Editor, Manteca Bulletin.
Tax Freedom Day occurs in the first week of May. While its celebration does not get national attention, it should. On average, all the money the average tax payer made from January through the first week in May will go to the government in taxes. Yet, with all that money, our government is broke with a national debt that is 12 trillion dollars. The reason? Our government has a spending problem. Each year Congress spends more money than it receives. The Treasury Department has to borrow money to meet Congress's appropriations. The total borrowed is more than $12 trillion dollars and growing.
How much is a trillion dollars? If our Congress saved one million dollars a day, it would take 2,740 years to pay off one trillion dollars and 32,880 years to save to pay off 12 trillion dollars. This does not include interest or the four trillion dollars of unfunded liabilities from Social Security that the Democrats loaned to the federal government when they controlled Congress to pay for other liberal programs. It is now projected the national debt will be over 23 trillion dollars in ten years and if our government takes over health care with the retirement of the baby boomers, the Government Accountability Office projects a stunning 53 trillion in "unfunded liabilities" over the next several decades with no money for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid by 2040.
America was not broke 100 years ago. We had no debt and taxes were low. While we have increased our national debt, we have also invented new taxes that did not exist 100 years ago including: Accounts Receivable Tax, Building Permit Tax, Capital Gains Tax, CDL license Tax, Cigarette Tax, Corporate Income Tax, Dog License Tax, Excise Tax, Federal Income Tax, Federal Unemployment Tax, Fishing License Tax, Food License Tax, Fuel Permit Tax, Gasoline Tax, Hunting License Tax, Inheritance Tax, Inventory Tax, Liquor Tax, Luxury Tax, Marriage License Tax, Medicare Tax, Personal Property Tax, Property Tax, Real Estate Tax, Social Security Tax, Road Usage Tax, Sale Tax, Recreational Vehicle Tax, School Tax, State Income Tax, State Mortgage Tax, State Unemployment Tax, Telephone Federal Excise Tax, Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax, Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax, Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax, Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax, Telephone State and Local Tax, Telephone Usage Charge Tax, Utility Tax, Vehicle License Registration Tax, Vehicle Sales Tax, Watercraft Registration Tax, Well Permit Tax, and a Workers Compensation Tax. This does not include other numerous state, county and local taxes, tolls, fees and fines invented by our government to take money from the people.
Yet, the Democrats have attempted to impose even more new taxes such as a Ticket tax on movies and concerts, iTunes Tax on music, Tractor Tax, Fertilizer Tax, Carbon Tax, Sports Utility Vehicle Tax, Internet Tax, a return of the Death Tax and even a Garage Sale Tax that would require people to report profits from items sold to neighbors. The Democrats have also introduced a Global Tax, International Tax, Bullet Tax, Bottle Water Tax, Plastic Bag Tax, Toilet Paper Tax, and a Windfall Tax, which place a special tax on all stock market profits, including retirement funds, 401K's, and mutual funds. This does not include a Mileage Tax to go with the increases taxes placed on gasoline.
Even with all our debt, the government finds more ways to waste our money. In front of the cameras, President Obama says he is against earmarks; but he and the Democrats still recently approved a recent bill with 8570 earmarks of government waste including billions of dollars for pig oder research, walrus rehabilitation, termite research, study of the spawning habits of shrimp, center of grape genetics and 50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts. This also does not include the billions of dollars the Democrats forced through in political paybacks to their donors including ACORN, Planned Parenthood, AFL-CIO Unions and Hollywood producers. Congress even had the gall to give themselves an 11% increase to 4.4 billion for their own legislative operations to spend more time with lobbyists.
This is just one bill. How much more will we spend? The government should cut their waste. "We the people" have to cut our expenses when we don't have the money. The government should do the same. We are paying for a bail out on every industry. We spend 338.3 billion a year on benefits to illegal aliens. How about assisting the tax payers? We spend billions for AIDS in Africa while millions of Americans die of heart disease and cancer.
While taxation is important for our function of government, government spending is out of control. We should hold our government leaders accountable to find solutions to limit spending and reduce the taxes we pay.
The founding principles of our nation was for "limited government" with low taxes. The people began a revolt against taxes with the Boston Tea Party and our country thrived as the greatest in the world with the opportunity to pursue happiness without the government interference. No country has ever taxed their way into prosperity.
The Democrats have been replacing capitalism with socialism and we will regret this move as a nation in the years to come. It has been said, "Don't worry about the national debt, it is big enough to take care of itself." In the meantime, who is going to bail out America?
Abraham Lincoln once said, "You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves."
