Mike Keefe / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by Keefe)
Americans get a two-day reprieve from the Tax Man this year due to April 15th falling on a Sunday and the following day being a Washington, D.C. holiday. The deadline to file federal taxes is April 17th, a day which many Americans dread and Big Government relishes. The old saying that death and taxes are the only things certain in life rings truer every day. We are all going to meet our Maker, but do we have to pay the government an absurd amount, too?
According to the non-partisan Tax Foundation, it will take Americans 107 days in 2012 to pay an estimated combined 29.2 percent of their salaries in federal, state, and local taxes. Meaning, nearly thirty percent of income is taxed one way or the other, from federal Social Security and income taxes, to state gas and local property taxes. Americans are simply overtaxed by the government at every level in their lives.
Americans are overtaxed because federal, state, and local governments like to spend money needlessly. The latest example of government waste comes from the agency charged with making sure the federal government is accountable to the American taxpayer, the General Services Administration (GSA). The GSA has been embroiled in scandal over the last few weeks because it spent lavishly on a Las Vegas conference. On the GSA’s website, the agency states its mission is “…to use expertise to provide innovative solutions for our customers in support of their missions and by so doing foster an effective, sustainable, and transparent government for the American people.” Well that “expertise” wasted $800,000 of taxpayers’ money on a frivolous Las Vegas conference.
Thankfully, the foolish wasting of taxpayer money that happened in Vegas did not stay in Vegas. The GSA’s Administrator has been sacked and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will launch a formal inquiry on the matter. But as egregious and wasteful the GSA episode has been, a new report about Obamacare should make the American taxpayers’ blood boil. Charles Blahous, a trustee for Medicare and Social Security finances, says Obamacare will add at least $340 billion to the deficit and refutes President Obama’s original claim that Obamacare would reduce the deficit.
Of course, the White House pushed backed hard at the report, but their math just does not add up because it was flawed to begin with. What this means for the American taxpayer is dire and only hurts those who are in need of tax relief. Time and again President Obama has waged war on those paying the most in taxes. Then he complains when those same people do not invest in America. The Obama Administration cannot have it both ways.
The Tax Man is coming on April 17th and he will be shaking down the American people to pay for Big Government policies. The Tax Man will only get fatter with the current policies in place. To solve the problem of high taxes, Americans need to focus on shrinking the size of government, which means America needs a new direction.
