What Seems to be the Problem?

What Seems to be the Problem?
by Bud Malmsten

The Intentional Misunderstanding Award of the Month for September goes to: (trumpets, please) . . . President Clinton for his assassination of the republican Tax Relief plan. The award for the supporting cast goes to the Congressional Democrats for their blind willingness to be accomplices in killing something with which they so basically agree.

A big piece of the misunderstanding is the thought that our government (or any government) has any money that it can give to anyone. To reduce someone's taxes is not, I repeat, is NOT giving anything to that person. It is simply taking less from that one.

If someone happens to be in an income bracket below the break point, and no taxes are owed, there can be no tax reduction. Any "tax credit" or "reverse income tax" in such a case is money that has been taken from someone and given to someone else. Some nasty Republicans had the unmitigated gall to refer to this as a form of (don’t let the children hear this word) "welfare!"

The Democratic leaders object strongly to the suggestion that this is elfare. As House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt said, "These are not welfare recipients. People who get the earned income credit work hard every day. It is an outrage that they would say these are welfare recipients. They are not. They're workers."

Notice that no one ever said they were not workers, just that a tax refund larger than the amount paid is a form of public assistance. Perhaps they should have suggested sending thank you notes to the tax PAYERS, and calling it a gift?

The Democrats are really fond of pointing out that the Republican tax bill gives more than half of its benefits to the wealthiest 5% of Americans, people making an average of $250,000 a year. They conveniently neglect to mention the actual percentage of national revenues that come from that 5% - roughly one half.

Also lost in the shuffle is any intelligent discussion of President Clinton’s proposed "targeted middle-class tax cuts totalling about $300 billion over the same period of time." You do the math. One half of the Republican tax relief package ($792 billion, divided by two) equals $396 billion, directed point blank at the same people the Clinton plan offers $96 billion LESS.

One more piece of intentional misunderstanding from the congressional democrats. They love to make the point that "This GOP Tax Bill will ‘SPEND’ virtually all of the projected non-Social Security surpluses." Do they just not know that taxes are collected by the government, and to NOT COLLECT taxes does not constitute spending in any form.

Perhaps, as one reader suggested about y previous column, they are simply ignorant of these facts. I can accept that as long as we understand the root of the word, ignorant, namely to ignore. My dictionary says, "To disregard deliberately; pay no attention to; refuse to consider."

Has anyone picked up on the reckless Republican plan to use all of the projected surplus that comes from Social Security taxes (approximately 75% of the total) to shore up the Social Security Fund over the ten year period? All the while, the responsible Democrats want to dedicate about 77% of the total surplus to Social Security. Pardon me if I have trouble finding the argument here.

It is the other one-fourth of this estimated extra money that is the focus of all the rhetoric. The question is not, "Who should spend it?" The question is, "Should it be collected?"

Spend some time cogitating on this thought from President Lincoln: "You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer; and you cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong."