Obama lies about taxes, Truth about taxes from John Hammer of the Rhinoceros Times, August 11, 2011, Federal dollars buy frills
“…and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They [socialists] always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them.”…Margaret Thatcher
I have been a fan of John Hammer of the Rhinoceros Times for years. So was my late father. I met with John several weeks ago and had a great discussion. I half jokingly stated that we may be the only 2 reporting entities in the area providing real news. John Hammer provides his article, “Under The Hammer” in print as well as the internet every Thursday. Sadly, in the home state of Edward R. Murrow, you will be hard pressed to find the truth in print elsewhere.
From John Hammer August 11, 2011.
“Obama continues to say that the wealthy have “to pay their fair share” of taxes. What Obama doesn’t say is what that fair share is. Right now the top 50 percent of wage earners pay 97 percent of the taxes. The top 5 percent pay about 57 percent of the taxes and the top 1 percent pay 37 percent of the taxes.
It looks like the wealthy are paying their fair share, but it would be informative for Obama to tell the American people just what he thought a fair share for the wealthy was. Should the upper 50 percent of wage earners pay 99 percent of the taxes? Should the top 1 percent pay 75 percent?
Maybe the problem is not that the rich aren’t paying enough but that the federal government is giving away too much to whom it defines as poor. There is now a federal program to provide cell phones to poor people and they get 250 minutes of free time a month. How can a cell phone be a necessity? I lived most of my life without a cell phone and thought I was doing pretty well.
The average family defined by the federal government as living in poverty lives in an air-conditioned residence with two color televisions, cable or satellite service, a DVD and a VCR player and a PlayStation or an Xbox. Along with the refrigerator, oven and stove they have a microwave and a coffee maker in the kitchen. They also have a washer and dryer, ceiling fans and a cordless phone.
So people living in poverty live better than the Muse and I because we only have one television and don’t have cable or satellite, and we don’t have a game box. We didn’t have a microwave until a friend who was horrified that we lived in the dark ages gave us her old one. It is used mainly for heating milk, although I understand it has other purposes.
The average family living in poverty in the US isn’t struggling to buy food or pay medical bills but does struggle to pay the cable or satellite television bill and for air-conditioning in the summer.
These are people who qualify for government assistance because they, according to the federal definition, live in poverty.
The federal government can define poverty any way it wants. It would appear that the definition of poverty has gotten so high that people who don’t need help but are willing to accept help are getting a lot of federal dollars.
Why on earth should the federal government be helping families pay their cable bill or make the payments on their second television?
Obama is right, all Americans need to pay their fair share, but the problem is not at the top or at the bottom. Everyone should be able to agree that people who really need assistance should have it available. It appears that a large part of the problem may be that poverty has suffered from the equivalent of grade inflation. People who don’t need help are getting lots of it.”
Read more:
http://greensboro.rhinotimes.com/Articles-c-2011-08-10-209180.112113-Under-the-Hammer.html
Citizen WElls 