This page was last updated on December 22, 2011.
Middle class getting a raw deal; Jerry Miskulin; Beaver County Times; December 21, 2011.
I encourage you to review Mr. Miskulin’s body of work in the archives. Mr. Miskulin has written at least 77 letters since 2004 (I didn’t critique all of them.). Most (all?) are illogical and full of falsehoods (not just wrong).
Mr. Miskulin expressed displeasure with the tea parties (here and here), proclaimed
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“There’s been talk bandied about concerning cuts to Social Security and Medicare. What people don’t understand is that by paying more for services that used to be free, it’s really a tax increase on the middle class and lower middle class.”
[RWC] There is no such thing as “services that used to be free.” Ultimately, every service has to be paid for by someone.
“Most people will tell you corporations pay nothing in taxes. The big growers get subsidies from the federal government, and the rich have so many loopholes with which to dodge paying taxes that it’s not funny.”
[RWC] I oppose so-called “business taxes” for at least two reasons. First, corporation income taxes are double taxation. That is, the government taxes a corporation’s taxable income and then taxes the dividends (after-tax profits) shareholders [including pension plans, IRAs, and 401(k)s] receive. Second, business taxes are a scheme to hide true taxation from the ultimate taxpayers, you and me. In some cases, businesses are prohibited by law from itemizing taxes on their invoices. You see, businesses - like government - don’t have any money; it all belongs to the owner(s). One way or another, business taxes are paid by individuals - customers, employees, and owners. According to the Tax Foundation, the average U.S. taxpayer worked eight days in 2002 to pay federal income taxes levied on corporations. In addition, we worked a fraction of a day to pay other business taxes. Business taxes are approximately seven percent of our total personal tax burden. That is, seven out of 100 tax dollars we pay are business taxes. Unfortunately, a lot of people like Mr. Miskulin don’t know this fact or choose to ignore it.
“[T]he rich have so many loopholes with which to dodge paying taxes that it’s not funny?” Based on 2009 income tax data, the top 1% (AGI greater than $344,000) of filers paid 37% of the total and the top 5% (AGI greater than $155,000) paid 59%. This is tax dodging? How much does Mr. Miskulin believe “the rich” should pay? The bottom 50% (AGI less than $33,000) paid 2.3% of the total.
As for farm subsidies, there should be none – for anyone.
“What we are seeing is that the middle class and lower middle class are to be held responsible for our enormous debt run up Reaganomics, with its ancillary notion of trickle-down economics. After Reagan and the two Bushes spent all of our Social Security and Medicare money, the far right and their think tanks have chosen to soak the middle and lower middle class people -- they who need the social programs the most.”
[RWC] Mr. Miskulin has a thing about what he calls Reaganomics. Previous letters are here, here, here, and here.
Other than they are Republicans, why does Mr. Miskulin claim “Reagan and the two Bushes spent all of our Social Security and Medicare money?” By the SS and Medicare laws themselves, SS (and later Medicare) taxes in excess of those required to pay current benefits went into the General Fund from the first day SS taxes were collected in 1937. That’s why the claim of trust funds has been a lie for 74 years. There is no pot of gold, stack of dollar bills, and there never was. The mythical Medicare and Socialist Security trust funds are nothing but stacks of IOUs (Treasury bonds) issued over the years by a federal government that’s over $15 trillion in debt and growing.
“[T]he far right and their think tanks have chosen to soak the middle and lower middle class people?” How would that happen even if the allegation weren’t a fabrication? Mr. Miskulin seems to forget Democrats were the majority party in both houses of Congress for four years (including a short time with a filibuster-proof Senate) until January 2011 and held the White House for the last two of those years. Democrats are still the majority in the Senate and President Obama is still a Democrat. Mr. Miskulin also appears to forget it was Democrats who wanted the so-called “Bush tax rate cuts” to expire, that is until Mr. Obama had to concede, “Make no mistake: Allowing taxes to go up on all Americans would have raised taxes by $3,000 for a typical American family. And that could cost our economy well over a million jobs.”
As for Socialist Security, it was Democrats’ – including Mr. Obama – idea to cut the SS payroll tax rate by two percentage points resulting in a 16% decrease in SS tax revenue. Other than interest on U.S. debt held by the SS Administration, the SS tax is the sole source of revenue for SS. In other words, we’re funding the rate cut at the expense of funds available to pay SS benefits.
As for Medicare, Obamacare (only Democrats voted for it) took $500 billion. Not once did Mr. Miskulin complain.
“The only thing is nobody will raise their voice in Washington, D.C. Seems they’re afraid to do something, but if they can’t say how they feel, we’ll always get a raw deal.
“And time is slipping through our fingers every day.”
[RWC] If Mr. Miskulin believes we can get out of trouble by increasing tax rates on “the rich” and evil corporations, he doesn’t know how messed up we are.
© 2004-2011 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.