Quote Originally Posted by Lyle
The Heritage Foundation is hardly an anti-immigration group, anti-ILLEGAL immigration maybe but EVERYONE should be against that maybe because it's against the law.....same with the Fair Tax group.....and the Washington Post is a reliable source as well.

And what's this "undocumented worker" pc bullshit? They are ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS they don't want to become American, they don't want to learn English, they don't give a shit about America and yeah plenty of people have issue with that, and they aren't dolts or morons, they are regular everyday hard working Americans who take some pride in their country.
OK, I'm going to try and pick the salient points out of all that ranting and reply to them. The main thing that bothers you seems to be increases in your taxes, so let's look in detail at increases in your taxes over the past couple of decades and how your tax situation looks over the next couple.

In 1981 when Reagan made his famous Tax Cut, tax revenues collapsed. So to make up the difference, Reagan set out a plan to increase Social Security taxes so that the extra revenue could be transferred to balance the books. So, a tax that falls mainly on low and middle-earning people, (SS taxes are only levied on the first $95000 of yearly income) was increased by 3.3% to cover tax breaks for the richest 1%. Reagan simply reduced taxes for top earners, and transferred the taxes to low/middle income earners. So, 3.3% of every dollar of the first $95000 you've earned every year since 1983 is a Reagan Tax Increase levied to pay the income tax breaks of the top 1%.

Reagan also increased taxes every year in office after that too, including the biggest single tax increase in history. And all those tax increases transferred the tax burden away from the top 1% to low/middle income earners. But I'm guessing the payroll tax is something you can relate too.

Reagan had to increase taxes every year because of the collapse in revenues caused by his tax cuts but still ran up huge budget deficits. Bill Clinton then came along and over eight years managed to wipe out the federal budget deficit and put it in surplus for the first time in generations.

The George Bush came along and offered more tax cuts. He said that his cuts would increase revenues despite what happened when Reagan tried it. Here's what happened :

Tax revenues have always doubled every ten years, which helps them just about keep pace with inflation and increased spending. Inflation and spending are increasing hugely under Bush, so we'd better hope those tax cuts are boosting revenues for the future, right? Let's look at the numbers, with historical numbers included for a bit of context :

In 1950 we had $45 billion in revenues, which jumped to $91 by 1960. The link only shows from 1962, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

From $91 billion in 1960, we jumped to $192 billion in 1970.

In 1980, revenues jumped to a massive $517 billion, although the extra revenue was inflation caused by two disastrous external oil price spikes beyond our control.

By 1990, revenues had jumped from $517 to $1032 billion, again doubling.

In 2000, revenues had doubled again from $1032 to $2025.

Bush's 2001 tax cut was backdated to Q1 2001, so the cut was in place from the first day of fiscal year 2001. So by 2005, we should have been looking at revenues in the region of $3000 billion plus the extra revenue growth from the tax cuts, right?

Here are the numbers :

2000 : $2025

Bush tax cut

2001 : $1991

2002 : $1853

2003 : $1782

2004 : $1880

2005 : $2153


Here are the numbers for income tax, the tax that is supposed to grow the most in response to a cut :

1960 : $41.7 billion

1970 : $90.4

1980 : $244.1

1990 : $466.9

2000 : $1004.5

Bush tax cut

2001 : $994.3

2002 : $858.3

Bush tax cut

2003 : $793.7

2004 : $809.0

2005 : $927.2

2006 : $1043.9


http://www.cbo.gov/budget/historical.shtml



So instead of hitting $4000 billion in revenues by the end of the decade, we're looking at over a trillion dollars a year shortfall. In a $13 trillion economy that's a big chunk of money. Obviously, taxes are going to go through the roof soon to cover that 25% revenue shortfall.

Can you guess who'll be paying that extra trillion a year, the top 1% who've doubled their share of the national income since 1980, or low/middle income earners, hmmmm?

To give you a clue let's look at what's happened to your payroll taxes since 1982. The money went straight to the General Fund (where income tax revenues are placed) to make up the shortfall there and inreturn US government bonds to the same value were placed in a Social Security fund. The thinking was that when the SS fund needed to cash those bonds to help pay for the baby boomers' retirement then the income tax payers in the General Fund would pay their debts. Now here's George Bush on that :

Bush: Social Security trust fund ‘just IOUs’
President says, ‘There is no trust fund’


PARKERSBURG, W.Va. - President Bush on Tuesday used a four-drawer filing cabinet stuffed with paper representing government IOUs that he said symbolized the Social Security trust fund’s bleak outlook for meeting Americans’ future retirement needs.
“A lot of people in America think there is a trust — that we take your money in payroll taxes and then we hold it for you and then when you retire, we give it back to you,” Bush said in a speech at the University of West Virginia at Parkersburg.
“But that’s not the way it works,” Bush said. “There is no trust ‘fund’ — just IOUs that I saw firsthand,” Bush said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7393649/


So you can guess who's going to be paying back the trillion dollars a year, right?

And you're still worried about three or four billion a year for Undocumenteds, despite the fact that they grow the economy so fast and keep inflation down by untold more billions than this every year?

How about Bush invading Iraq, costing you five billion a week and all he's managed to do is hand the country over to a government of Iranian-backed terrorists? Does it bother you that trillions of your taxes and thousands of American lives have already gone and that the US army is fighting and dying to keep a government of Iranian-backed terrorists in power?

The Heritage Foundation and organisation like it exist to push the buttons of unknowledgeable Americans to support the aims of the billionaires who fund these foundations and think tanks. The Heritage people will also tell you that tax cuts increase tax revenues, but no reputable economist in the world agrees with them and the numbers above kinda prove them wrong on that, don't they? So even if these groups are right and illegals cost ten billion a year, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the amounts you're being shafted with by the GOP, isn't it?


Now instead of running away from answering my posts and just ranting, can you reply to the questions in the last few paragraphs please?