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By Marion Edwyn Harrison, Esq.
November 22, 2006
Americans have so much for which to be thankful tomorrow on the official Thanksgiving Day and on all the days ahead. We also have much for which not to be thankful, some of it well intentioned, some not. Fortunately the good vastly outweighs the bad.
From time to time, and especially at election time, many Democrats and a few Republicans talk about raising taxes on the rich, not infrequently defining the “rich” as those with income sufficiently greater than one’s own that a tax increase would affect “them and not us.” The tax-increase rhetoric is somewhat suspended but its loudest champions may, and probably will, metamorphose talk into attempted legislation in the ensuring 110th Congress.
In fact, an objective view, and that of most economists, must convince the viewer that the President George W. Bush-engineered tax cuts have benefited almost all taxpayers and the economy generally. The most one reasonably could criticize might be that the percentages in the very highest brackets when equated to dollars are a bit too high and that an individual with a taxable income as low as - pick a figure, maybe - $ 20,000 should pay no Federal income tax. Here is a chart, setting averages, courtesy of the (generally reliable) Tax Policy Center:
Taxable Income:
Dollars Saved:
Percentage:
Less than $ 10,000
$ 5.00 2.1%
10 - 20K 183.00 20.3
20 - 30 561.00 18.2
30 - 40 747.00 12.8
40 - 50
877.00 10.3
50 - 75
1,216.00 9.5
75 - 100
2,066.00 10.5
100 - 200
3,769.00 11.1
200 - 500
7,609.00 9.4
500 - 1 million 20,695.00 10.0
1 million or more 111,567.00 10.8
Regardless of one’s opinion as to what Federal income tax rates ought to be, there is an inherent fairness: Absent tax cheating, every taxpayer in the same net taxable income bracket pays about the same. Maybe that solace isn’t sufficient to give cause for abounding thanks at Thanksgiving but compared to taxation in most of the world it is reasonably equitable.
Earmarks are another story. In 1987 President Ronald W. Reagan vetoed a bill because it contained 152 earmarks. In 2005 President George W. Bush signed one which contained 6,371 earmarks. In other words, earmarks have proliferated like crazy (and, of course, the President attempts to get along with Congress). With only an occasional exception earmarks are inherently unfair and warrant from the great mass of American taxpayers no thanks on Thanksgiving. They are unfair because they divert Federal taxpayers’ money to pet projects of the Senator or Representative engineering the earmark, often to advantage in his State or Congressional district but inherently a penalty upon all other taxpayers.
There are some courageous stalwarts in Congress who, thus far vainly, have tried to curtail or eliminate them. Senator Thomas Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) and Representative Jeff Flake (R-AZ) conspicuously come to mind but there are others. These and their fellow heroes are outnumbered but a relatively small number of Members of Congress disproportionately account for the bulk of earmarks.
To look objectively at a few earmarks is to realize that most taxpayers got “taken” and, hence, need offer no thanks. Some examples: $ 3.5 million for bus acquisition in Atlanta; $ 2 million for kitchen relocation in Fairbanks; $ 1.5 million for a demonstration project to transport naturally chilled water from Lake Ontario to Lake Onondaga in New York; $ 1 million to improve roads in Monroe County, New York, to assist in business retention; $ 1 million for an education foundation in Virginia; $500,000.00 for a soccer and ski facility in Anchorage; $ 500,000.00 for a swimming pool in Banning, California; $ 250,000.00 for a music hall in Nashville; $ 200,000.00 for pedestrian improvements in Montgomery County, Maryland; $ 100,000.00 for a swimming pool in Ottawa, Kansas (cheaper to swim in Kansas than in California?); so on.
Congressional corruption is another subject. Those voters whose Senators and Representatives, fortunately the majority, are not corrupt can give thanks.
Realism compels Americans to look beyond our borders. Our Federal corruption level in some respects is excessive and unacceptable. Yet it is far less than that of most other national governments. Of course, one does not measure thanks only in material terms. For our liberty and our freedom, from the 1621 gathering of gratitude to God, now termed Thanksgiving, to the present, we Americans have preponderant cause for thanks.
An historical, and more philosophical, commentary, reprinted from last year, follows.
Marion Edwyn Harrison is President of, and Counsel to, the Free Congress Foundation.
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