Vast Write Wing - April 2012

[lwoolley]

APRIL 13, 2012
OPINION: Time to Pay our Fair Share
By Congressman John Carter

According to President Obama, America’s 400 wealthiest families pay just 18% of their income in federal taxes, while the average middle-income family pays 30%, and that’s not fair. The President goes on to say we all should have to pay our “fair share” of taxes.

I agree 100%. That’s great political rhetoric. I don’t think you’ll find anyone who wants to argue that some people should not pay their “fair share” while others pay more than they should.

The President’s numbers are wrong. The IRS itself reports that middle-income workers pay an average 15% of their income in federal taxes, while the wealthiest Americans pay an average 26%. But for argument’s sake let’s ignore that for now.

The real problem is that the President, through the Buffett Rule tax bill he has pushed to a Senate vote this week, would create more of the crushing burden of tax regulations and rules that created these imbalances to begin with, without any significant improvement in tax revenues. If the Buffett rule raising the minimum tax on wealthy Americans to 30% became law, it would only generate $47 billion a year in new taxes, just one-half of one percent of the current Obama deficit spending.

How did we get to this place in our nation’s tax history? In 1913 we created income tax, under the guise that only the wealthiest Americans would pay anything. The initial level at which income tax kicked in was around $500,000 a year in today’s dollars, so the average citizen was led to believe this would never affect them. This was only going to hit “the rich.” Some things never change.

Then came inflation and two World Wars, and suddenly the income tax that was only supposed to tax “the rich” was taxing everybody. So we created tax deductions and credits on everything from mortgage interest to targeted investments in order to encourage citizens to avoid those high taxes by doing something beneficial for the economy with their earnings.

Well, investors did indeed use those tax codes to invest and avoid paying the higher rates, until finally some people were paying no tax at all through clever investing. We responded in 1969 by creating the original version of the proposed Buffett Rule, the Alternative Minimum Tax. This was supposed to guarantee that the “the rich” paid a minimum 28% tax regardless of their deductions and credits.

But those whose only income is from investments don’t pay the AMT, while inflation once again has pushed middle-income Americans into the AMT top rate of 28%. Congress now scrambles every year to approve a new waiver to keep this big tax increase from crushing middle-income families.

So we’re back to the President and Senate Democrats proposing the same solution that got us into this mess in 1913, indignantly crying to selectively raise taxes on “the rich.”

There is a right way to guarantee that all Americans pay their fair share of taxes – The Fair Tax, H.R. 25, of which I am proud to cosponsor in the 112th Congress as I have in the past. The Fair Tax eliminates income, Social Security, and Medicare taxes entirely, and shuts down the IRS, through a simple 23% national sales tax. So instead of the very wealthy paying 18% of their income, and working folks paying 30%, we would all pay just 23% - but only on what we buy, instead of what we earn.

George Soros, Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey, and even the President would have to pay the same 23% tax as everybody else in the country. So would drug dealers and other criminals who pay no income tax on their illegal activities. There are exceptions for low-income families and those on Social Security. The price of retail goods would drop dramatically without having income taxes added to the price before it got to the store, and we would receive our paycheck with no taxes withheld. April 15 would become just a nice spring day, instead of a day of dread for millions of Americans.

True fairness, and greater freedom for all. Too bad the President and his party are doing everything possible to block it, by fanning the century-old flames of envy.



www.house.gov/carter
Contact: John.Stone@mail.house.gov; (202) 225-3864
U.S. Rep. John Carter
31st District of Texas
409 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

[lwoolley]

Lynn:

I not only believe Colonel West, but I believe that Obama has stacked his cabinet with the same type of people and if he gets in another 4 years it will never be the same America that you and I grew up in.

The times that I have seen Colonel West on the TV and listened to his interviews I view him as one of the smartest men in the Congress and he is not afraid to speak his mind.

Thanks,

Lonnie Phillips
Salado, Texas

[lwoolley]

Weather Underground founder Mark Rudd to speak at MCC on April 12

March 30, 2012

Weather Underground founder Mark Rudd will speak at McLennan Community College about his experience as an activist and his realization that violence did not further his group's cause. Rudd will speak from 2:30-4 p.m. on April 12 in room 111 of the Michaelis Academic Center. The free event is sponsored by the MCC History Student Association and Sigma Kappa Delta.

