Isn’t that wonderful? I don’t know about you, but that won’t even cover one month’s gas bill for me. Of course, it is something, it's better than nothing, and I suppose we should be grateful for any crumbs the Oligarchy throws our way. But how does this really stand up in terms of what they are taking from us? As we’ll see in a moment, it just goes to show how far out of touch with reality these Beltway Bandits truly are.

Others are proposing a $60 billion tax break this year. They claim that President Bush’s plan to reduce taxes $1.6 trillion over ten years isn’t “front loaded” enough. It only provides five or six billion in tax relief this year, fiscal 2001, with most relief coming five or six years down the line.

The real world

Fact #1: Last year, fiscal 2000, the personal income tax overcharge was $87 billion. There is no dispute or changing this, it’s history. Gone. Spent. No chance of getting any of it back.

Fact #2: The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the personal income tax overcharge for this year, fiscal 2001, at about $115 billion.

Fact #3: The Department of Labor claims that there are currently 141 million working stiffs in America and probably does not yet account for the 186,000 announced layoffs we’ve been hearing about for the last couple of months.

A couple of other things you might want to remember are that it takes the government two quarters, six months, to decide if the country is in recession. And any retroactive tax relief, or increase for that matter, could be immediate. Employers could immediately begin reducing the tax deduction in your paycheck. You would have more money in your pocket as soon as the legislation is passed. It could be tomorrow, next week or next month. As fast as they’ve raised your taxes in the past.

Now, let’s take the three points above and look at the things our illustrious congress people are arguing about.

The best thing we might expect from the Beltway Bandits is the $60 billion tax cut. And that is less than they overcharged us last year, fiscal 2000. What’s more, it’s $55 billion under the amount they are overcharging us this year.

So much for the republican thoughts. Now let’s take a look at what the democrats are proposing. Arguments that will not be settled until after the Senate approves the budget for fiscal 2002 sometime in May, maybe.

If we take the $300 rebate check that the democrats want to mail and figure it will go equally to 141 million taxpaying workers, what do we get? Wow, we get a whopping $42.3 billion refund. Two thirds of what the republicans are considering. Not even half of what they stole from us in 2000, and that’s already been spent. And it’s $72.7 billion short of what they are stealing from us right now, this year, fiscal 2001. A period that ends on September 30th about six months from now. The way progress is being made, possibly before anybody gets any scraps from the Oligarchy’s table of fat.

If they were really good guys, and wanted to even out this years over-taxation, these same democrats could mail everybody an $815 check. Twice what the most gracious democrats are talking about. That might actually do some good, even if it is still a dole. It’s actually a little more than my monthly gas bill.

Are there many out there who still consider themselves democrats? Who still believe that the democratic cult works for and protects the underprivileged? Of course, there are. There are all those hordes of people who work but don’t pay anything in personal income taxes, or pay so little that $300 would be a windfall bonus. At the very least, it might be a substantial portion of what many actually pay in income tax. The core of the inner city crowd who voted overwhelmingly democratic last election, or at least were recorded that way. Hillary and Ted Kennedy’s fans who, because of “back to work” policies, some mistakenly believed had stopped barking for scraps.

More real world

You’ve also heard that four out of five workers, 80 percent, pay more in payroll F.I.C.A. taxes than they do personal income taxes. Workers who contribute to Social Security and Medicare 15.3 percent of their cost to be employed. Mandatory entitlement payments that are not supposed to be used for any other purpose—no matter what that purpose is.

And how much of the $5.6 trillion “surplus” projected over the next ten years comes from this source? Would you believe almost all of it? At least two-thirds from Social Security and Medicare over-payments alone. The rest from other entitlements. Overpayment in gas taxes, unemployment, airport taxes, and so forth.

And what are our illustrious caretakers thinking of doing to alleviate 141 million workers of some of this overwhelming extra tax burden? Nothing, zero, zip, zilch, nada, squat, that’s what.

In 1983, it took the Beltway Bandits exactly one month to take Social Security off the pay-as-you-go system, raise every worker’s payroll taxes, and start the greatest slush fund any government has ever created. Probably, the only bipartisan effort in Washington.

As one of the principal architects of this scam, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan claims: to have created a system they’ve “enjoyed for years.” A system of systematically cheating millions of workers out of retirement and health care payments that were supposed to be working for the people like any good Investment Retirement Account (IRA) or 401-K plan.

A system that could, but doesn't, function just like the federal government’s own Thrift Savings Plan. A privatized method of investing donations from two million government employees, matched by taxpayer dollars, and forming the only real government trust fund that carries more than $35 billion in cash from one fiscal year to another.

Instead, we’re left with a Social Security Trust Fund now holding nothing but $1.016 trillion in promissory notes someone must someday redeem, and hundreds of billions more to come in the continuing nonpartisan rip-off they are all counting on. Even their loyal news media counts on its pork-barrel benefit.

Long ago, these lifetime politicians learned how to cheat the American worker out of billions in payroll taxes. No wonder they hesitate to do what’s right with income tax overcharges. They all lost their consciences and sense of duty long ago. Newcomers have Alan Greenspeak to take them under his wing and teach them how things work in Washington, the District of Corruption.

If you really want some pie-in-the-sky, think of what it would take to get them to cut some of the waste in their discretionary spending in order to pay down the national debt. If they won't give you a fair shake with personal income taxes, what do you suppose happens when they think of extra money for their world banking plans, paybacks to election supporters, military build-up, and contingency funding? Every one of them, things we don't really need.

Long live the Oligarchy.