends to get overly excited if you disagree about things political so, I don’t talk about it much over there. Not that politics isn’t discussed at his house, it is. It’s just a one sided conversation and I usually have bite marks on my tongue before I leave. Such is the life of a robot.

I dropped out of the aforementioned conversation when I heard this from another family member:

I’m against Obama but when I see the Republicans giving tax breaks to the rich I just don’t think I can support them either.

This seems to be the mindset of a lot of people who cling to the Democrat or Independent label, and it’s an illogical mind twister. This is the type convoluted thinking that Statists like Obama want to promote and what we Conservatives/Restorationists should strive to overcome.

Now, let’s examine that sentence. When you say “I’m against Obama” are you against everything Obama does? Since you’re not here to answer that, let’s say for the sake of brevity and hopefulness that you are.

So that brings us to the other half of the sentence, “Republicans giving tax breaks to the rich”. This has class envy written all over it. It also tells me you’ve been buying into at least some of the Obamedia rhetoric.

First off, the term “giving” is misused here. It says that it’s the government’s money to give. It is not. It also implies that you accept the flawed premise that the rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes.  What is most disturbing to me is the lack of understanding of the God given right to personal property. When you shift ownership of property from the individual to the government, it soon devolves into tyranny.

John Adams said:

The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.

We have been on that road for a while now. It is time to stop.

Assuming everything the federal government does is *cough* worthwhile: military, infrastructure, postal service, social programs, and so-on, let’s focus on who pays Federal Income Tax and how much, as a percentage of the total. (You can find the dollar amounts by clicking the links.)

Who pays taxes?

According to Scott A. Hodge, President of the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax research group based in Washington, D.C., there were nearly 142 million Americans filing tax returns in 2009, roughly half the population.

Who doesn’t pay taxes?

There were 42.5 million, or 32.4% of filers in 2004 that didn’t pay taxes, which was up from an average of 22% for the previous 5 decades.

Contrast that with 2008, under a Republican President and a Democrat controlled congress:

Two Records Set in 2008: Most Nonpayers and Highest-Earning Nonpayers
Nonpaying status used to be a sure sign of poverty or near-poverty, but Congress and the President have changed the tax laws to pull much of the middle class into the growing pool of nonpayers. The income level at which a typical family of four will owe no income taxes has risen rapidly, now topping $51,000.

As a result, recently released IRS data for the 2008 tax year show that a record 51.6 million filers had no income tax obligation.[1] That means more than 36 percent of all Americans who filed a tax return for 2008 were nonpayers, raising serious doubts about the ability of the income tax system to continue funding the federal government’s ballooning expenditures.

Who pays the most?

The top 1% of taxpayers has the largest burden. In 2008, those filers carried 38% of the total tax income and that percentage is consistent with past results. One problem as I see it, and as noted in the quote above, is the shifting demographics.

Who pays the least?

The bottom 50% of taxpayers pays the least or 2.7% of the total income tax accumulated, which is down from a 1999 figure of 4%. That’s half of the filers paying little or next to nothing. I’d say that this one statistic is enough to warrant a flat tax, that is, if I wasn’t against the Federal Income Tax altogether, but if we’re going to have one. Make it a flat consumption tax.

Who gets a subsidy?

What? A Subsidy!?

Yes. An interesting reminder came out of my reading for this post. I had forgotten that under President Bush (Progressive, but not as bad as Obama by a long shot), the IRS was given new responsibilities: encouraging poverty.

In a nutshell, single mothers under a certain income threshold get a subsidy for each child. We are paying poor folks to have babies!

Our benevolent benefactors might as well open up an ‘Uncle Sammie’s Home for Wayward Wimmin’ on a corner in every major metropolitan city for cryin’ out loud!

Government funded charity distributed through the welfare system hasn’t been replaced; it’s been expanded and enhanced! We now offer subsidies to people to breed more poverty. Yea! Keep in mind, this doesn’t include food stamps, social programs etc., which are funded from the Social Security system and are also expanded due to the greater need now that there are more poor babies being born (see how that works?), we are talking about the IRS being used as a redistributive tool.

Again, from Scott A. Hodge and the Tax Foundation:

Of the 42.5 million tax returns that pay no income taxes, 52.9 percent [‘bot - 22.5m] received some form of a refundable credit – either the EITC or the child tax credit. In 2004, Uncle Sam paid out about $33 billion in “refundable” checks to the families and single individuals who qualified for the Earned Income Credit and another $9 billion to families who were eligible for the child credit.

Broadly speaking, the 42.5 million zero-tax filers are: low-income, young, female-headed households, part-time workers, and beneficiaries of the $1,000 per-child tax credit or the Earned Income Credit.

And the situation isn’t improving:

In 2008, 25 million tax filers received $51.6 billion in EITC benefits. Of this amount, $50.5 billion was refundable in excess of their income tax liability. Also in 2008, some 25.3 million filers received $30.7 billion in child tax credit benefits, with more than 18 million of these filers getting $20.5 billion in refundable checks. Many families are eligible for both the EITC and the child credit. These are not refunds of overpaid tax; they are payments to people who have already gotten back everything that was withheld from their paychecks during the year.

What’s the solution?

Less government. Duh! Reign in the social spending. We can no longer afford (and never could afford), to offer government charity using the IRS or any social program to re-distribute our money/property. It is killing our nation and promoting a mindset of entitlements that is bankrupting and destroying our society. We are squashing people’s will to achieve and succeed by taking from those who will work and giving to those who will not. It is our duty, out of compassion for them and our working countrymen to cease these destructive social programs by systematically phasing them out.

How?

Continue the commitments we have made thus far, but put a dead end date on them. We need to elect like minded Conservative/Restorationist politicians who understand these things and will fight to get these destructive policies reformed and repealed.

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.

~ Benjamin Franklin

November was just the beginning. We have to fight ever harder to retake our country from the hands of the Statists. If we do not, well, that alternative is the worst imaginable for the individual, for America and for the world.

Further reading:

Tax Cuts and Class Wars

Rhetoric Rides Again

H/T The Classic Liberal and Motor City Times.

Addendum: I understand this is only one part of a larger, multifaceted problem of high taxes and excessive government spending on all fronts. I only bring it up to refute what the media and the Statists want to program you with through sheer repetition.

Some say, and I agree, that the spending comes before the taxes as a method to justify more taxation.  It’s the spending, stupid! Yes.

Therefore, a real, measurable and verifiable shift in thinking and action by our lawmakers needs to occur to stop the downward slide or our country. The only way to accomplish this is through education and activism. A majority of the voters need to make that same shift in their thinking with respect to private property. Our personal property and our earnings should be sacrosanct, untouchable by the Federal monster unless a last resort. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

Some, like my family member have given up, thrown up their hands and said, “There’s nothing we can do. We can’t change Washington, so why bother?”

To him and them I say, look at what you, your children and your grandchildren lose if you don’t! Yours and their freedom, or what’s left of it, that’s what.

Will you sell them into slavery by ignorance and inaction?

You already know my answer.

It’s well beyond time to answer for yourself and your family.

Happy New Year, Comrades!

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UPDATE:

Linked by:

The Lonely Conservative – Many thanks, Milady.

Big Fur Hat @ iOwnTheWorld – Much Obliged, Sir.

Bride of Rove – Sharing a life – lol – Thankyouverymuch

Doug Ross – Makes my day.

Linked by a Pixie! – How cool is that?

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