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Hernando Today

Whose Money Is It Anyhow?

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By DONALD J. MYERS, A Mind of My Own

Hernando Today

Published: November 28, 2008

It seems to depend on who one believes when the latest cost of government bailouts are totaled. The latest figures are more than $7 trillion.
Congress is beside itself in glee. Its members will be able to spend more money in one fell swoop than it takes to spend in more than two years of normal spending. The current Congress carps about the deficit growing during the current administration and yet it is on track to be about $1.3 trillion during this current fiscal year.
The media continues to harp on how bad everything is and that we are heading toward another depression. Perhaps these people should do a little research and learn what truly happened during the Great Depression. It is obvious that they are merely repeating horror stories without knowing the facts in the hopes of creating a readership.
A recent poll in Florida reported that the largest percentage of people continued to be doing fine in today's economic slowdown. That was in the paper one day and never seen again. President-elect Barack Obama has held press conferences, but there have been little specifics about what his administration intends to do. The stock market remains uncertain and as such it goes up and down on a routine basis.
One way for the market to be supported is for the president-elect to state that he intends to reduce capital gains taxes to 10 percent and make tax cuts on all wage earners. Those who support class envy will go wild with talk about how the rich do not pay their fair share of the tax burden. These people should check with the IRS and see how much the top 10 percent of wage earners actually pay — 70 percent.
Those people who earn $100,000 and above grew from 9 percent to 26 percent between 1996 and 2008 while those people who earned less than $15,000 dropped from 11 percent to 6 percent during the same years. There are pockets of poverty throughout the nation, but it is nothing like it is continuously reported.
If the president-elect proposed a tax cut, naturally Congress must support him, but I doubt if it would balk at this particular time. The naysayer will say, "How can one cut taxes when we need so much money?" Look around! What is every private business in the country doing during these tough times? They are holding sales and reducing prices as they always do. The profit on each individual item is less, but they sell so many more items that their profits grow. It works in business and it also works in government.
Revenues to the federal coffers increased when the Bush tax cuts were implemented. Up until the last year, the economy grew each year with the tax cuts. Revenues doubled when President John F. Kennedy reduced taxes and also when President Ronald Reagan reduced taxes. It works wherever it is tried. Ireland reduced its taxes, as did Russia. They both increased revenues.
The bottom line is that it is our money, and we want to keep more of it. I am convinced that there are too many in government who believe that all money is theirs and if they had their way we would each be given an allowance, much as we do with our children.

Donald J. Myers, a retired colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, is a regular columnist for Hernando Today. He lives in Spring Hill and can be contacted at dmyersusmc@aol.com.

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