Benjamin Franklin once said, "In the world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes."
In America it happens to be death and a lot of taxes.
In the past three years much has been said about taxes, mostly in the context of the Bush administration. In case you have been under a rock for the past couple years, President George W. Bush pushed tax cuts as a means of economic stimulus and recovery.
As a result, the President and his tax cuts attracted from the entire liberal establishment. The media blasted them, Democrats whined and complained about them and college professors and students berated them.
Tax cuts are a great idea for several reasons. First, taxes collected by the government are really our money. Politicians often act like the tax money belongs to them and it has led to Americans thinking that indeed it does.
This is not true.
Hard-working Americans deserve every penny of their paychecks, not politicians. Secondly, Americans are overtaxed. I want to say that I support taxes, but hard working people should not be paying 40 percent of their incomes to the government. The Reagan administration cut taxes in the 1980s with great economic success. Since then, however, Americans have been forking over more and more.
The greatest liberal clich? in response to these tax cuts has been that they are only for the rich. This common Marxist class warfare argument is sickening, especially when considering who the IRS classifies as "rich".
If liberals would actually do some research they would learn that a family that makes collectively $100,000 a year is considered "rich." That could be a teacher and a policeman or a firefighter and a nurse living together, pooling their meager earnings. Rich? I think not. Additionally, according to the IRS, the top 50 percent wage earners pay 96.09 percent of the taxes in America.
Furthermore, the poorer classes of Americans pay little in income taxes to begin with (3.91percent) and they still benefit from Bush's indiscriminate tax cut.
Another wonderfully thought out argument against these tax cuts for all Americans is that they will not help the economy at all.
Again, this is simply not true.
In recent months we have seen the economy recover from its woes associated with Sept. 11.
Tax cuts have given American businesses and consumers more money in their pockets to invest, save or at least spend.
Businesses hire more workers, build facilities, pay off debts etc. As money flows back into the pockets of Americans our economy improves.
The only way that the economy could be hurt by tax cuts is if every American took their tax return, cashed it and stuffed the money in a mattress. This is, needless to say, a very unlikely scenario.
Even Democratic presidential hopefuls like Howard "I want more taxes" Dean are not above taking shots at tax cuts. He takes particular glee in falsely stating that the tax cuts will decimate America's most prized programs, such as Social Security or Medicare.
He argues that after Bush cuts taxes for his rich friends there will be nothing left for the needy and elderly. This is yet another downright lie from the Left.
If Dean or any of the other socialist Big Government supporters would open their eyes and take a look at the $2.3 trillion federal budget they would see that Medicare and Social Security are not only still there, they are funded well.
The sad fact is that the opponents of tax cuts have no defense for their positions.
The Democrats, Greens and other like-minded socialists have nothing to offer for their side in intelligent debate against tax cuts.
All they say is that tax cuts are "for the rich" or "ineffective."
Have they ever offered a feasible alternative? No.
The only solution proposed was a weak plan floated by the Democrats to give a miniscule handout that would solve no economic problems.
Other political pundits have decried tax cuts as something evil as if Americans getting back more of their own money was a crime.
We need to vote out these politicians who refuse to cut taxes and spending.
Government needs to be made more accountable to the people and these tax cuts are an excellent step in the right direction.
It is high time we Americans demand more fiscal responsibility from our government with our money.
