Top Stories Wednesday 08 Jan
The Sideshow on the Bush tax plan:
It’s really hard for me to believe that anyone is stupid enough to buy the whole “taxed twice” argument that somehow only seems to be applied to money in the hands of the extraordinarily rich. If you work at Wal-Mart, the money that goes into your paycheck was taxed at the till, then is taxed again as your income (payroll taxes, income tax, state and local taxes, etc.), and again when you spend it. Any transfer of money in or out of your hands gets taxed at least once at any point of exchange. In theory, the recipient is the one who is paying the taxes in most cases, although it’s you, not the recipient, who pays the sales tax at the counter. Can the Republicans who spew this line really be so oblivious that they do not know this already?
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If the Republicans really believed that taxes are bad, or that income shouldn’t be “taxed twice”, or any of that other crap, they’d be trying to reduce the tax burden on all of us, not just the very wealthy. What they’re really trying to do is make sure that we give them our money. They want to make ordinary working people into the only taxpayers, and then make sure that money does not benefit us, but is funnelled into their hands in the form of “government” programs that allow them to give our money to themselves and their friends.