Weather Underground, a revolutionary group in the 1960s and '70s, had as its primary goal "the violent overthrow of the government of the U.S. in solidarity with the struggles of the people in the world." However, Rudd now promotes and speaks about non-violent protesting.

For more information about Rudd, visit www.MarkRudd.com. For more information about the event, contact Melody Flowers at call 299-943 or mflowers@mclennan.edu.

[lwoolley]

AJ:

Your Borg info is out of date. Need to watch Voyager to know about the Borg.

[lwoolley]

With all the racial verbiage, threats, actuation's, and general mayhem going on through out this country these days I find this quote to be very appropriate and timely. It appears to me that both Parties are attempting to play this set of cards with as much skill as they can muster at the expense of the country as a whole..

Think about it.

In politics, few talents are as richly rewarded as the ability to convince parasites that they are victims. Welfare states on both sides of the Atlantic have discovered that largesse to losers does not reduce their hostility to society, but only increases it. Far from producing gratitude, generosity is seen as an admission of guilt, and the reparations as inadequate compensation for injustices--leading to worsening behavior by the recipients.

Thomas Sowell




Chuck Ellis

[lwoolley]

Britannic was the ships name sunk in ww1 not ww2 and Violet Jessup was the woman who survived both. Britannic was to be named Gigantic but never happened.

James Carpenter

[lwoolley]

Lynn-
Your show is always interesting. Thank you.
Round Rock Ron

[lwoolley]

Leviathan- carried my grandpa Jacobi back from his service in WWI in Europe

Clifford in Odessa

[lwoolley]

The sister ship hit a mine during ww2 and sunk. There was a nurse who survived and she also had survived the Titanic.

James Carpenter

[lwoolley]

AJ:

http://www.titanic-whitestarships.com/Olympic_1911.htm

[lwoolley]

Steven:

The press, along with most talk radio hosts, appear clueless about how this delegate process works. They all think front runner Rmoney is going to easily get 1144 delegates and become the republican nominee, hands down, and everyone else should get out of the race, so Goldman Sacks can concentrate on replacing Obama with a white version of Obama.

Thomas Mullens at the Wash Times, gets it right in his analysis of Colorado's convention this weekend.
This same delegate strategy has been and continues to occur at republican county conventions all over America right now, and the actual delegate count is still UNKNOWN and has little or nothing to do with the actual popular vote outcome of the primary/caucus, as demonstrated in Colorado this past weekend.

Bottom line, IF Rmoney, does NOT get 1144 locked delegates prior to the Tampa Convention, there will be some real fireworks in August.

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/ ... hallenge-/

[lwoolley]

Lynn,

I think you should give Barack-----er, uh I mean Barrack on-air kudos for a great show this past Sunday morning. It was superb and is worthy of a on-air repeat sometime this week!

Jim
Temple

[lwoolley]

Lynn, saw an article this weekend as to how the heads of each military and their staff are standing with obama supporting the defense budget cuts proposed by the admin.
I wonder how the rank and file at Hood feel about the cuts.

Mike Licavoli
Harker Htsd, TX

[lwoolley]

John Blankenship <lblankenship1@hot.rr.com>

While listening to your program the other day it occured that such a split has already occured, in Korea. The progressive North and capitalist South seem to present a text book example of the ultimate end of such a disunion. John

[lwoolley]

Unsigned:

Olympic - Britannic [nee Gigantic]

BRITANNIC sunk by mine or torpedo in Mediterranean
during WWI, significantly lower loss of life, but
the same result [sunk]

Another 'unsinkable' vessel meets the end.

Note that the expert designer went down with the Titanic.

To me the significance of the Titanic is that it
marks the 100 year marker for the FAILURE of
so-called experts to perform 'progress'.

In the last 100 years, we have seen the failure of
not just the Titanic, but

Direct election of Senators
Federal Reserve
FDA [War on drugs]
New Deal
Keynesianism
Great Society
Medicare
Medicaid
Progressivism in particular
Communism [as practiced by the USSR]
Nazism [as practiced by the Germans]
Bushido [as practiced by the Japanese]

Name four government programs that have succeeded in the
last 100 years. [I can name three].