Posted on 06/18/2005 9:12:20 AM PDT by Checkers
"President George W. Bush’s bipartisan Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform should propose a measure to assist a neglected segment of society: the avowedly under-taxed. The H.O.T. Tax, or Higher-rate Optional Tax, would give those who think their levies are too low the ability to pay the steeper tax bills they say they deserve. This is the truly compassionate thing to do.
The H.O.T. Tax would offer relief to powerful Democrats and wealthy liberals who cannot stand it when Republicans cut their taxes. Look how lowering taxes has raised the blood pressure of these Americans:
“I don’t need a tax cut,” Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D., N. J.) announced last October 8 on the Senate floor. “It will not do me any more good. I can’t buy more. I can’t eat any more. I can’t do more, and I want it distributed among the ordinary people who work every day.”
“If you think it’s good policy to pay for my tax cut with the Social Security checks of working men and women, and borrowed money from China, vote for them [the GOP],” Pres. Bill Clinton told the Democratic Convention last July 26. “If not, John Kerry’s your man.”
“I am a traitor to my class,” actor Paul Newman said last July 8. “I think that tax cuts for wealthy thugs like me are borderline criminal. I live very high off the hog.”
“Because of Bush’s tax cuts, I saved a million and a half in taxes last year. Does anyone think that’s fair?” Ben Affleck asked at a July 2004 John Kerry fundraiser.
“Why should wealthy people such as myself receive a tax cut?” Barbra Streisand wondered on her website. “I will be the first to admit that I don’t need it. What we all need is a healthy government that can provide the services (such as education, health care, national and homeland security) that we all depend on.”
“I don’t need a tax cut or tax relief,” billionaire music impresario David Geffen explained in the March 15, 2001 Washington Post. “It is a privilege to be an American citizen. It is appropriate to pay a greater share of taxes.”
“I want no tax cuts, and want to pay MY FULL SHARE of taxes to support the public good,” Oregonian Harry Demarest stated on the website of United for a Fair Economy, an anti-tax-cut group co-founded by Chuck Collins, heir to the Oscar Meyer wiener fortune.
The H.O.T. Tax would ease these statists’ pain. The IRS simply would add a small box to the 1040 tax form beside these words: “If you believe you should be taxed at a rate above that assigned to your income bracket, please indicate here the higher rate you prefer. Kindly calculate your tax liability, and send it in.”
With that easy step, congressional liberals and residents of Malibu and Martha’s Vineyard no longer would have to keep the tax cuts conservatives keep throwing their way. Instead, they could send 50, 75, or even 99 percent of their incomes to Washington, so the GOP, Congress, and President Bush can spend it even better than they can.
While this reform would increase taxpayer choice, it might generate little revenue. Arkansas, Massachusetts, and Virginia taxpayers already may pay above and beyond their usual top rates, though few do this. When Massachusetts cut its top tax rate to 5.3 percent in 2001, it let guilty liberals pay the old 5.85 percent rate if they wished. According to the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, as of June 15, only 930 taxpayers opted to do so on their 2004 returns generating an extra $246,505. In 2002, 2,215 taxpayers paid the higher rate, yielding $341,829. Among 3,218,572 returns filed in 2003, only 1,488 (or 0.46 percent) paid the voluntary higher rate, adding $209,216 to state coffers.
Pro-tax U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.) spurned the higher rate that year. “No, I won’t” pay some $800 extra, Frank told Boston radio host Howie Carr in April 2003. “I don’t trust the legislative leadership and Gov. [Mitt] Romney to make the right decisions, so I’ll donate the money myself, probably to some health clinics in New Bedford that are going to get hit hard in the new budget.” How inspiring to see a confirmed progressive like Barney Frank choose private charity over public assistance.
“Americans recognize, as Congressman Frank also figured out, that government doesn’t spend its money wisely as is and already takes too much of what we earn,” National Taxpayers Union president John Berthoud observes.
Sen. John Kerry (D. Mass.) sailed into hot water last year when tax returns revealed that he also paid the Bay State’s lower tax rate. Kerry thus enjoyed state tax cuts akin to the federal tax reductions he excoriated on the campaign trail. Then again, perhaps he intended to pay Massachusetts’ higher rate, but his calculator slid off his yacht.
This idea certainly has national political value. “It gives a real, live vote,” says Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “Without releasing any personal information, the government could report each year that only 1 percent of Americans paid the extra amount, which gives us a hard count on who thinks he is undertaxed.”
