Price to Pay, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

July 16, 2012 Martha Thomases 11 Comments

Because we are governed by idiots, the so-called “Bush tax cuts” are about to expire.  Again.  And I say we are governed by idiots because the last time this happened, Congress extended the cuts just long enough so we could have the same arguments we had a year or so go right before the presidential elections.

President Obama wants to extend the cuts for households earning less than  $250,000 a year and individuals earning less than $200,000.  Mitt Romney wants to extend them for everyone.

Perhaps you are saying, “Isn’t that fair?  Why single out one group of people to pay more taxes?”. I like fairness.  I’d like to pay lower taxes.  So what’s the problem?

The problem is that it’s not really fair.  As you can see from this chart, the tax cuts disproportionally benefit the wealthiest people.  At the same time, the cuts in services advocated by the deficit hawks to balance the budget disproportionally affect the poorest people.  Cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security won’t make a difference to Romney’s peers, but they will make a huge difference to average American families (who earn a median income of about $50,000 a year per household).

At this point, someone will say, “But what about the small business owner?  He or she is a job creator!”. It is true that most new jobs come from small businesses, and a great many small business owners file individual,not corporate returns.  However, according to a bi-partisan study, only 3.5 percent of small business owners report such a large income, and they are primarily doctors and lawyers with individual practices.  They may be good folks,but they don’t create all that many jobs.  These 3.5 percent account for more than half the taxable income for this particular sub-group of the population.  The other small business owners are the 96.5 percent. Perhaps they should occupy something.

We’ve had the so-called Bush tax cuts in effect for the better part of a decade.  If they were going create jobs, they would have.  Instead, we’ve seen far more job growth because of the stimulus (yes, I mean the “failed” stimulus, which failed in part because it wasn’t enough and 1/3 of it was tax cuts) and the auto bail-out.

If the Republicans are going to run on a platform that advocates lower taxes and a balanced budget, they should be required to say whose taxes are going to be lowered and by how much, as well as what government programs will be cut and by how much.  Otherwise, I will simply assume they are going tout my taxes by a few bucks and cut off my Social Security.

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Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, thinks maybe the 99 percent should open off-shore accounts if Romney gets elected.