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Published Monday, February 20, 2012 in Local

Guest column: Politicians deserve a rebuke

By Michael A. Scott

Special to the Times-Herald

For decades America's politicians have used the tax code to purchase and reward certain constituencies and punish others. The original intent of the code, of taxes in general, to raise revenue to fund the constitutionally mandated functions of government has been supplanted by the desire to create favorable voting blocks large enough to guarantee election and the preservation of power. The indecipherable complexity of the code is the manifest result of America's so-called leaders slicing the electoral salami voting blocks paper thin.

We currently have the absurd situation of 48 percent of American's paying no federal income tax, while the top 1 percent of wage earners pay nearly 40 percent of income taxes. One company, Exxon Mobile pays more in federal tax than the entire bottom 50 percent of individual tax filers.

Those American's who pay little if any federal income tax and who depend on federal tax transfers to maintain their lifestyle (20 percent of American households are entirely dependent on government transfer payments) vote heavily Democratic. Both Democrats and Republicans promise freebies to their voting blocks but in just the past 10 to 15 years the characterization of Democratic voters as tax and service consumers while Republican voters function as net taxpayers has become more pronounced. Republican voters are now the tax collectors or milk cows for the Democratic welfare state.

Since so few Democrat voters still pay federal income taxes, Democrats seeking to reward and thus expand their natural voting blocks are faced with a dilemma: How to reward people who pay no tax with tax breaks? Democrats can't reduce or lower a zero rate although they have made efforts to do so by expanding the earned income tax credit.

The answer they have chosen is to reduce payroll taxes which as even the entry level high schooler working at the fast food restaurant for minimum wage knows, is paid by everyone. These payments are supposed to fund the Social Security trust fund which is going broke and is the cause of much of our deficit crisis. But Democrat politicians don't care they are accelerating our slog into insolvency, and Republicans are too cowardly to fight. Both sides cater to the collapse of American character and to the ignorance, stupidity and desperation of an electorate on the brink.

The contempt our current crop of politicians have for us is disgusting. They see us as heroin addicts willing to debase ourselves on yet another tax fix. It appears we have lost the capacity to govern ourselves. We now await the harsh judgment of the international bond market that will one day cut off our supply of cheap borrowed heroin and force us into a a Greek style withdrawal. Sad to see a once great people become beggars and a once great country reduced to Roman like supplicants demanding bread and circuses for free.

I believe we are better than this and one day the politicians who have catered to our weakness will get the rebuke they so richly deserve.

•••

(Michael A. Scott is a Newnan resident.)

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