“Figures lie and lairs figure.”
Time to look at a couple of numbers and statements being thrown around by the Obama campaign. First has to be the statement that Obama plans to “cut taxes” for “95%” of all taxpayers.
People familiar with the facts are quick to point out that some 40% of income tax “payers” actually get back more “refund” than the amount of tax that was withheld from their paychecks. They are income tax payers in name only, as they get back everything they pay in and then some.
How is that possible? The Earned Income Tax Credit. The EITC is the most direct way the government has of taking money from those who earn it and giving it to those who did not earn it. It is a refundable income tax credit. (It’s also one of the most abused tax fraud mechanisms in existence — but that’s another story.)
So, when Obama includes this 40% in his 95% figure, and promises to “cut” their taxes too, he means he is going to give those people an even larger EITC — more money from those who earned it to those who did not. Obama thinks that robbing you to give me money (or vice-versa) is a “tax cut” for both of us.
Let me say it again, no matter whose taxes are raised, we all pay. Obama would have you believe that he’s going to provide tax relief to the Middle Class. The only way to do that is to CUT taxes. Raising them, even selectively, raises all our taxes.
I learned from an Obama supporter on TV today that “two of every three corporations don’t pay any tax.”
Let’s accept, for the sake of argument, that this is true. So what? If the corporation DID pay taxes, the tax would just be passed on to you, the customers of those corporations. As I wrote previously: “Those “rich” corporations have a place in their ledgers for taxes. Taxes are a cost of doing business. As the cost of doing business increases, so do the prices of the products or services the corporation supplies. So we all pay for corporate taxes.” We may not pay those taxes directly, but we pay them nonetheless.
It’s simple, really. The poor don’t have the trillions needed to run the gargantuan Federal government. Neither do the rich people. If you took all the income earned by every “rich” person, it would run the government for a few weeks at most. ALL the rest of the money that government spends comes from the vast middle class — the people for whom Obama says he will cut taxes — even as he proposes a trillion dollars on new spending.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that Obama is cutting anyone’s taxes. Even the folks to whom he is planning to give more free money, via the EITC, will just end up paying more taxes indirectly. We always pay.