NEW YORK (CNN/Money)- The president's tax-reform advisory panel submitted two final proposals Tuesday morning to the Treasury Department, both of which offer significant changes to the tax breaks people have come to expect ....
In the panel's first proposal, focused on simplifying the tax code, dividends from domestic earnings would be tax-free ....
So let me get this straight. If I inherit enough Exxon stock to live off the dividends, I will pay no federal taxes.
But if I actually roll my ass out of bed every morning to show up to drive a school bus or teach America's children or patrol America's streets or ring up groceries or wait on tables, my work-my-ass-off, earned income is taxed?
Why aren't Democrats ALL over this?
Forget the other complicated parts (at least to me) of the tax panel's recommendations - the AMT, sliding scale, regional adjustments to home mortgage deductions, etc. Just forget it for a moment and keep it simple:
Those who are idle will not be taxed. Those who WORK for a living will be.
This is insane. This GOP-proposed plan penalizes those who produce the goods and services that keep this country functioning, and rewards those who do nothing.
What happened to our proverbial work ethic?
Why should someone who produces nothing and pays no taxes get the benefit of being protected by the world's largest military? Or driving on the interstate highway system? Or hiking in a national park?
For heaven's sake, cut some commercials, STAT. Show one guy in bed, 10 AM. Show one guy doing construction work. Run a line across the bottom: While Joe Rich sleeps, Joe Worker pays his - and Joe Rich's - tax bill.
Cripes. Keep it simple, Dems. Take a page from the GOP playbook and hammer one simple point home ad nauseum:
Those who don't work shouldn't get a free ride.
(Cross-posted yesterday at Political Cortex.)