Tax Law Omits Child Credit In High - Income Brackets
By Brian Yates (06/01/03)
The headline of Thursday’s New York Times spoke for liberals everywhere when it moaned that “Tax Law Omits Child Credit in Low-Income Brackets.” Later in the same article – but not in the bold, extra-large print – the Times states that “most taxpayers will receive $400-a-child check in the mail this summer as a result of the law, which raises the child tax credit, to $1000 from $600.” I think the key word in that statement is “most.” The headline sure doesn’t make it sound like that.
These low-income parents are not eligible for the child credit because, for the most part, they don’t pay taxes. How many times must I explain this: the benefit of this tax cut – any tax cut – should go to those who actually pay taxes. If you don’t pay taxes, just what exactly entitles you to receive the rebates from them? I pay taxes (way too much of them by the way) and you get the money back from them. That’s not a tax cut, that’s simply the redistribution of wealth…something that sounds remarkably like socialism. Oh, but the New York Times doesn’t have a socialist bone in its body now does it? Now I can hear some of you screaming now: “come on, Yates, you’re wrong on that! I make minimum wage and every week have taxes deducted from my paycheck.” Yes, and you also get all the federal and state taxes back eventually as well. The only taxes you pay are FICA (some will pay city or county as well). These people who are not eligible for the child credit are in the same boat. They may make minimum wage and have a small amount deducted every week, but they’re going to get it back.
The interesting think about this article is yet another little fact that was hidden in this “news” story: “It had been clear from the beginning that the wealthiest families would not receive the credit, which is intended to phase out at high incomes.” In other words, people who don’t pay anything in taxes receive no child credit (gasp…the treachery!) but the people who pay the most in taxes (56.47% of all taxes in fact) will also be receiving no benefit. Now why is this not a bad thing, yet when someone who pays no taxes receives no rebate it is a sign that the world is going straight to hell? Another thing I keep saying over and over: charity is a great thing, but forced charity is wrong no matter which way you cut it.
David Harris, president of the Children’s Research and Education Institute, bemoans the fact that non-taxpayers are for some reason not eligible for this child credit. “Their families are working and playing by the rules and are left out, though it would not have cost too much too include them.” No, not very much at all…just 30 billion dollars! Notice how liberals never worry about the cost of things so long as they’re spending our money. Spending $30 billion taxpayer dollars is no big deal and if the taxpayers don’t like it? Well that’s just because we’re all greedy selfish pigs too stupid to know what’s good for us.
Look, the left can whine that George W. Bush is a cruel man who doesn’t care about children and the needs of poor parents all they want. The facts, however, speak for themselves. The tax cut actually expands the lowest tax bracket and reduces the penalty on two-income households. It would seem to me that this might actually help those very same low-income families that the New York Times attempts to take pity on. The Louisville Courier-Journal went as close as it dared towards agreeing that the tax cut helped the middle and lower classes when they stated in a May 25th editorial that “changes that would have some benefits for middle-class families – such as an increase in the child credit and lower tax brackets for some married couples…” Of course then they quickly got back on track with the always crucial “but…” The very next sentence of the editorial exclaims “But the legislation provides for the current levels of those taxes to be put back in place in 2005.” The problem is they are only serving to contradict themselves because the previous paragraph claimed that “The Republican’s deceit is made possible by ‘sunset clauses’ that assume that lowered or repealed taxes will be restored in full down the road.” So which is it? The parents will lose all their benefits in two years or we’re going to keep this tax cut around so that “the federal deficit will continue to mushroom.” These people want it both ways.
Liberals are so busy searching for some type of problem with this tax cut that they are failing to notice nobody’s paying attention. Kind of like the case of the boy who cried wolf, liberals screaming about “tax cuts for the rich” and how “conservatives don’t care about kids” are simply being ignored by most Americans. People who don’t pay taxes should not be reaping the benefits of tax cuts, period. And as for this bill being too large? Let’s put things in perspective here: $350 billion represents less than 1.5 percent of projected federal revenues over the next ten years. Huge? I think not.
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