Question One and Other Tax Issues

Before I get to "Question One," let's just have another look at the redistribution theories of Obama....

Obama and Biden have proposed a threshold of $250,000 for determining who should be taxed more and who should be granted a "tax break." A Biden spokeman David Wade said, “As Obama and Biden have always said, under their plan no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase one cent." Per Biden, “if your family makes less than $200,000 — as 95 percent of workers and their families do — you’ll get a tax cut.”

Biden explains that Obama doesn't want to "spread the wealth" from the rich to the poor, he merely wants to restructure the Bush tax cuts to benefit lower income workers.... Allow me to make an observation: since the lower income workers already pay no federal income taxes, the benefit, if any, is or must be receiving the wealth of the top 5% of income earners. The top 5% (or $250,000 and over per family -- according to Obama) will have their income tax burden "restructured" upwards. It seems to me that "to benefit" is indistinguishable in practice from "spreading the wealth."

Also, if I may, I'd like to point out that any "tax cut" paid by the slice of the population from the 44th precentile to the 95th percentile is simply stealing less of what the government already steals from that segment. Such reapportionment of theft only corresponds to greater theft further out the income curve. That is, Obama is not "giving" you anything ... he merely promises to steal less. Note that Obama has NEVER in his life yet voted for a tax cut to anyone for any reason -- and here he is merely playing with numbers: this is not a tax cut to the electorate as a whole, though it is tarted up to resemble that, and "since it won't affect you, don't worry about it". The contrary is true: given that he promises some $4.5 trillion in new spending over 4 years, his "tax cut" is going to wind up costing the electorate a lot more in taxes over that period.

The people who Obama wants to give money to -- his constituency of voters -- already spend substantially all they make. America is not a country of savers ... wage earners at the lowest level in Japan and throughout Asia save and live frugally, whereas here, if you make it, you spend it. So consider the instance of the $600 economic stimulus check sent by Bush and the Congress in June ... did it do ANY good? Most likely, it just paid for some credit card debt if the recipient was fiscally prudent, or bought a new TV made in China if it was the average Joe (of Jane) Schlub. If it was a bottom 44% (no tax payer type) it almost certainly went on goods which only serve to increase our foreign debt. Net of the exercise? The government wrote a check to China. Great idea.

So if that same constituency gets money taken from the successful in Obama's "plan," how is that going to benefit our economy or country as a whole? The simple answer is that it won't. Since that top 5% already pays the majority of all taxes paid (don't forget State taxes and local taxes where the same is still true), the few cannot ever give enough to raise the living standards of the many in any fiscal way. And the goods and federal/state/local government services the rape of the 5% is meant to pay for? It will disappear into the maw of ever larger government. True, we will have to hire more federal employees to adminster the great hand-out ... but none of it will ever get to those who think that by electing Obama they will benefit. Ever.

The top 5% are the top 5% by virtue (largely) of being responsible for the production of goods and services in our economy. They are the only savers at a meaningful level and the only ones to create jobs for others. Their money was generated by and generates economic growth in the country, not fogetting sheer hard work. If you take away the incentive ... Atlas Shrugged.

NOW TO QUESTION ONE

Massachusetts is one seriously corrupt place to live ... makes New Orleans look good. And most corrupt of all is our State House, filled to the brim with double-dipping politicians, cronies, bag men/women, theives, liars, tricksters, con-men ... our State politicians. And almost ALL of them Democrats. This is what a Democrat-led society looks like. This is how it operates and how efficient we may expect Obama's reign to be. Pretty grim in other words. So some brave individuals got together to circulate a petition to place the repeal of the State income tax on this year's ballot: Question One.

Needless to say, every single Demo-thief in the State House is up in arms about this. So too, the unions that benefit from the fiscal irresponsibility of the corruption on Beacon Hill. The teachers are apoplectic, as are the police and fireman's unions -- as well as every other group dependent on the government tit for sustenance. Those brave souls running the free needle exchange for junkies in Newton? Against. The mobile T transport workers? Against. Everyone that receives a State pension after 20 years -- defined benefit plan, none of your market risk rubbish for them -- they are frightened that the spigot might somehow be shut off.

So crazed are these union interests that they are spending upwards of $10 million in advertising to defeat the proposal. And this is not just local money, these are the national unions that are digging into their pockets to defeat this: the threat is a tax payer revolt, nationwide, on a local level. And if it works and real people have more cash in their pockets, Obama's crusade might look a whole lot less representative of the "people." Just a thought ... but does a hard pressed teacher in Ft. Lauderdale give a rat's ass about Massachusetts? Does that teacher who had union fees extorted from their paycheck want to buy air time in the Commonwealth with their precious wges? Thought not.

What is the great weapon these politicians, unions and other parasites use for scaring us to vote against the ballot initiative? They say that police and fire services will be cut, that teachers will be fired, that health services will suffer. Be serious! No governor or mayor is going to cut those services. Instead, we can expect that the housing for illegal immigrants could get cut, that reception centers for the "open city" of Boston might be impacted, that legal services designed to support illegals / criminals might suffer. And so what? Why should I pay for people breaking the law anyway? "Illegal immigrant" means precisely that. And I don't care if there is no Spanish language ballot available at the polling station, I don't want to pay for interpreters so that a family of illegals can get free housing in Boston -- and I certainly don't want to pay for the education of their children who shouldn't be here in the first place.

Sorry, that seems harsh given that this is NO fault of the children at all, rather entirely the doing of their parents ... but equally, that makes this societal and emotional blackmail on their parts: "please feed and house my children...." If we could just take those children and care for them, instill a law-abiding working ethic in them and send your sorry, illegal, parental butts home to where you came from ... fine. But no ... children are used as pawns in the game of extortion. Worse, if you are an illegal and manage to procreate while in the U.S. illegally, then you have a legal hook onto this land and my tax dollar. And I object.

Question One is for all of us that object. Object to irrational and greedy politicians stealing from Massachuestts residents in a myriad of ways. My tax dollars are meant to provide essential services that only a broad-based government can provide, not to further the political goals and extend what constitutes "services" to whatever might provide for incumbency for corrupt politicians. THAT is what the Framers intended.

In voting "for" question one, we may be placing a burden on our local communities, one that may force difficult questions at budget time, especially given prop 2 1/2. But even with higher property taxes as a result of decreased or eliminated State aid, I will be vastly better off than paying for the crap that Beacon Hill has determined that I should be responsible for. Far better off. The average return to the Massachusetts taxpayer is $3,700. Each.

Wonder where the cut-off is in Massachusetts as to who pays income tax? At this juncture, I don't even care.