The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Hail King Henry

9.24.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 2 of 4)

As a former corporate CEO and die-hard capitalist it pains me to see one of ours, and a professor non-the-less, make a stupid statement: "the top 1 percent of taxpayers earned 22 percent of total adjusted gross income and paid 40 percent of all federal income taxes." I know, I know, per the latest release of the IRS data etc., etc. etc.

No argument from me that the upper 1 percent and upper 25 percent of American wage earners pay more, much, much more, than their fair share of taxes. To say that the remaining American's do not pay federal income tax is a lot like denying that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west (the earth rotates around the sun of course, not vice-versa.) In both cases you are technically correct but not in the sense of what either means to normal, human beings.

The bottom 75% of Americans do pay taxes and a very significant amount of the tax burden. For example, while the so called 'social security tax' goes into a 'trust fund' it really is just a federal income tax not much different from the taxes you are talking about. Furthermore, for all practical purposes, corporate taxes flow to the consumer through either prices, or changes in quality and/or quantity of a good or service. If it where otherwise the corporation would eventually go out of business and new corporations would not be formed.

Please for your own sake Prof. Reiland, readjust your numbers and rhetoric to reflect the real picture so you don't come across as a foolish Rush Limbaugh by parsing the meaning of federal taxes.
-- Rick Pragluski

Ralph R. Reiland replies:
You're right, regarding the non-rich paying taxes other than income taxes. Like on cigarettes and alcohol -- the poor smoke more and the tax itself is regressive, i.e., a rich smoker making 100 times more than a poor smoker doesn't smoke 100 times more packs per day. But I focused solely on the income tax because the campaign news is currently focused on raising the marginal income tax rates at the top, not focused on beer taxes, etc..

Thanks for replying.

PAYCHECK PROJECTION
Re: Jeffrey Lord's When Will Biden Pony Up?:

Jolting Joe is to be congratulated on his generosity. As he said, when he was growing up his Catholic system of values inculcated in him made him believe that "we have to give up some of what we have to help those with less," or words to that effect.

We see from this essay that Bombastic Joe gives the almost incredible sum of $995.00 a year to charity! If you haven't done the math -- that's about .00311% of his income. It is interesting...

Joe says we must have higher taxes so we can give that to the poor. That's patriotic (I see it as an "otic" but idiotic.) says America's last Always Angry Man. I come from Angry Joe's religious denomination and nowhere in my theology is written or spoken so far as I know that we are to give money to the government to distribute to the poor. It says, Oh Vituperative One, that we are to give of ourselves -- time and treasure -- to lift the poor. No middle man, just thee and me. And Jeering Joe, I took in one-third of what you did and gave to charity six times what you did in actual American dollars.

This lack of service and charity is the hallmark of Democrats. They serve the country only in ways that enrich them. Sacrificial service is not something they embrace. I recall Donna Shalala's exultant cry of relief: "Thankfully we did not send our best and brightest to Vietnam."

Sad to think they once again might be running the entire government. Time to start digging: bury your money, guns, and bibles. Democrats are back in town.
-- Jay Molyneaux
Denver, North Carolina

I was appalled to hear Joe Biden, Obama's VP, in Ohio say that he supports clean coal for China, but not for the United States.

"No coal plants here in America," he said. "Build them, if they're going to build them, over there. Make them clean."

"We're not supporting clean coal," he said of himself and Obama.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Taxes, Trade, Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Ben Bernanke, Economics, Business, Earmarks, Social Security, Abortion, Constitution, Law, Founding Fathers, Africa, Conservatism, Oil