Beneficent supply-siders should introduce the H.O.T. Tax in Congress even before the tax-reform commission’s September 30 reporting deadline. American liberals should be given the earliest opportunity to stop resisting tax relief and send the Treasury as much of their own money as their bleeding hearts desire.
— Deroy Murdock is a New York-based syndicated columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a senior fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Arlington, Virginia. He will appear June 18 as a panelist at NTU’s 2005 National Taxpayers Conference in Washington, D.C."
$2000 sounds kind of high for Ark. sorry couldn't resist. But, I think with enough publicity, and enough mics shoved in the face of the rich and degenerate: "Tom have you told your accountants to check the box that requires you to pay the H.O.T? <p. Gawd how I would LOVE to see that. Then he will really HATE America. <p. In fact all the threatened defections to the Euro Trash Countries might just happen. or Switzerland will become to country of choice for our Limo Libs and their fellow travelers.
To think that these rich hypocrites could be exposed gives me goosebumps. But will the GOP actually implement something this simple?
Nah! Wouldn't want to upset the comity of the Congress.
Liberal are inexorably opposed to tax cuts, because tax cuts give people more power, and takes away power from them.
The "Do Gooders" should be told if they don't like the "extra" money, they should give it to a CHARITY. Although, after the election, when they were called upon to contribute to a charity, they did not and cited the plight of the poor on GWB.
I sent ALL of my tax cut to the "Wounded Warriors" project.
Of course, we can expect complaints that not all rich people are so generous. To which there are two proper responses, depending on the situation:
(1) "It is their money, after all."
(2) "Please set an example that will inspire us all."
In fairness, it probably wouldn't make sense, even from a liberal's point of view, to contribute a drop in the bucket to the national budget when there's no guarantee others will do the same. The liberals' point is that tax money does the most good when it's pooled together, thus giving the government more power (great!) to solve social problems. So it's not as if anyone rich liberal who refuses to take this option is a hypocrite. But it could be great PR, and for that reason I think it's a good idea.
"So it's not as if anyone rich liberal who refuses to take this option is a hypocrite."
I'm not sure I can agree.
I would bet anything that most Americans, including liberals, if they were given a choice to pay at a lower rate, would do so.
An idea...
Instead of asking taxpayers if they want to pay at a higher or lower rate, why not include a check-box on all returns asking people to check the box if they feel they are being taxed too high. I'll bet that the majority of people who actually pay taxes would check off the box.
Bet nobody would think that was okay. Yet if Clinon and Lautenberg and other rich people say "I have plenty of money and taxes wont hurt me so why worry?" nobody considers that a foolish thing to say. Tell that to the guy struggling to raise three kids on a fixed income with a marginal salary. I'm sure he'd fell that as long as Lautenberg isnt inconvenianced, a heavier tax burden is okay.
On his gravestone....
"Here lies Ben Affleck...who refused his $1.5 Million dollar tax break and allowed it to be used to pay for Ms. Pelosi's $300 Million pork projects for her district.
Yeah....that's the ticket!
We have an optional higher rate here in MA and I think less than 1% of the blueblood commies go for it.
The hypocrites are not exposed because the MSM won't expose the members of their team. Shoot, a member of the state insurance commission was carried out of a bar in Boston and left his briefcase behind (he was really in no condition to carry it himself). The case contained thousands of dollars in cash and checks from insurance companies. There was no hew and cry raised as this was a good Democrat that is to be protected by the press.
Typical liberal ignorance about how the economy works.
Even if they don't spend the money they save in taxes it is invested in the private economy which creates economic growth and provides jobs for people.
Money provided to big government is mostly wasted.
The private economy is more efficient in allocating resources than a bureaucrat can ever be.
It is just common sense that you spend your own money more wisely than you spend somebody else's money.
My Democrat brother-in-law just got laid off. He's thinking of selling some stock in his former company, and he's pretty soon going to find out that he's one of the "rich" that the Demos despise. Just as soon as he figures out that he's got to pay capital gains tax. And I plan to make sure he thoroughly understands what it is, and why he has to pay it. Because he's rich, of course.
ping Great idea.
So true.
I wonder if Bill Clinton sent in any used underwear in lieu of cash.
Just proves that the demoncRAT party is the real party of the rich even though the liberal leftist demoncRATS with MSM's help portray the Repubs as the party of the rich.
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