Taxpayers aren't allcreated equal

The Press ran an editorial Aug. 26 that, not to put too fine a point on it, pissed me off. Two of the points made by Mr. Risch, that the Press clearly agreed with, are these: (1) Government spending is out of control and we need a balanced budget amendment to address this, and (2) that 50 percent of Americans (actually, it's 46 percent according to the Tax Policy Center's study) pay no taxes and that's an unreasonable burden on the few Americans who do pay taxes.

I'll be the first to agree that government spending is out of control, but it irritates me that it is the Republicans who are complaining about this. The following chart shows the net increase in the outstanding public debt (not adjusted for inflation), as reported by the Department of the Treasury, of each President since Jimmy Carter.Jimmy Carter - $280B, average of $ 70B/yr

Ronald Reagan - $1,763B, average of $220B/yrGeorge HW - $1,469B, average of $367B/yr

Bill Clinton - $1,549B, average of $193B/yrGeorge W - $4,916B, average of $615B/yr

I would expect both parties to be frugal with the the public's money but since the Republicans have consistently outspent the Democrats by a wide margin, their calls for a balanced budget amendment sound like an alcoholic's call for the liquor cabinet to be locked. Hint: You shouldn't need a balanced budget amendment to prevent you from being a spendthrift. There's also an underlying reality here that nobody talks about. Since 2001, the military budget has roughly tripled and we have started several wars. Taxes were not raised to pay for either of these added expenditures (to be fair, LBJ did the same thing with Vietnam); indeed, they were cut. Since there seems to be bipartisan agreement that we can't cut military spending, and we can't stop our wars, and we can't raise taxes, the only way to bring spending in line with Federal income is to take a meat ax to those portions of the budget that are spent on the country and the American people. Soon, the budget will consist of Government operations, War and the Military, and servicing the increasing debt; your Federal income taxes will be doing nothing for you or the country you live in. That's the underlying reality.The second point should come as no surprise and is also deceptive. Mr. Risch is pointing at a Tax Policy Center study that found that 46 percent of all Americans paid no Federal Income taxes. The study did not address payroll taxes, state and local taxes, excise taxes, etc etc. So to simply say they paid no taxes is inaccurate and misleading.

But this result should come as no surprise. According to a study done by the Internal Revenue Service, the top 1 percent took in 22.8 percent of all income while the bottom 50 percent took in only 12.3 percent. Think about that data for a minute. Half of all Americans make only 12.3 percent of the national income. The other 50 percent make the other 87.7 percent of the income. The reason that half the country doesn't pay Federal income taxes is because they're dirt poor.Apparently, Mr. Risch is pissed off that families that can barely put food on the table aren't paying Federal income taxes. I don't consider myself a liberal but I also don't believe in kicking people when they're down.

Jeffrey Harrison is a Kootenai County resident.