Posted on 02/04/2007 12:42:59 PM PST by mort56
Ben Franklin’s quip nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes, rings true for most of us. If you run a retail store you pay sales taxes on the money you collect. If you are a professional you become liable for corporate or personal income tax or both the very moment a client or a patient pays your fee.
Regardless of your job, you pay taxes. You pay a tax when you drive your car to work. You pay taxes when you buy a loaf of bread. You pay taxes when you go out to eat or when you go to the movies.
Politicians can’t seem to get enough of them. Recently, we have even seen one politician, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, call for the taxation of all of the profits of one of America’s premier corporations, Exxon Mobile. It would be not understatement to say that taxes are a universal fact of life and they are married to almost every income producing enterprise in America except one…politics.
Here is a question. How much do you think Hillary Clinton has paid to the federal treasury for the fourteen million dollars ($14,000,000) in cash the Friends of Hillary Committee now has sitting it the bank? What percentage of that loot is currently being earmarked by the Senator’s accountant for taxes? If you said zero, you would be correct.
If this committee were a shoe store in a state with a six percent sales tax instead of enjoying a political dodge, the store’s owner would have already been on the hook for eight hundred forty thousand dollars ($840,000) in furtherance of the “common good” or as Ms. Clinton is fond of euphemizing, in furtherance “of the children”.
Since campaign contributions are not taxable income to a candidate and do not have to be reported on the candidate's tax return unless they are “diverted to his or her personal use”, Senator Clinton’s nest egg would seem safe from the confiscatory clutches of the taxman.
Please pay close attention to the phrase, “unless they are diverted to his or her personal use” as I continue to ask a few basic questions.
How could anyone with even a modicum of common sense claim that using funds to obtain a government job is not a diversion of those funds for personal use? Is not a job something of value to the individual who holds it? Does he or she not derive monetary and other intangible advantages when he holds a government post? Therefore doesn’t logic dictate that any money dedicated by an individual that helps him or her obtain a particular job is money that has been diverted for personal use?
We are constantly harangued by our politicians on both sides of the isle they work in furtherance of fairness. We hear continually about the evils of money in politics and the lack of “transparency” in political campaigns. Isn’t it time our politicians literally start putting their money where their mouths have been for years?
After all, if Hillary Clinton is willing to take every penny a company like Exxon Mobile earns under the guise of fairness, doesn’t she also have some responsibility to give back to her community from her earnings? Wouldn’t that be fair?
If she truly believes there should be a social contract between America’s children and American enterprise, why would she want to exempt a small group of people who have shown extraordinary ability to raise real money from helping? Is it fair for her and the rest of America’s political elite to deny our starved national treasuries as well as our famished and battered children a needed fiscal shot in the arm?
I would also like to remind the “good Senator” of the side benefit of tapping into this rich resource. By offering some kind of legislation requiring money collected by politicians in the furtherance of their jobs be treated in the same manner as the money collected by the citizenry in the furtherance of theirs, the Senator might help silence those pesky critics who believe our Congress is but a collection of heartless tax and spend liberals who have little or no understanding of the burdens those levies cause?
Therefore, I urge the Senator from New York or, any other Congressman or Senator regardless of party affiliation to offer up legislation that would require a sales and use tax on all campaign contributions.
What’s that you say? I am a fool for believing such legislation would ever be proposed and if one were, would ever pass into law?
Fear not, I know I’m dreaming. After all, I realize legislation requiring politicians to pony up is in direct conflict with the dirty little of secret of American politics…only the voters (please read suckers) pay!
But an American boy can still dream for free, can’t he? Or are Hillary and her friends waiting in the wings to place a tax on that as well?
Never mind…I think I already know the answer to that question.
In Hill's village we all pay... and pay.. and pay.
There was a thread on Free Republic recently about Exxon-Mobil and taxes. And the big news was that #1 - Exxon-Mobil paid over $50 billion, I think in taxes to start with, #2, the $35 billion was left over after taxes, so their net profit was less than 50% of gross income, #3, the $35 billion is largely paid out in dividends to people who own shares in Exxon-Mobil, and those shareholders include many "middle class people in the middle of America" that Hillary says she represents.
yes, oil companies have benefited from rising prices, but, it's important to know that their profits are what is left after they have already paid their taxes. Do they really owe more than the tax code says they owe? Because Hillary says so?
The smartest woman in America can't be wrong... or can she?
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