Wednesday, December 19, 2007

The Big Picture - A Primer for the Tax Payer

I work for a living. The company I work for makes a product that while it is not essential to life it is nonetheless useful and desirable. My company makes a profit selling this product and therefore I receive a salary. That salary is taxed at a high rate and every penny of what is left over is then taxed again when it is used to purchase something. And the company from which I purchase that something is also taxed for making their profit. If that money is used to buy a winning lottery ticket the winnings are taxed at an unbelievably high rate.
Senators and other government officials also work for a living. But their company does not produce a product or a profit from which to draw a salary. They are paid in part by my taxes. They are also paid by friends called lobbyists and special interest groups.
In return what they do produce causes more taxes so that they can make more money for themselves and their friends.
Every couple of years these officials must run for re-election. During this time each and every one of them states that they never raise taxes. Many of them say that they never voted for a tax or a tax increase and yet we are being taxed at ridiculously high rates.
There is even an Alternative Minimum Tax or AMT which was started years ago to make sure the very wealthy pay at least some taxes. But many of the wealthy people also have friends who are lobbyists or belong to those special interest groups. Therefore rather than make the wealthy pay their fair share the officials in DC allow the AMT to affect lower and lower income families. This shift downward has passed along a greater burden of the tax code to the middle and lower middle class.
Congress enacts laws. They also amend current laws and decide on government spending. But what they spend is not their money since they produce nothing. The money they spend is OPM or other people’s money, our money.
Therefore it is our money that sent thousands of our children to war and their death against the wrong target. It is our money that funds the oil companies to unheard of record profits. It is our money that pays for illegal wire tapping of American citizens.
Our money even funds the travels and safety expenses of politician’s mistresses as well as their friends and family. It would appear that these wealthy people cannot afford to pay for their own transportation but we all know that is not the case.
Our money helps big business and multi-national corporations send our once better paying jobs overseas to cheaper markets in search of higher profits which are then taxed at lower rates.
Our money helps keep HMOs, who produce an even less desirable product than does our congress make record profits.
And all the while our money is being used by our leaders to decide how we are allowed to live our lives and love our loved ones even down to deciding whether or not some of us are allowed to marry.
What our officials are not using our money for are mundane things such as stopping global warming which may make the world uninhabitable in a few years; finding ways to feed the tremendous number of hungry people in our country, let alone the world; helping our homeless people, many of whom are veterans of the military. Our officials refuse to fund medical research into various ways to heal the sick or stop certain diseases at all, especially if their church tells them not to. These officials have obviously never heard of the separation of church and state.
America has fallen behind the rest of the world in medical research and education. We will continue to fall behind as long as these idiots are in charge.
However we still lead the world in celebrity sightings. Our press rejoices in the reporting of panty-less supposed celebrities or brainless billionaire bimbos. We can rest assured that we will be well informed when a blonde goes missing in the Caribbean. We will also know all the details of the child custody hearings when a wealthy buxom woman dies.
We only have ourselves to blame for allowing our money to be used and abused by a small group of people known as senators and representatives or Presidents and their friends. We work for a living, what the hell do they do?

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