Zero Liability Voters

Yesterday I was completing my tax returns for the year just ended when I remembered a passage from a book I had recently read. The author of the book claimed that 50% of Americans pay no income taxes. I thought that 50% seemed excessive so I took the opportunity to conduct an experiment.

For my experiment I assumed I had a decent job that paid me $20 per hour which is $41,600 per year with no overtime. I also decided I had a wife that was the most wonderful stay at home mom in the world and took excellent care of my two young children.

I completed form 1040 from the IRS and took the standard deductions, the child tax credit and, since I would qualify under this scenario, the Earned Income Tax Credit. I couldn’t believe the results I was seeing on paper.

Did you know that if you are married and have children and make up to $23.21 per hour or $48,279 per year the government wants to give you some of my money? That’s right. Our fearless leaders, we call them politicians, have determined you deserve a hand out from the federal government at tax payer expense.

A family of four, two adults and two children that earn $20 per hour ($41,600 per year) will receive 773 taxpayer dollars. This is true even if they had no taxes withheld from their paycheck throughout the year. If they had some payroll tax withheld during the year they would get back every penny they had withheld.

Thanks to a system that has the Earned Income Tax Credit and is totally socialistic, a family of four whose breadwinner earns $20 per hour would have no tax liability and would actually receive welfare from the federal government in the amount of $773.

President Gerald Ford created the earned Income Tax Credit in 1975 and it has been expanded several times most notably by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. 25 million families (by definition at least 50 million people) received the EITC in 2007 but only 6.6 million of these people were at or below the poverty level (1) which was $25,080 or $12.05 per hour at a 40 hour per week job (2).

In our great country no one should live in poverty and the EITC is a great aid to the poorest of people. The 43.4 million people that earn more than the poverty threshold should not be entitled to someone else’s money. I would consider these 43.4 million people to be zero liability voters that will not vote against the party that provides them other people’s money.

The thing American taxpayers need to realize is this is not a Democrat or Republican creation; this is a Democrat and Republican creation. When they disguise their intentions by claiming to help the poor the politicians are buying votes.

Carl D. Goodson
Clute, TX

www.conservativeCarl.blogspot.com
www.Carldgoodson.com

(1) www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2505
(2) www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/threshld/thresh07.html