Ari Fleischer explains why everyone should pay income taxes.
The economic and moral problem is that when 50% of the country gets benefits without paying for them and an increasingly smaller number of taxpayers foot the bill, the spinning triangle will no longer be able to support itself. Eventually, it will spin so slowly that it falls down, especially when the economy is contracting and the number of wealthy taxpayers is in sharp decline.
I often ask the question: what is enough taxation? You'll never find the answer here or here or here. They'll change the subject, call you names, and blame George W. Bush for every problem of mankind, but they will not tell you how much taxation is enough and who should be paying it. That's because they can't.
But despite the disinformation campaigns Democrats spread through their 8:45 a.m. meetings, JournoList, and other memos, the tax cuts of 2001 did not help only "the rich"...unless you define "rich" as "everybody."
Contrary to the myth that Mr. Bush cut taxes only for the wealthy, the 2001 tax cut reduced taxes for every income-tax payer in the country. He reduced the bottom tax rate to 10% from 15% and increased the refundable child tax credit to $1,000 from $500 per child, both cuts that President Barack Obama says we should keep. In so doing, millions of lower income taxpayers were removed from the tax rolls, shifting the remaining burden to those at the top, even after their taxes were cut.
Even with payroll taxes, which hit lower income earners harder, the bottom half of American taxpayers pay only 16.3% of all taxes. It gets harder and harder to argue that tax cuts only help "the rich." Tax cuts help everybody.
And who are "the rich"? Not the guys making $250k like the Obamabots keep telling you.
A very small number of taxpayers -- the 10% of the country that makes more than $92,400 a year -- pay 72.4% of the nation's income taxes.
Does $92k sound rich to you? I bet you know people who make that much or close to it. All you need are a couple of school teachers. Or maybe an air traffic controller. Or a computer programmer. You don't have to be an investment banker to have a household income in the top 10%, but you will be mocked by liberals and called "selfish" for thinking that you should get to keep the money you earn and that the government should be holding a bake sale to support itself.
But don't look to liberal sites to explain why a plumber, a small business owner, a railroad dispatcher or a mid-level manager is "rich" and needs to support half of all Americans. At that point, they'll probably tell you that you are just "lucky" to be making what you earn.
No wonder there are so many tea parties.
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