Tax cuts for folks who don’t pay taxes

Remember this last tax rebate that was supposed to save the economy? The rebate that started out as a $1800/couple rebate when it left the Oval Office but ended up to be a $1200/couple rebate when it got back to the Oval Office? Remember where that $600 went? It went to people who didn’t pay taxes. 1/3 of the “tax rebate” disappeared and became a one-time welfare payment/bribe from the Democrats in Congress.

Well, that’s what it looks like Obama’s tax cut “for 95% of Americans” will be, according to the Washington Times;

Because the IRS says that nearly 46 million tax filers – one-third of all filers – had no tax liability in 2006, there is the question of how millions of Americans can receive an income “tax cut” when they pay no taxes.

“It’s got to raise alarm bells when you claim you are going to cut taxes for 95 percent of working families when more than 40 percent of them pay no income taxes,” said Phil Kerpen, policy director at Americans for Prosperity, a grass-roots free-market advocacy group.

“What he’s really talking about doing is mailing a check, and to me, that looks more like a welfare program than the kind of real tax relief that would encourage work, savings and investments,” Mr. Kerpen said.

The Wall Street Journal calls it redefining a tax cut;

There are several sleights of hand, but the most creative is to redefine the meaning of “tax cut.”

For the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase “tax credit.” Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand no fewer than seven such credits for individuals:

[…]

Here’s the political catch. All but the clean car credit would be “refundable,” which is Washington-speak for the fact that you can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability. In other words, they are an income transfer — a federal check — from taxpayers to nontaxpayers. Once upon a time we called this “welfare,” or in George McGovern’s 1972 campaign a “Demogrant.” Mr. Obama’s genius is to call it a tax cut.

That’s because Obama and the Democrats see all money as government’s money, and they’ll use the tax money from people who work hard and save their money to buy votes from folks who don’t. They act like you and I are just lucky and they want to reduce our luckiness and spread it around in tiny little bribes to those who are less lucky in exchange for their votes.

But then what can you expect from someone who has never had a real job, has never sacrificed anything and expects the presidency to be handed to him on the basis of some superficial traits.

Category: Politics