Guest Commentary

Newsflash: A robbery was recently reported where a man was told remove his wallet, take out half of his money, and give it to the rather strange looking thief....the thief was dressed in a blue tuxedo jacket, with red tie, and wearing a white top hat with a prominent blue star ribbon...the thief then proceeded to take his victim’s money and give it to a group of selected bystanders...the victim was outraged and yelled at the top of his lungs for the police to come and arrest the robber...but none came...the bystanders who received the victim’s money were not asked to return it...in fact they were heard to say “that guy, whoever he is, is pretty cool...I think I’ll hang around this dude and see if he comes across any more money he wants to give away.” We law abiding citizens of course would be outraged by an occurrence of this type and would demand that the thief be apprehended at once and that those who took the victim’s money be arrested on the charge of being an accessory to the commission of a crime.

But of course, this crime report is somewhat fictional or is it. The victim in this crime is the taxpayer...the thief is the federal government(Uncle Sam)....and the bystanders are those who are the recipients of income redistribution programs. While the analogy is a stretch, in reality, it is not that much of one. The federal government in America is reaching far beyond the bounds of their stated powers in the Constitution to take more and more income from citizens for vote buying purposes under the guise of helping one group or another. This immoral and unconstitutional taking which would be called theft anywhere but in Washington, where it is called politics, takes resources and economic power from tax payers and moves it to the federal government for centralized distribution, thereby growing the power of the government over the citizenry, and unfortunately, preventing economic expansion along the way as dollars that could be used for economic expansion and productivity enhancements for businesses are simply taxed and rerouted to recipients with no economic stimulus. But the “power” is moved from the tax payer to the government.

This is a fairly recent phenomenon in American history. As late as 1900, major income redistribution programs did not exist. Since that time, however, politicians, in their role of lawmakers, have embraced this vote buying scheme. The chart below details the growth of major income redistribution programs over the past century.

Growth In Federal Expenditures for Major Income Redistribution(Entitlement) Programs 1902-2006*

Income Redistribution Category	1902	1940	1980	2006
Pensions(Social Security)	0	0.1	134.4	590.6
Health Care(Medicare and Medicaid)	0	0.2	55.3	582.6
Welfare(TANF, EITC, SSI)	0	0.6	54.9	249.6
Interest(National Debt)	0	0.9	52.5	226.6
* In Billions of dollars from www.usgovernmentspending.com

Politicians have disguised the impact of this taking by creating the tax withholding so that citizens rarely see the total amount of federal income tax they pay...it is withheld from their paychecks on a regular basis. Most Americans only see the total amount of the federal tax taking by looking at their tax returns at tax time. In addition, politicians have skewed the tax code so that higher income Americans pay most of the income tax while 40% of Americans pay no federal income taxes.

One of the most revealing ways to see the growth of the federal tax taking is to look at the change in the Tax Foundation’s “Tax Freedom Day” which is their calculation of the days Americans must work to pay their federal taxes.

Year Number of Days Of Work Percent of Work

To Pay Federal Taxes Year

1900 8 3%

1940 32 12%

1980 76 29%

2006 77 29%

The Tax Foundation reports that in 1900 Americans worked roughly 8 days or 3% of their work year to pay their federal tax bill. Due to the growth mainly in income redistribution programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, by 2006 Americans must work over 70 days or 29% of their work year just to pay their federal tax bill. In other words, politicians have taken 25% of our work year to give to their political beneficiaries.

But unfortunately, the worst is yet to come. In a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office(CBO) to Representative Ryan on his request to analyze the future impact of the major income redistribution programs, Social Security and Medicare, the CBO estimated that by 2050, due to an aging population and increases in healthcare costs, costs for these two programs would exceed funding by over $40 trillion dollars. These trillions in unfunded liabilities will require more than a doubling of current tax rates to fund. Tax rates that are now 25% will need to rise to 63% to pay for these programs.

Put you grandchild on your knee and tell them they will need to work over half of the year just to pay their federal income taxes. How does that make you feel? Luckily, the CBO doesn’t even think this dramatic a change will come to pass as they estimate that tax rates of that magnitude will cause havoc to the economy. But if nothing is done to change the legislation, we will continue toward this destination and no doubt hear the calls by politicians that we “must help” these citizens who can’t help themselves.

At what point do we demand that these thieves get their hands out of our pockets and give us our money back? At what point do we stand and defend the ideals in the Constitution that gave birth to this great experiment in freedom? At what point do we turn back this socialistic power grab by the federal government?

I say that time is now. Join us in Washington for the “Defend America” rally. The rally will take place on May 23, 2009 on the West Front of the United States Capitol building. The purpose of the rally is to raise the awareness of the citizenry to our loss of individual freedom to the federal government as America slides toward socialism and to raise the awareness of politicians that we will not tolerate this. Details of the rally are at www.defendourconstitution.org. Click on the “Defend America” rally tab on the navigation bar.

See you in Washington!

Mike

1908-2008...A Century of Growth in Government and Reduction in Personal Freedom

...By Mike Love

The past century in America (1908-2008) has seen a dramatic increase in the growth of the federal government's tax taking and thereby growth in the ability to impose its will on the country's tax paying citizenry.

Our Founding Fathers were particularly aware of the dangers of a strong central government and hence, designed our federal government, through the United States Constitution, as one that features specific, very limited roles while reserving all other duties to the states.   These limited duties were detailed in the "enumerated powers" clause in Article 1, Section 8.

These wise men knew, though, that the hearts of men are filled with a lust for greed and power, and thus, any changes to our form of limited federal government would be made through an arduous, thoughtful process requiring acquiescence from the states.

We see this dramatic growth in taxing federal income in a number of indicators. One of the most popular indicators is The Tax Foundation's computation of "Tax Freedom Day" which indicates on average how many days per year Americans must work to pay off their share of federal tax payments. By their calculation, in 1908 Americans worked an average of 4 days per year to pay off their federal tax bill. Not bad! Most Americans would heartedly agree that working one week out of 52 to pay Uncle Sam is certainly understandable.    In looking at expenditures in 1908, the federal government pretty much stayed within its Constitutional bounds allocating tax receipts for national defense and other internal security organizations. Total federal expenditures amounted to roughly $800,000,000. The following chart(courtesy of usgovernmentspending.com details the categories and amounts of spending in the 1908 budget.

Things have changed dramatically in today's America. As late as 2004, The Tax Foundation calculated that Americans must work on average 65 days to pay their federal tax bills...a 16-fold increase in the work required to pay just the federal portion of taxes.   The critical question of course is where is the money going and why. The chart below, courtesy of usgovernmentspending.com, details the spending allocations in the 2008 federal budget. We now see the emergence of income redistribution programs on a massive scale that dwarf the "original intent" program of national defense.   In fact, in could be said that well over 50% of the 2008 federal budget is devoted to Social Security, Health Care, and Welfare programs that provide none of the functions of federal government detailed in the Constitution where the "job" of the federal government was resticted to national defense, relations with foreign countries, and resolving disputes between the states.