I have a confession to make. I write speeches for Howard Dean.
No, not professionally. I write them as a hobby. I usually do it shortly after I see him in a TV interview or read something that he said in the paper.
So two weeks ago on Meet the Press, when Tim Russert asked Howard Dean if the Democrats would raise taxes if they re-took the House, Senate or both, I began writing. I won't print Howard's reply here. It was horrible. Mine's better.
It starts off with Howard looking Tim in the eye and asking him,
"What, Tim? Are you worried that your taxes will go up? Don't you love America enough to want to pay for it?"
I simply refuse to believe that rich people don't love this nation as much as I do that they'd go out of their way to avoid paying taxes.
Howard, I'm offering this line free of charge.
The fact of the matter is that rich people DO avoid paying taxes as much as they can. They move to Montana, where there's no income tax. They move their businesses offshore in order to avoid corporate tax. "Death taxes" have no sting for the rich have accountants and tax lawyers to sheltereth their finances.
In the past four years:
- two major metropolitan areas were rocked by terrorist attacks;
- those attacks had ripple effects that buffeted tourism, transportation and business industries;
- some of the most populated regions of our nation were hit with multiple hurricanes;
- we attacked two nations militarily and mobilized the largest fighting force since Viet Nam;
- the world has faced unprecedented famine, poverty, displacement and disease--some of it man-made (Dafur) and some of it natural (tsunamis, earthquakes...)
- the nation's health care system has eroded and fewer people are insured or receiving basic preventative care
- we are losing our economic competitive edge.
And what is our President's response:
Cut the capital gains tax. Cut the inheritance tax. Cut luxury taxes. Taxes that, let's face it, only the rich pay. I dunno about you, but all my dad's money is probably going to go to the private corporation that runs the nursing home he's very likely going to end up in. They take everything first. Perhaps you'll fare better. Good luck on that.
The President's policy does three things:
1. It shifts the financing of our government to our debtors.
2. It increases the interest we pay and invarably limits what we can spend on services to the American citizens.
3. It shifts the burden of taxation to those who earn their income via wages.
Here's a statistic straight from the President's Budget:
Percentage of total receipts paid by individual income tax: 44%
Percentage of total receipts paid by corporate tax: 10%
Need something pithier? Try this from the Center for Budget Policy and Priorities:
In 2005, the average household with income above $1 million will receive tax cuts worth about twice the total annual income of the typical American household.
The rich live off of their investments. And under George Bush, those investments are virtually tax free.
And think of this. All that money the rich don't have to spend on their taxes is freed up to buy politicians to keep them from ever having to pay taxes.
Vicious cycle we have here.
Republicans have been in charge of the legislature--the branch of government that cuts the checks that fund government operations--for twelve years now. They're the conservatives. If they can't make government smaller and more "efficient" it simply can't be done. Let's face that fact, deal with it and PAY FOR THE GOVERNMENT WE CLEARLY ALL WANT.
OK. It needs some work. What do you want for free?
My point here is that ever since Newt Gingrich started using hair spray and parting his hair to the side, we've heard the mantras:
- all we need to do is cut government waste;
- all we need to do is run government like a business;
- let private industry do what lazy government bureaucrats can't.
So they take control and what do we get?
- More pork barrel spending than ever before.
- A large new cabinet level agency.
- Increased outsourcing government functions to private industry with no resultant savings (or accountability either, as it turns out.)
- New high-tech weapons systems at a time when our enemies are strapping home-made explosives to their bodies with duct tape. They are incapable of doing more with less.
So a few weeks ago the Citizens Against Government Waste came out with their Pink Book for 2006.
"The 2006 Pig Book identified 9,963 projects in the 11 appropriations bills that constitute the discretionary portion of the federal budget for fiscal 2006, costing taxpayers $29 billion. A "pork" project is a line-item in an appropriations bill that designates tax dollars for a specific purpose in circumvention of established budgetary procedures."
$29 billion sounds like a lot of money. If you gave it to me, I wouldn't refuse it. But how much of our spending does this really cut? This year, our discretionary spending (spending on government operations) is projected to be $989 billion.
Wow. CAGW just saved me 2%.
Cutting "waste" isn't going to cut it. Yes, we waste a lot of government money. But for every dollar we waste, I can find $10 we should be spending on something else. We're not fixing up our infrastructure. Where are the alternative fuels we need? What about rebuilding New Orleans? How about health care?
Can we please face the reality that our huge, complex society comes with a huge price tag? The consultants say Americans are not fond of reality. We all know that Congress sure isn't. But I suspect that a whole lot of us would find a leader who has a good grip on reality to be very refreshing.
America is great and worth every penny we pay for it, don't you think?
Oh, that was just the discretionary spending, which is only the tip of the iceburg. Total government spending, including transfer payments and entitlements = $2.7 trillion. So now we're down to 1% savings.
Lazy, overpaid bureaucrats? Run government like a business? Don't get me started. The highest salary you can earn in the federal government--Senior Executive Service-- is a little over $200,000.
The average CEO salary is around $11 million. Who's doing more with less?
The government is contracting more services than ever before. Even to the point of contracting out security, military and intelligence work on the battlefield.
Yet, we keep spending more and more each year.
Cutting waste; lazy, overpaid bureaucrats; running government like a business. Unfortunately, our business model is Enron.
Lazy, overpaid? You can make more money going to Iraq with Halliburton and selling trailers, bottled water and ice to FEMA than you can in a government job.
It just makes sense to spread the burden over more people than fewer people. Federal taxes are the most efficient way to spread that burden.
Did you know that the average federal tax burden is the lowest in decades? Howard, I don't blame you if you didn't. It was a shocker to me, but using GAO's own statistics, the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities came up with this factoid:
"...households in the middle fifth of the income spectrum paid an average of 13.6 percent of their income in federal taxes in 2003, the lowest level for any year between 1979 and 2003. Even in 2000, before the recent tax cuts, these households paid a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than in any year since 1979."
The fact of the matter is that our tax rates are quite reasonable, particularly when compared to other nations.
The tax question is a trap, Howard. It's designed to make Democrats look like tax and spenders. Ok. Let's own that for a change.
WHAT'S WRONG PAYING FOR THE GOVERNMENT YOU NEED, TIM.
Anything less than that sort of makes you a welfare queen doesn't it?