We can expect to see more of the kind of letters and misinformation like the one that appeared in the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus today from Jay Drick, a member of the Livingston County Republican Party's executive committee and a former Republican District Court Judge candidate, as Bush’s tax cuts for the rich are set to expire.
This propaganda piece from Drick throws figures around like 100 million Americans will pay an extra $1,716 a year in taxes a year if they expire, and, of course, there is not one reference or attribution as to where these figures came from. However, a good guess would be the state or national Republic parties
He also used the Bush catch phrase the “death tax” in place of the more accurate estate tax. This is a tax that not one single family in Livingston County will be effected by. It will affect families and people like Paris Hilton and Dick “The Amway Guy” Devos, and God knows those people need all the financial breaks they can get. In fact, more than 99 percent of estates pay no estate tax at all. A better name for the tax is the inheritance tax, and an even better name is the "Paris Hilton tax cut.”
These taxes will only affect the richest 1 percent of the taxpayers at a time when the gap between the rich and the non-rich is growing and the middle class is under assault and disappearing. According to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, making the tax cuts permanent would increase the national budget deficit and thereby add to the national debt.
“The interest payments needed to service this higher level of debt would amount to about $500 billion over the next ten years. Thus, the total cost of making these tax cuts permanent, including the related interest costs, would be $3.5 trillion over the ten-year period Once the tax cuts are fully in effect, their annual cost (not including debt service) will amount to about $400 billion per year. In 2006 terms, that amount is more than 7 times what the federal government spent last year on K-12 and vocational education and almost 10 times what it spent on hospital and medical care for veterans. In today’s terms, that amount also exceeds the combined 2006 budgets of the Departments of Education, Homeland Security, Veterans’ Affairs, State, and Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency.”Watch for these GOP talking point inspired letters in your local newspaper today.
2 comments:
Mr. Drick has posted this same letter, verbatim, in the letters to the editor sections of the Lansing State Journal and the Ann Arbor News.
A Google search of the phrase "17 million senior citizens" taken from his letter, turns up the same phrase on NC Rep. Sue Myrick, FL Rep. Vern Buchanan, and MO Rep. Roy Blunt's (all Republicans) web pages, as well as some conservative websites, and all claim that the seniors would pay an average of $2270 in higher taxes. While this number doesn't jibe with Mr. Drick's figure of $2034, they pretty much follow the same talking points (with no information to back any of them up).
Neither Mr. Drick, nor his fellow Republicans mention that these tax cuts have been paid for with borrowed money, which of course, must be paid back with interest.
According to the Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ), the middle 20% of Michiganians received an average tax cut of $2078. But the average added federal debt per person as a result of these tax cuts has been $9162, resulting in a net loss of $7084.
They also fail to mention that the estate tax (misnamed the death tax) only affects .8% of the population.
I agree 100 percent. Welcome to the blog, Mary of A2, and thanks for reading and commenting. I checked out your blog, and it looks very interesting.
In addition to the three newspapers already mentioned that this piece of misinformation has appeared in, it also ran in the weekly Fowlerville News and Views. I just wonder if Republicans have ever had an original thought.
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