Spending Money Because It's OPM

Spending Money Because It’s OPM

“I remember when liberals were liberal with their own money”  is a quote attributed to Will Rogers.   Modern day “spend & tax” liberals, such as President Obama are spending the US taxpayers money without restraint because it is “Other Peoples Money”.     We’ll tax other people (especially the rich), because a) they have too much money (class warfare), b) we as liberals (in government) know how to spend it better than you, c) if we don’t have it in the US Treasury now, we’ll just borrow more for taxpayers to pay back later.    Former US Senator Bill Armstrong (R-Colorado) stated the appetite for US government spending by Congress this way, “Congress is spending money like a drunken sailor, the trouble is, a sailor is spending his own money!”

    Even the moderate to liberal Politico is noting the long term and large spending patterns by the Obama Administration. The federal debt held by the public would still nearly double again from $10.1 trillion at the end of 2011 to $18.8 trillion at the end of 2022. For the current fiscal year ending Sept. 30, CBO is now projecting a shortfall of $1.3 trillion. In fiscal 2013, the deficit will still hover near the $1 trillion mark — about $977 billion. And while it will fall to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2017, it then begins to grow again to 3 percent of GDP by 2022.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74109_Page2.html#ixzz1pTnvuOln

The Heritage Foundation has an excellent link, with the US government revenues and spending graphically portrayed in easy to understand charts:

            http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook

Under the Obama Administration, Federal spending per household jumped from $25,000 per year (per household) to $30,000 per year.   It had moderated under a GOP House of Representatives (where the spending bills originate) to $29,401 per household (per year).

            The 30-year average tax burden (Federal tax rate) from 1981 to 2010 has been about 18%.    The highest average rate was 20% (in year 2000), just prior to President Bush being elected.  The projection for the next decade is for average Federal income tax rates to rise from the historical average of 18% to nearly 25%, if Federal spending and taxation are not constrained by Congress and the elected President.

            Presently, the lower (bottom half) of US taxpayers only pay 2.7% of the total income taxes collected by Uncle Sam.  Whereas the top 5% of income earner (US taxpayers earning over $159,000 per year) are paying nearly 60% of the income taxes collected.   The top 1% of income producers (those who create jobs, wealth and economic activity for our country as a whole) are paying 40% of the income taxes collected.  

            So let’s tax the rich, as per the “class warfare” manta of President Obama!   Not so fast.   Our history in modern America would suggest the contrary: 

            “The most dramatic decline in the top individual income tax rate, from 70 percent to 28 percent, occurred during the Reagan Administration, during which tax receipts remained relatively constant as a share of the economy.”  Heritage Foundation

            http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/income-tax-receipts

And what will be the result of this overspending, over the next 10 years?   The Heritage Foundation projects that our US Federal deficit (if spending is unchecked) will reach 100% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2022.  Then it is “Hello Greece, or Portugal or Italy”! http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/national-debt-skyrocket

What can we do?   Tell Congress to stop the US government overspending.   Back the Paul Ryan budget bills and policy changes.   Vote for fiscal conservatives, who have voting records that actually show “stop the brutal spending” votes.   President Obama’s budget numbers show the US debt as a percentage of GDP rising from 40.3% to to 87.4% from 2008 to 2020.   Sit back and go with the “wasteful spending money” flow, and we’ll watch our beloved America go broke.  Or stand up, and vote the "over spenders" out of office.    Here’s the whole set of charts:

            http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/contents

© 2012, Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media, www.jasperwelch.org 

Other Peoples Money: Let's Just Soak the Rich 10.13.08

Other People’s Money (OPM) is always easier to spend than your own money.  And tax spenders (most of those in Washington, your State Capital or your local City or County government) are always looking for ways (called programs, rescues, infrastructure, or public works) to spend OPM on their projects.   And since, through the election process, these tax spenders were elected, the taxpayer is expected to just stay calm as the OPM (your hard earned tax money) is spent.   But if the tax spenders (particularly those in Washington DC) can change the terminology by using words such as “a next tax cut” or “refundable tax credits”, then the taxpayer may think that the check they could receive or the tax cut they may enjoy, will cost nothing and everything will be fine.  This is what Senator Obama is promising, as he seeks to buy your vote with other taxpayers money.

Warning:  Overspending in Washington will lead to a) new taxes, b) additional Federal debt, c) less of your money due to tax increases and/or higher interest rates.   Warning:  Taxing the rich is the Democrat mantra, being chanted by Obama and his legions of believers, coupled with a mythical “tax cut” for 95% of Americans.  This tax spender slight of hand would appear to most taxpayers as a good deal on the face.  But turn over the coin and what is on the other side? 

            In the Wall Street Journal  www.wsj.com  on the Opinion Page of October 13, 2008, the following appeared:

“The Tax Foundation www.taxfoundation.org  estimates that under the Obama plan 63 million Americans, or 44% of all tax filers, would have no income tax liability and most of those would get a check from the IRS each year. The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis estimates that by 2011, under the Obama plan, an additional 10 million filers would pay zero taxes while cashing checks from the IRS.

The total annual expenditures on refundable "tax credits" would rise over the next 10 years by $647 billion to $1.054 trillion, according to the Tax Policy Center. This means that the tax-credit welfare state would soon cost four times actual cash welfare. By redefining such income payments as "tax credits," the Obama campaign also redefines them away as a tax share of GDP. Presto, the federal tax burden looks much smaller than it really is.” 

            To quote the Tax Foundation (Obama’s Redistribution Plan, Fiscal Note #132, June 25, 2008): “In short, the Obama plan would redistribute more than $131 billion per year from the top 1 percent of taxpayers to all other taxpayers. In 2009, for example, Tax Policy Center figures show that after the income shifting in the Obama plan, the top 1 percent of taxpayers would pay a greater share of the total federal tax burden than the bottom 80 percent of Americans combined. In other words, 1.13 million Americans would pay more in all federal taxes than 128 million of their fellow citizens combined.”

Blogger note:  According to the liberals this is “fair taxation”.   In the opinion on this conservative, this Obama plan is “redistribution of wealth”.   Key those words into Google www.google.com  and see what other words come up:  Marxism, Communism and South Africa.    America or economic prosperity doesn’t appear.

            But aren’t those rich people idle ladies and gentleman, that according to Senator Biden have a patriotic duty to pay more taxes?   While “taxing the rich” makes for good class warfare rhetoric, it also makes for poor economic and tax policy.   In 2004, small business owners paid 54% of all individual income taxes.   So the “soak the rich” approach to tax policy ends up taxing small businesses, who create most of the new jobs in America.   These are the same small businesses that risk their time, money and effort to build the US economy and create jobs, one small business at a time.  

            To offer straight talk to the American taxpayer: Increasing the Federal income tax rates for the highest income tax payers (top 5%), and “redistributing the wealth” the rest of the tax payers is call socialism.  Giving checks to those who pay no Federal income taxes is called welfare, not a tax cut.  Increasing individual tax rates on top 5% of income earners, increasing capital gains taxes on investments and keeping US corporate taxes the 2^nd highest in the world is a recipe for slowing US economic growth, reducing new job creation and reducing owners and workers compensation.   But what the heck, it is just “Other People’s Money”.   

(c) 2008,  Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media   www.jasperwelch.org