Posted on 02/15/2006 4:02:16 AM PST by Gipper08
Republican Study Committee Chairman Mike Pence today issued a statement about lobbying reform and fiscal sanity. Pence rightly points out that the real problem in Washington, DC is fiscal irresponsibility. Many other problems stem from that one.
From Pence's statement:
"The headlines announcing one scandal after another have grieved the heart of the American people and have eroded public confidence in our national government's commitment to governing of the highest moral caliber.
"The Bible says that 'Righteousness exalts a nation,' so the converse must also be true. So Congress is preparing to fight for ethics reform, not because such scandals hurt our party, but because they do hurt the nation.
"But as we reform our rules of ethics, we will do so with the understanding that these are but symptoms of the core problem.
"The real scandal in Washington D.C. is runaway federal spending. "Fiscal and moral integrity are inseparable issues.
"So it's not enough to change the way lobbyists spend their money, Mr. Speaker. We must change the way Congress spends the people's money.
"Only by marrying budget reform and ethics reform can we hope to restore the confidence of the American people in the fiscal and moral integrity of our national legislature."
My point was that the $66B and $52B figures are both worst-case figures for "welfare" -- with welfare defined as getting money back when nothing was paid in taxes.
The $66B FCA would not be entirely "welfare" just as the $52B is not entirely "welfare". Those poor families ARE going to buy milk, groceries, and other items that will collect the FairTax, so they will have paid in some FairTax and the entire FCA will not be welfare. At the same time, there are some EITC and Child Tax Credit recipients which are being refunded more tax than they ever paid.
The point is that the numbers are in the same ballpark, and the FCA does not constitute a huge growth in welfare. It is largely equivalent to the EITC and Child Tax Credits for the poor, and to Income Tax refunds and effect of the Deductions for the rest.
A voice crying in the wilderness.
Those among the 435 congress critters who would agree with Pence on Republicrat spending could probably fit in a small broom closet. The vast majority are much more interested in buying votes with tax money and "bringing home the pork" to make the locals think they're doing some good.
Want to see an object lesson in making legislative sausage: revisit the highway bill with all of the larded-up "earmarks".
And the current crop of Republicans have outspent the Democrats during the Johnson administration. Obviously the siren song the Republicans sang while they were out of power that, if voted in, they would reduce the size of government was a huge lie. It will take a wholesale turning out of the present incumbents if we are ever to see an improvement in federal out-of-control spending.
The AFFT Table just says "Income Taxes" and includes the Corporate Income Tax along with the Individual Income taxes.
Individual Income Tax revenue alone is only $990B - $228B = $762B.
Correct. I missed that.
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