TAXES, SO JUST WHAT IS SOMEONE'S..."FAIR SHARE?"….

When it comes to politics, the American people are a rather, how shall I say, ignorant lot. There are other words I could use, I suppose, but ignorant, is the most polite. I say this because it would seem that a majority of Americans would rather believe the lies and the toxic rhetoric that has as its source both the Democrat Party and the state-controlled media than to expend even a limited amount of energy to go in search of the facts, which are so very easily accessible. And on no other topic is that fact more apparent than when discussing taxes, and what's fair and what's not. One of Barry's favorite mantras, and has been for some time, is that everybody needs to be paying their "fair share." But I'd like to ask Barry just how fair is it to those of us who continue to fork over and increasing amount of our hard earn money to Uncle Sam, at a time when 49.5 percent of Americans pay absolutely no federal income tax. To me, if there is an ultimate unfairness in the system, that would be it. And it also paints a very clear picture about what it is that's so patently dishonest regarding Barry's continuing propaganda regarding the "need" to raise taxes.

A fact that has been demonstrated on any number of occasions over the course of our history is that high marginal tax rates do nothing more than to discourage work effort, saving, and investment, and actually promotes both tax avoidance and tax evasion. And what has been proven time and again, is that higher tax rates bring in less, not more, revenue. On the other end, and something you rarely hear about from those on the left, is that a reduction in high marginal tax rates actually boosts long term economic growth while reducing the attractiveness of tax shelters and other forms of tax avoidance. If we use the Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA) of 1981, as our case study, we see that the economic benefits, as summarized by "Slick Willie" Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers in 1994: "It is undeniable that the sharp reduction in taxes in the early 1980s was a strong impetus to economic growth." It was too bad that the Council could not bring itself to acknowledge the counterproductive effects high marginal tax rates can have upon taxpayer behavior and tax avoidance activities. But, I suppose, that would have been too much to expect.


Now I know Barry and the Democrats would love nothing more that to continue in their efforts to convince as many Americans as possible about how it is that all those evil rich folks are simply getting away with murder. But unfortunately, for them, the facts would indicate something very different entirely. Pesky things, those facts. And something that the Democrats do their level best to avoid when spewing their incessant drivel. Because you see, referring back to our case study, in 1984 the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) provided "factual information" about the impact of the tax cuts of the 1980s. For example, the JEC then published IRS data on federal tax payments of the top 1 percent, top 5 percent, top 10 percent, and other taxpayers. These data show that after the high marginal tax rates of 1981 were cut, tax payments and the share of the tax burden borne by the top 1 percent climbed sharply. For example, in 1981 the top 1 percent paid 17.6 percent of all personal income taxes, but by 1988 their share had jumped to 27.5 percent, a 10 percentage point increase. Such "facts" clearly expose the lies we continue to hear from Democrats.


And in 1988 the share of the income tax burden borne by the top 10 percent of taxpayers increased from 48.0 percent in 1981 to 57.2 percent. Meanwhile, the share of income taxes paid by the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers dropped from 7.5 percent in 1981 to 5.7 percent in 1988. A middle class of taxpayers, that place where the majority of us reside, can be defined as those between the 50th percentile and the 95th percentile or those earning between $18,367 and $72,735 in 1988. Between 1981 and 1988, the income tax burden of the middle class declined from 57.5 percent in 1981 to 48.7 percent in 1988. This 8.8 percentage point decline in middle class tax burden is entirely accounted for by the increase borne by the top one percent. Several conclusions can be drawn from this data. First of all, reduction in high marginal tax rates can induce taxpayers to lessen their reliance on tax shelters and tax avoidance, and expose more of their income to taxation. The result in this case was a 51 percent increase in real tax payments by the top one percent. Meanwhile, the tax rate reduction reduced the tax payments of middle class and poor taxpayers.


Now it should come as no great surprise that there continues to be many in the state-controlled media, legions actually, who love nothing more than to tout the fact that if there's one thing that Republican politicians agree on, it's that slashing taxes brings the government an increase in revenue. And in that effort they work to leave no stone unturned in their portrayal of such a premise as being nothing more than a fallacy, smoke and mirrors, pure illusion, a sly deception or even as being essentially an outright lie. Back when then president George W. Bush said, "You cut taxes, and the tax revenues increase," and Vice President Dick Cheney also explained that reducing taxes, "does produce more revenue for the Federal Government," many in the media to exception to such "economic nonsense" and both men were maligned to no end. Then in 2008, presidential candidate John McCain declared that "tax cuts ... as we all know, increase revenues." And his then rival, Rudy Giuliani, couldn't have agreed more saying, "I know that reducing taxes produces more revenues." Both were soundly ridiculed by any number of morons in our leftist media.


Barry and the Democrats are very fond of saying how it is that we simply cannot go back to the old ways of doing things. But it would appear that the old ways, at least when it comes to taxes, proved to work pretty darn well at bring back an economy that was at the brink after four years of Jimmy "The Bonehead" Carter. The evidence is, quite simply, irrefutable. When individuals are being "forced" to fork over less money to the government, they have more money to spend on other things. And it's the spending on those other things that is the life's blood of our economy. The fact that lower taxes stimulate economic growth is an established fact which only serves to lay bare the rather warped philosophy on taxes held by the Democrat Party, and in particular this president. It would seem to very clearly demonstrate the fact that the Democrat philosophy is based less on the government's ability to collect revenue and more on its being able to control the citizenry. Because if the Democrats were truly concerned about getting our economy rolling again the quickest to accomplish that feat would be to lower taxes across the board. But because they stubbornly refuse to do that, their motives for doing so become all the more clear.