E!! The True Conservative Story™

A reader emails:

Is it possible that by “freeing” the poor from paying any tax at all, they are, in essence, being completely disenfranchised?  That they do not care where the tax money goes because it doesn’t come out of their pockets?  That not being required to pay taxes sends the subtle message that they are inferior?  Thus perpetuating the victim and “gimme gimme” mentality?

I’ve often wondered whether even the poorest among us should pay some taxes in order to keep them in the game, so to speak.

Keep in mind that the poorest citizens not only pay no taxes but receive income “credits” from the government (i.e. our taxpayer dollars).  A mother earning minimum wage ($13,624 annually) with one dependent child taking the standard deduction not only owes “0″ tax, she also gets a check for $3,850 through the Earned Income Credit and Child Tax Credit.  And with two children that number jumps to $6,710, so at year end she has “earned” $20,334 in combined income and credits while having contributed nothing to the tax base (though her employer has paid some payroll tax).

Last night in his interview with Bill O’Reilly, Obama said:

“If I am sitting pretty, and you’ve got a waitress who is making minimum wage plus tips, and I can afford it and she can’t — what’s the big deal for me to say, ‘I’m going to pay a little bit more.’ That is neighborliness.”

Well, Senator Obama, it WOULD BE neighborliness if you were doing it VOLUNTARILY, i.e. if free will were involved.

However, if the amount you pay is decided by the federal government, collected by the federal government, and distributed where and whence the federal government sees fit, and if you resent the hell out of it (as I do), then the act is NOT neighborliness but state-mandated SOCIALISM, otherwise known as the forcible redistribution of wealth, otherwise known as highway robbery by the Nanny State bandits of the world.

(I was pleased when O’Reilly called him “Robin Hood Obama.”)