24 Feb 2009
We are constantly assured by our elected officials that no mistake is ever perpetrated by them in elective office. For instance, nothing is ever amiss inside the parameters of Washington D.C., that spotless city on the Potomac populated by infallible politicians. Unlike the rest of the country, no feet of clay are to be found from one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to the other. All who trek up and down this famous thoroughfare walk on thin air so as to keep the soles of their Italian shoes from ever being soiled by terra firma. Yet, despite the self-professed sinless perfection of today’s politicians, the ugliness of tax evasion has recently and repeatedly reared its ugly head in our nation’s capital.
President Obama’s choices for Health and Human Services Director (Tom Daschle) and Chief Performance Officer (Nancy Killefer) have both been forced to withdraw their nominations because of failure to pay their taxes. Another nomination now in jeopardy over unpaid taxes is Mr. Obama’s nominee for Labor Secretary, Hilda Solis. According to USA TODAY, Sam Sayyad, the husband of Mrs. Solis, waited till after his wife was nominated by Mr. Obama to serve in the Cabinet before settling numerous tax liens against his business dating back to 1993.
In addition to all of the above, Charley Rangel, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees our nation’s tax laws, has admitted that he failed to report and pay taxes on income he received from rental properties. Also, Tim Geithner, President Obama’s new Treasury Secretary, who is now over the IRS, failed to pay tens of thousands of dollars on some of his past tax returns.
Granted, all of these tax evaders have pleaded ignorance. They allege that they’ve merely made honest mistakes. Let’s say we give them all the benefit of the doubt, believing that they simply did not understand how to do their taxes. By being so charitable to them, you and I raise a whole new question; namely, if a former Senate Majority Leader, the current Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and the new Secretary of the Treasury cannot figure out how to pay their taxes, then how in the world can we be expected to figure out how to pay ours.
Former President Jimmy Carter once called our tax code “an insult to the human race.” It is three times thicker than the Bible. Furthermore, new tax laws are being passed all of the time, laws that many of our lawmakers don’t even read, much less understand. No wonder Albert Einstein once quipped, “The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”
If confusion over our tax laws was the only problem with taxes it would be bad enough, but I’m afraid our convoluted tax code is only the tip of the iceberg. Unbeknown to most Americans, the United States Supreme Court once ruled that income taxes were unconstitutional? In 1895, the Supreme Court ruled that the income tax was “class legislation” and therefore in violation of our Constitution. Writing for the majority, Justice Field penned these prophetic words, “Whenever a distinction is made in the burdens a law imposes or in the benefits it confers on any citizen by reasons of birth, or wealth or religion, it is class legislation and leads inevitably to oppression and abuses…the present assault upon capital is but the beginning. It will be but a stepping stone to others, larger and more sweeping, till our political contests will become a war of the poor against the rich; a war constantly growing in intensity and bitterness.”
Few things are more divisive in modern-day America than class warfare, the flames of which are constantly fanned by the Democratic Party. Democrats, in hopes of capturing and holding the bulk of the American electorate, constantly attempt to incite the many “have-nots” against the relatively few “haves.” In their ever-intensifying war against the “haves” on behalf of the “have nots” Democrats constantly wield as their most powerful weapon the income tax. While they make much of the enormous income of America’s wealthiest citizens, Democrats are all but silent when it comes to the fact that America’s wealthiest five percent pay eighty percent of all taxes, not to mention sixty percent of their incomes to the federal government, a phenomenon unprecedented in the rest of the world and dubbed by Frederic Bastiat as “legal plunder.”
According to Democrats, tax cuts, like those enacted under the former Bush Administration, are condemnable because of their benefits to the rich. Yet, any income tax reduction will benefit wealthy Americans, since they pay a disproportionately hugh percentage of all income taxes. Though they are vehemently opposed to giving any money back to the top five percent of taxpayers, Democrats are all in favor of giving “tax refunds” to people who don’t pay taxes. How can you call a handout to a non-taxpayer a tax refund? Why don’t Democrats call it what it really is, welfare, or, better yet, why don’t they call it what George McGovern did, a “Demogrant”?
In his 1984 “Communist Manifesto,” Karl Marx taught that the implementation of socialism necessitated “a heavy progressive or gradual income tax.” If our new president really wants to “spread the wealth,” as he alleged to Joe the Plumber during the presidential campaign, then he’ll have to wield the income tax as a mighty weapon against capitalism. Only by doing so will he be enabled to implement in these United States Karl Marx’s famous axiom, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
It was the wise King Solomon who once penned these insightful words, “By justice a king builds up the land, but he who exacts gifts [heavily taxes his people] tears it down” (Proverbs 29:4 ESV). Today’s America is being torn down by ruinous taxation. Benjamin Franklin may have been right to have said, “In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.” However, good ole’ Ben failed to see that taxes could ultimately prove to be the death of us.
Don Walton
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