Frank Aquila
Manteca resident
President of the South San Joaquin Republicans.
mantecarepublicans@yahoo.com
Tax Freedom Day occurs in the first week of May. While its celebration does not get national attention, it should. On average, all the money the average tax payer made from January through the first week in May will go to the government in taxes. Yet, with all that money, our government is broke with a national debt that is 12 trillion dollars. The reason? Our government has a spending problem. Each year Congress spends more money than it receives. The Treasury Department has to borrow money to meet Congress's appropriations. The total borrowed is more than $12 trillion dollars and growing.
How much is a trillion dollars? If our Congress saved one million dollars a day, it would take 2,740 years to pay off one trillion dollars and 32,880 years to save to pay off 12 trillion dollars. This does not include interest or the four trillion dollars of unfunded liabilities from Social Security that the Democrats loaned to the federal government when they controlled Congress to pay for other liberal programs. It is now projected the national debt will be over 23 trillion dollars in ten years and if our government takes over health care with the retirement of the baby boomers, the Government Accountability Office projects a stunning 53 trillion in "unfunded liabilities" over the next several decades with no money for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid by 2040.
America was not broke 100 years ago. We had no debt and taxes were low. While we have increased our national debt, we have also invented new taxes that did not exist 100 years ago including: Accounts Receivable Tax, Building Permit Tax, Capital Gains Tax, CDL license Tax, Cigarette Tax, Corporate Income Tax, Dog License Tax, Excise Tax, Federal Income Tax, Federal Unemployment Tax, Fishing License Tax, Food License Tax, Fuel Permit Tax, Gasoline Tax, Hunting License Tax, Inheritance Tax, Inventory Tax, Liquor Tax, Luxury Tax, Marriage License Tax, Medicare Tax, Personal Property Tax, Property Tax, Real Estate Tax, Social Security Tax, Road Usage Tax, Sale Tax, Recreational Vehicle Tax, School Tax, State Income Tax, State Mortgage Tax, State Unemployment Tax, Telephone Federal Excise Tax, Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax, Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax, Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax, Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax, Telephone State and Local Tax, Telephone Usage Charge Tax, Utility Tax, Vehicle License Registration Tax, Vehicle Sales Tax, Watercraft Registration Tax, Well Permit Tax, and a Workers Compensation Tax. This does not include other numerous state, county and local taxes, tolls, fees and fines invented by our government to take money from the people.
Yet, the Democrats have attempted to impose even more new taxes such as a Ticket tax on movies and concerts, iTunes Tax on music, Tractor Tax, Fertilizer Tax, Carbon Tax, Sports Utility Vehicle Tax, Internet Tax, a return of the Death Tax and even a Garage Sale Tax that would require people to report profits from items sold to neighbors. The Democrats have also introduced a Global Tax, International Tax, Bullet Tax, Bottle Water Tax, Plastic Bag Tax, Toilet Paper Tax, and a Windfall Tax, which place a special tax on all stock market profits, including retirement funds, 401K's, and mutual funds. This does not include a Mileage Tax to go with the increases taxes placed on gasoline.
Even with all our debt, the government finds more ways to waste our money. In front of the cameras, President Obama says he is against earmarks; but he and the Democrats still recently approved a recent bill with 8570 earmarks of government waste including billions of dollars for pig oder research, walrus rehabilitation, termite research, study of the spawning habits of shrimp, center of grape genetics and 50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts. This also does not include the billions of dollars the Democrats forced through in political paybacks to their donors including ACORN, Planned Parenthood, AFL-CIO Unions and Hollywood producers. Congress even had the gall to give themselves an 11% increase to 4.4 billion for their own legislative operations to spend more time with lobbyists.
This is just one bill. How much more will we spend? The government should cut their waste. "We the people" have to cut our expenses when we don't have the money. The government should do the same. We are paying for a bail out on every industry. We spend 338.3 billion a year on benefits to illegal aliens. How about assisting the tax payers? We spend billions for AIDS in Africa while millions of Americans die of heart disease and cancer.
While taxation is important for our function of government, government spending is out of control. We should hold our government leaders accountable to find solutions to limit spending and reduce the taxes we pay.
The founding principles of our nation was for "limited government" with low taxes. The people began a revolt against taxes with the Boston Tea Party and our country thrived as the greatest in the world with the opportunity to pursue happiness without the government interference. No country has ever taxed their way into prosperity.
The Democrats have been replacing capitalism with socialism and we will regret this move as a nation in the years to come. It has been said, "Don't worry about the national debt, it is big enough to take care of itself." In the meantime, who is going to bail out America?
Abraham Lincoln once said, "You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves."
Frank Aquila
Manteca resident
President of the South San Joaquin Republicans.
mantecarepublicans@yahoo.com
