What's Worse, the AMT or a Recession?

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Regressive taxes

Let's face it: our income tax structure is regressive, complicated, and immoral.

We have a federal government which spends outside of an kind of real budget, so far beyond its ability to pay that it has to invent obscure means of taxing. It is totally incapable of reducing spending to reasonable levels, because the politicians who run our government are slaves to special interests. The game is: bribe the politician with lobby money who then spends public money on your special interest. It's real easy to spend somebody else's money.

Now the politicians have extended the AMT to the middle class.This tax is a regressive, class-warfare wealth redistribution plan originally sold because it was only targeted at upper income individuals to pay for the irresponsible spending of our governments. Now that it's hitting many other people, everybody is crying and whining that it is unfair!

Let me get this straight-- it's okay to rob people of a certain income, but not others-- how is that fair? Imagine if we substitute the subset of the population designated as 'rich' for a ethnic label... would that be fair?

I have always thought it completely bankrupt to charge more or less of a tax burden to one set of the population over another. We should all share in burdens and not allow class warfare to be used by the government to justify their endless desire to rob us of our earnings.

James B of CA @ Sep 08, 2008 10:51:04 AM

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Capital Commerce

Capital Commerce

U.S. News business reporter Matthew Bandyk examines the issues, people, and debates that shape the nexus of political and economic life in the nation's capital.

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