You wouldn’t understand….It’s a Republican thang!
So, I get this e-mail forwarded to me by a member of my family:
The media has done a good job of convincing many that Bush has done such a terrible job. Check your tax bill before you criticize!!!
Based on using the actual tax tables, here are some examples on what the taxes were/are on various amounts of income for both singles and married couples. So let’s see if the Bush tax cuts only helped the rich.
Taxes under Clinton 1999
- Single making 30K: tax $8,400
- Single making 50K: tax $14,000
- Single making 75K: tax $23,250
- Married making 60K: tax $16,800
- Married making 75K: tax $21,000
- Married making 125K: tax $38,750
Taxes under Bush 2008
- Single making 30K: tax $4,500
- Single making 50K: tax $12,500
- Single making 75K: tax $18,750
- Married making 60K: tax $9,000
- Married making 75K: tax $18,750
- Married making 125K: tax $31,250
If you want to know just how effective the mainstream media is, it is amazing how many people that fall into the categories above think Bush is screwing them and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever. If any democrat is elected, ALL of them say they will repeal the Bush tax cuts and a good portion of the people that fall into the categories above can’t wait for it to happen. This is like the movie The Sting with Paul Newman; you scam somebody out of some money and they don’t even know what happened.
I couldn’t resist…family or no family, I just had to respond. Anyone who knows me knows that I love a good debate! So it got me thinking…
Seriously, are lower taxes really that important? I personally don’t mind spending a bit extra on taxes if I can afford it. The problem I have with this picture is that, sure, it looks great on paper that Bush lowered our taxes. However, when you start to consider that the Iraq war alone costs the U.S. government an average of $270 million daily and has cost taxpayers $600 billion to date, tax cuts are the last thing we should be worrying about. $600 billion is a staggering number and I really don’t think all that money came from our taxes. A lot of it came from borrowed money that did nothing but raise our ever increasing deficit.
But I digress. Whether you’re for the war or against it, it doesn’t really matter. But everyone can certainly agree that the increased spending hasn’t done much to help us solve other problems that our country faces: social security, health care, immigration, energy conservation, education, poverty, the economy, and so much more. These are all hot topics on everyone’s agenda this election season, with the economy and health care leading the pack.
Lower taxes are all fine and dandy, but then whenever someone proposes solid solutions to many of the country’s other problems (social security, health care, immigration, education, etc.) pundits always ask the same question: “Great…but how do you propose we’re going to pay for it?” Umm…duh? The government manages to spend $270 million daily for the Iraq war. Plus, I seriously think that the wealth of this nation can afford to be taxed more with the lower and middle class being taxed less. Someone who makes less that $30K a year shouldn’t have to pay more than $4,500 a year on taxes. Granted, everyone can agree they’d like to pay less on taxes. I do agree that no one should have to pay more on taxes than they really should. We shouldn’t stretch anyone beyond their means. But saying that Democrats somehow can’t wait to “scam” people out of their money each tax season is preposterous.
Money doesn’t fall from the sky. Many of the things you require your government to do cost money. And one of the primary ways the government get the money to do all this fun stuff is through income tax. If the economy sucks and you’re paying less taxes, how does that equate to a good thing? Sure, we definitely need to reduce the amount of pork barrel spending in Congress, but that’s a completely different debate. Worst thing the government can do is tax the hell out of people when the economy isn’t good. That’s definitely not good politics. But neither is the kind of politics that drives the value of the dollar down a bit. That’s not good either.
The real question to ask is this: What do your tax dollars get you? Even if you had to pay a bit more on taxes, what do you aim to get out of it?
I don’t go out of my way to tell people what political affiliation I am. I don’t consider myself a devote Republican or Democrat. Hell, I don’t even think of myself as much of an independent either. I’m just a guy who votes his conscience and refuses to see the world through binoculars. I don’t wear rose colored glasses and I definitely don’t vote strictly on the basis of one or two issues. I do believe that too many people are divided and blaming it on the media isn’t helping. Sometimes you just have to open your eyes a bit, look at the big picture, educate yourself a bit, and see things for what they are. 
Honestly, all this tells me is that I shouldn’t vote for Clinton. And, believe me, I won’t. 
June 9th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
I strongly suggest you check the data that the email is based on. If you go to the website of the Tax Foundation (the link should be in the email), you will see that even they call the author of that email a liar. This table is false. After you’ve seen the note on their website, post another comment. I’ll be looking for it.
June 9th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
You’re absolutely right, Rick. The numbers do lie. The only thing that is true is that Bush did cut taxes…but not by as much as this site claims. Here’s the real numbers with links going to the tax table documents on the IRS website:
Taxes under Clinton 1999
Taxes under Bush 2008
The tax cuts may not have been as much as the site claimed…but they were still pretty significant. Taxes on the wealthy are what was perhaps the most significant change. It went from about 40% down to 35%. To see the impact of this, let’s say you were single and made $300,000 at the end of 1999, at that rate you would have to pay about a third of your earnings to taxes ($96,873.10). For 2008, you would have to pay around $85,068.25, which is a difference of $11,804.85. That’s a pretty significant chunk of change.
To compound it even further, let’s step it up into a higher bracket…someone who earned $300 million. Not a month goes by that you don’t hear about a CEO getting a big bonus worth millions of dollars. How does the tax breaks impact them?
Taxes on $300 million in 1999: $118,778,073.10
Taxes on $300 million in 2008: $104,979,074.25
Difference: $13,798,998.85
And this doesn’t even begin to cover corporate tax breaks, tax shelters, tax deductions, or any of that mess. $13 million off of $300 million doesn’t seem like a lot…but the point is that people making this kind of money don’t need tax breaks to begin with.
The main point to my post wasn’t whether the information was correct; it was the fact that the authors of this e-mail were trying to make the case that lower taxes are good. When you have a government that is hemorrhaging money, borrowing from other countries, and raising the deficit to the Nth degree, someone has to pay. The government is funded by the citizens of this country. Whether you like it or not, everyone has to pay taxes. But why should it have to be the lower and middle class that bear the heavier load? The wealth of this nation should bear it.
Thanks, Rick, for pointing out the erroneous data these guys were trying to spin on people. This is the very thing that drives me bananas.