Tax Cut Extension Deal - Good or Bad?

For the last two years President Obama has been adamant about not allowing the “wealthy” to keep receiving the Bush tax cuts, set to expire on January 1^st.  Even as recently as last month he and the Democrats reiterated their position that greedy, rich people need to shoulder more of the tax burden and anyone making less than $250,000 a year should be given a tax break.  It’s only those evil people making over $250,000, those nasty, rich people, who should be penalized for their success.

A few days ago the President apparently cut a tentative deal with Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts to everyone for another two years.  According to the President this will be good for the American people.  According to the left, this is simply putting hundreds of thousands more dollars in the bank accounts of those greedy, rich people (most of our politicians included) and “taking money away from the government.”

There are two things that concern me about the attitude of the left on this issue.  First, extending the Bush tax cuts won’t put more money into anyone’s bank account.  This is a spin put out by the left to make people vilify the rich even more.  Extending the Bush tax cuts will merely allow people to continue putting the same amount in those accounts.  No one is getting a raise or getting more money handed to them.  I’m not sure why that’s so difficult for some people to figure out.  Extending the Bush tax cuts simply means no one’s taxes are going to go up in January.  And while Joe Biden likes to spout that it’s “patriotic to pay taxes”, there should be a limit on how deeply the government can reach into anyone’s pockets.

My second concern is simply that.  When did the government get the authority to tell someone “You make more than your share of money so we’re going to take as much as we want to make sure you don’t get too greedy”?  That, my friends, is Marxist.  I have no problem paying a certain amount of taxes to the government for their operating expenses.  After all, they are serving us, the people.  (I’m actually choking on that statement but that’s what they’re supposed to be doing.)  But when did we, the people, give them the authority to take however much of our hard-earned money they want?  And why is it that our government spends way beyond its means, without consulting us, and then demands that the people, those of us who elected them, cough up the money to pay it back? 

The only tax system that would be truly fair is a flat tax, a set percentage of everyone’s income (except those below the poverty level) that is equal across the board.  Let’s use 10% as an example.  If everyone paid 10% of their income to the government in taxes, and the government curbed their outrageous, exorbitant spending, there would be plenty of money for them to operate efficiently.  There would be no loopholes in the flat tax plan, for anyone.  Whether you make $40 thousand or $40 billion you’d pay that 10% to the government.   What’s 10% of $40 billion - $400 million?  And that would be from only one person.  But it would be FAIR.

I do have one other concern about this “deal.”  Obama has done a complete turn-around on this tax cut extension.  That worries me.  Anytime a politician does an about face to make a deal you can bet there’s something shady in it.  Some Republicans, like Michelle Bachman (who I personally think is still trying to do the right thing) are saying “No.  This is not a good deal.  This is a spending/stimulus bill disguised as a tax cut extension.”  I don’t know all the details but I’m thinking if Obama flip-flopped, the Democrats don’t like it at all and some Republicans are saying it’s no good, it probably isn’t good in the long run.  I guess we’ll see what happens.  But, as Dennis Miller used to say on Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update…  “That’s just my opinion.  I could be wrong.”