Reply #4: Several Points Seem Worth Making Here, Sir, To Enlighten The Lady's Ignorance [View All]

[The Magistrate]

First, the statement that this tax credit will go to "approximately 60 million Americans, who pay no taxes at all" is something to bring tears to the eyes and laughter to the lips. There are no persons filing an income tax return "who pay no taxes at all". They may owe no income tax to the Federal government once all deductions are figured in, and the Earned Income Credit is applied, but they certainly pay taxes. They pay excise taxes on their utilities, and on many common purchases; they pay sales taxes, property taxes (renters simply pay these for their landlord; it is a major component of rent), and a variety of other levies, including the payroll tax (in fact, they pay in truth the portion of that tax labeled 'employer contribution, since it is a cost of employing them, and otherwise would be part of their salary): in fact, these people generally pay over a third of their total income in taxes to various levels of government.

Second, Sen. Obama's tax credit proposals, however labeled, are in fact nothing more than an extension of the Earned Income Credit referenced above. This is hardly a measure with roots in Socialist or Marxist agitation. It was a proposal first bruited about by Milton Friedman, the arch-priest of 'free-marketeer' theology, and proposed and passed into law by that well-known proponent of world Communism, Richard Milhouse Nixon.

Third, let us be absolutely clear about what the Earned Income Credit actually is: it is a government subsidy to businesses that pay low wages, enabling the persons they employ to continue in employment that does not pay them sufficiently to procure necessities of life in our society. Those businesses would be unable to procure employees without it, or willing and reasonably contented employees, anyway. The difference between decent wages and what is actually paid, which is made up by the Earned Income Credit supplied by the Federal government, goes directly to the profit of the business, and the pockets of its owners and shareholders, as well as buoying the salaries of its managers.