Who will pay your family's $30,300 Federal Tax Bill for 2009?

Staying up on current legislative action is almost a full-time job if taken seriously, but I receive several email alerts every week from many sources.  One in particular which I believe to be a non-partisan site is WashingtonWatch.com. 

The email notifies me of what Bills are being considered by the House and Senate, on which bills they have taken action, etc.  It also shows the anticipated cost in a dollar figure per year per family associated with the bill. 

Here was the figure they released this morning:

"Last week, the president issued his budget for Fiscal Year 2009, which begins October 1st. It would spend about $3.1 trillion on the operations of the U.S. government - about $30,300 per U.S. family."

To my knowledge this figure does not include the expected cost of the military occupation of Iraq, as those figures are not included in the general budget.  The war budget is something that is doled out by Congress separately and on top of this figure.  Obviously with our military in the field, the estimates of trillions more needed to maintain, equip and pay them is relatively easy to calculate based on the number of days they will be there.  Bring them home sooner; that cost is reduced dramatically.

Reconstruction of Iraq, particularly, is another entirely separate funding requirement that seems to be expected to come out of our pockets.  The 'oil revenues' Bush so falsely claimed would pay for 'everything' to restore the damage we did and preserve that supply route for oil when we invaded Iraq seem to be materializing only in the pockets of the oil men, aka Friends of Bush and Cheney.  The Iraqi government isn't spending its billions of revenues because... well I am not quite sure why not.  Corruption would be my wild guess, but what do I know?

There is also a mad scramble by Bush & Company to complete these oil 'negotiations' with the current Iraqi government before the Iraqis themselves deem it illegitimate.  Congress is trying to prevent Bush from committing America to long-term agreements without their approval of those agreements, but getting anything through without a 60% majority has proven to be impossible with all the stonewalling going on by republicans combined with Bush's veto reflex.  After all, he makes up his own rules, regulations and laws.  What the heck does he need Congress for?
 
Complicating matters, there is more secrecy in this administration than even their blatant disregard for our personal privacy.  The House and Senate have so many of these types of 'crises' that they are constantly chasing their tails just trying to figure out what the heck Bush is trying to pull now.  From one minute to the next, somebody's hand is in our pocket or the Iraqi people's, and if anybody questions this they are immediately labeled unpatriotic and said to be letting our troops down.  Balderdash, I say.

I point this out to demonstrate why the top 1% of Americans should not have gotten a tax cut in the first place.  Certainly in a time of war they should not continue to have that break extended.  I also make my case for eliminating the tax breaks for corporations and making this action retroactive.  We need to  recapture those super-profits they've been collecting through the exploitation of necessities like energy, food and pharmaceuticals and so very contrary to the public interest. 

For example, in the same year that Bush's team changed the regulations that had allowed a doctor to treat an uninsured, sick child and later get paid by Medicaid, even if the child was not enrolled in the program?  He claimed we couldn't afford to pay the doctors, while he lowered the corporate tax rate for multi-nationals wanting to bring their 'profits' down to a tax rate of 5.5%. The average corporate rate had probably been about 24% to 38%.  

About a decade ago huge numbers of major corporations operating in this country began scamming the public by registering their corporations in little offshore countries with no regulation to avoid US income taxes.  Many of these corporations, however, were given preference for government contracts even though they were not paying their true tax liability through this dirty paper-shuffling. 

If you are a W-2 wage earner whose taxes are deducted before you even see your pay, this should make you hopping mad.  Candidly it infuriates me.  If you are a homeowner, you are also paying more than your fair share in local taxes through the real estate taxes collected to run your city, county and state governments.  As the federal government has cut back the community policing grants, social services payments, urban renewal grants and school grants, your local governments are trying to absorb these costs.  We are all paying huge amounts in federal taxes, yet our local communities are not getting this shared revenue in any meaningful amounts.

My real estate taxes have doubled over fifteen years, and this next year I expect them to cost me another 20%, even though housing values have started depreciating.  Even if we can pay off my mortgage before my husand and I retire, the real estate taxes and maintenance would be sufficiently expensive combined with health insurance, utilities and the cost of food to preclude making that a wise financial decision.  Truthfully, as I am a numbers person and a financial realist, I don't plan to ever be sufficiently set to be able to retire.  I imagine many of you, particularly self-employed people like me, are in the same rocky boat.

The above-referenced corporate tax reduction gift was such a windfall for pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, etc., that it boggles the mind.  As we all know government isn't free, you can guess who is now paying the price for that little giveaway.  Whether it directly comes out of our wallet now, or is added to the national debt, we still pay.  Sadly, using the same doctor and sick child example, the doctor can still treat that kid but the federal government now says he doesn't have to do so ethically.  As he won't get paid for his time, even at the reduced Medicaid rates, the Feds say its 'okay' to let the kid suffer and perhaps die.  You wonder why so many emergency rooms have eight and nine hour waits?

It is frightening how Bush did this without the benefit of our legislature, but merely through changing things by REGULATION.  This is probably illegal, but he has changed so many regulations it is almost impossible to find anything that hasn't been changed.

Even if our federal taxes are temporarily cut or we get a 'stimulus' of an average of $500 or $600, our local and state governments will need to up our taxes to cover the costs of services the federal government has stopped paying in order to fund this so very un-American war.

Once a democratic candidate is selected you can be sure the Neo-cons and Corporate Raiders will bring out that tired old battering ram that claims 'Democrats will raise your taxes'.  Believe me, with what has been spent by the Bush administration in the last seven years and what he'll manage to spend without proper authority in this last year of his administration?  Any responsible adult would have already tried to find a way to balance the budget. 

In the last treasury auction (the way we finance our national debt) hardly anybody came to buy.  The problem was the interest rate was considered too low for the accompanying risk. This means that as soon as the election is over, we are going to possibly see rampant inflation.  We are going to have to raise the interest rates to get foreign investors to lend us money.  Sub-prime Treasuries.  That should be interesting, shouldn't it?  Funny how the dollar is losing value as America loses respect around the world.  Economic and political policies can make it more difficult for you to afford that new product, whether it is a car produced somewhere else or a blender.

The corporations that have raked in unconscionable profits on the backs of American citizens, suppressing the minimum wage for ten years, hiring illegal immigrants, requiring unpaid overtime, exploiting our vulnerabilities and cutting our benefits?  They may not have asked for the check, but I think it is about time we gave it to them.  They've been feasting on our blood, sweat and tears for years.   Now they need to pay the bill.  

Yeah, I know.  It will be like getting blood out of a turnip, but karma is karma.  If you think that a strong, unregulated corporate America is good for the country and more specifically, your family?  Take another look at what they do when given seven years free reign.  Let's elect somebody we can believe in and somebody who hasn't been corrupted by the current corporate players.