"The only things certain in life are death and taxes." -- Benjamin Franklin
"Death and taxes may be certain, but we don't have to die every year." -- Unknown
Today I received a newsletter from my Congressman:
I wanted to share an update with you on the potential effects of allowing significant provisions of the current tax code to expire.
As you know, Congress passed a series of pro-family and pro-growth tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. However these tax cuts expire at the end of 2010. I strongly support making these tax cuts permanent because a massive $3.8 trillion tax increase would hurt families, seniors and retirees, and cripple job creation efforts.
Families that benefited from an expansion of the child tax credit and the end of the marriage tax penalty will see their taxes go up dramatically. Thirty-one million families will pay more than $1,000 per year in taxes if the child credit expires, while 35 million families will pay on average nearly $600 more annually from a return of the marriage penalty. The income tax increases affect every taxpayer but also impact 75% of small businesses. Small businesses create nearly three-quarters of all new jobs and employ more than half of all workers – they can’t afford this tax hike.
Additionally the capital gains and dividend tax increases will affect investors and business, but also seniors. IRS data shows that seniors earned 48% of dividend income and 30% of all capital gains income in 2008. Massive tax hikes on fixed income retirees is the wrong prescription.
Finally, the death tax will be reinstated at 55%. The federal government should not have a right to half of your assets when you die, and Congress should keep its promise by permanently eliminating this tax, which costs billions of dollars in compliance. In fact, I led the floor debate in favor of permanently eliminating this tax in the House.
Uncertainty over tax levels is one significant factor holding back our economy. Businesses, families and investors are facing tremendous hurdles. Congress should fully and permanently extend these tax cuts to help our economy recover and help families and seniors keep more of what they earn.
Congressman Dean Heller - Second District of Nevada
Raising taxes at the present time, whether it's through imposing new taxes or letting old tax breaks expire, is possibly the most insane idea they could have. Notice I said possibly, because it's obvious someone was completely bat-shit crazy when they thought up a Death Tax in the first place, but the guy who decided to make it 55% must have been huffing the same glue Michael Moore is.
Don't nibble on the barrel...These people in Washington aren't simply out of touch with Americans, they're out of contact. They don't just live in their own world, they're on a completely different planet some 3,000,000,000 light-years away.
The worst part, is that voting them out isn't an absolute. It's a great start, it's our best choice at this point in time, but it doesn't guarantee it will change anything. These people didn't go to Washington and get contaminated and corrupted by the system; these people were like this before they ever got to Washington. That means there are more where they came from. How do we know that the people we replace them with aren't just version 2.0 from the same Communist Meth-lab we got these brain donors from?
"The taxpayer -- that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination." -- Ronald Reagan
Thankfully it's Friday, so I can forget about all of this until Monday, when we find out what new bills Congress had to pass so we can find out what's in them. Have a nice weekend.
