May, 2015, Part 1, Why No American Should Pay Another Penny In Taxes

Hundreds of times we have shown in this blog how the Federal government and the Washington political class have wasted untold trillions of dollars of taxpayer wealth over the years. This has left the taxpayers nothing in return to show for their money except a whopping $18 TRILLION national debt. Many times the money was spent on one time, wasteful projects:

• The Navy built two new ships almost to completion at a cost of $300 million only to spend another $10 million to junk them immediately.
• Hillary Clinton’s State Department spent $40 million to build a U.S. consulate in the hinterlands of Afghanistan only to find out after spending the money that it had to be abandoned because it could not withstand a terrorist attack.
• The TSA purchased hundreds of millions of dollars of equipment for airport security in order to get a bigger discount but ended up not using a high percentage of the equipment anyway, leaving it stacked in a warehouse never to be seen or used.
• The National Science Foundation has spent millions and millions of dollars on such inane projects as building a video game to simulate prom week, studying when dog became man’s best friend, determining if dating sites were racist and other equally useless projects.

But many of these one time wastes of money pale in comparison to the money that is consistently wasted in the same manner year in and year out:

• Medicare and Medicaid lose upwards of $100 billion every year due to inefficiencies and outright criminal fraud.
• Social Security loses upwards of $100 billion every year due to inefficiencies and outright criminal fraud.
• Other welfare programs such as Federal housing support and food assistance lose billions and billions of dollars every year due to inefficiencies and outright criminal fraud.
• The IRS loses billions of dollars every year to identity theft in the income tax filing system every year.
• The IRS is so inept that it openly admits that it fails to collect almost $400 billion a year from tax evaders.
• The President’s debt reduction commission easily identified $100 billion a year that could be removed from the Pentagon’s annual budget without endangering national security.

Thus, it is pretty obvious that no American, no matter how rich or poor, should pay a penny more in taxes, given that the Federal government and the Washington politicians that operate it easily waste or fail to collect a whopping $800 billion or so EVERY YEAR.

But this reality is apparently lost on a Georgia Congressman. 

Congressman Hank Johnson recently stated that when it comes to taxes, “we [Washington politicians] don’t have enough [taxes] to do what the government - and do what the country needs the government to do and that’s the problem.”

The Congressman went on: “If everyone is paying their fair share of taxes than we certainly should and can live within our means. But our problem now is that taxes are being paid by the middle class. The rich, the wealthy and the corporations are not paying their fair share and so therefore we don’t have enough to do what the government and do what the country needs the government to do and that’s the problem.”

Note: before you consider whether the Congressman’s position has any merit, remember that this is the same Congressman who claimed in public:

• That the island of Guam might tip over in the middle of the ocean if too many U.S.military resources were placed on the island. That’s right, he actually stated in a Congressional committee meeting that an island could tip over.
• He also lamented the possibility that there would not be enough helium gas to blow up birthday balloons if Congress stopped funding a Federal storage facility for helium.

Okay, back to the issue at hand.

There it is again, the rich do not pay enough. But is that true, in light of how much money and taxpayer wealth people like Congressman Johnson waste every day:

• CNS News reported in 2014 that taxpayers earning over $100,000 a year pay 71.6% of all Federal income taxes every year.
• The Tax Policy Center estimates that the top 1% of Americans will pay 32.4% of all Federal taxes in 2016.
• Using Congressional Budget Office and the IRS, the Heritage Foundation reported in April, 2015 that the top 1% of Americans pay 24% of all Federal taxes and a whopping 35% of Federal income taxes.

But there is more. Consider the following detailed breakdown of tax payments by earnings band, as reported by Pew Research using IRS data:



Summarizing these results:

• The top 15% of American earners paid about 78% of Federal income taxes in 2013.
• Thus, the remaining 85% of American earners paid only 22% of all Federal income taxes in 2013.
• The top 2.4% of earners paid almost HALF of all Federal income taxes.
• The 63.4% of Americans earning less than $50,000 paid only 6.2% of 2013’s Federal income taxes.
• The highest earn 2.4% paid about 24 times more their percentage of Federal income taxes than their share of earnings.

You get the idea...even if Johnson does not. The problem is that the political class spends way too much, not that any American is not taxed enough. They waste so much money and now this guy has the gall to ask for more without cleaning up the mess he and others inside the Beltway have created.

As we have reported a few times in this blog, the number of Americans renouncing their citizenship and moving overseas is still pretty small but has been growing steadily during the Obama years. And you can be sure that the thousands that renounce every year are not those earning minimum wage. It is the high income, and high wealth individuals who are tired of being blamed for the ills of the country by politicians who are the cause of those same ills. 

And when these high wealth citizens leave and take their Federal tax dollars with them, it is the rest of us lower earners who will be paying more in taxes to make up the difference. And the problems of overspending will still be there, with Johnson and those like him still having no clue on how to operate an efficient government.

Remember, his priorities are trying to make sure Guam does not tip over and that birthday balloons have enough helium. Tomorrow, we will explode the Johnson increase taxation fantasy by showing that no matter how much you tax the high earners and wealthy in this country, it will make absolutely no difference in the quality of life for every citizen or the financial chaos of the Federal government.

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www.loathemygovernment.com

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Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w