I tell you, it’s enough to become cynical about all politics, what
these Democrats are doing to the issue of tax reduction.
Last Friday President Clinton — who can’t seem to be honest even
when he doesn’t have to lie — was busy torpedoing the latest GOP
attempt to force some sort of tax cut on this administration. Granted,
the cuts are not gargantuan and there is enough GOP duplicity in the
political arena over the issue of taxes as well. But you have to give
them at least some credit for talking about tax cuts and actually
making proposals to give most Americans some sort of cut in
taxes.
Alternately the Democrats — and especially Clinton — seem
genetically opposed to tax cuts. To them, more money in the federal
coffers equals more power over the lives of American citizens. To them,
an average citizen is too stupid to know what to do with his own money
and how to invest it, save it and spend it. To them, only the
ever-expanding belly of big government is best when it comes to managing
the affairs of state and all private matters as well.
Were that really the case, then the Soviet Union would still be here
and capitalist, free-market America would have vanished in 1989.
Specifically, though, Mr. Clinton — when talking to reporters about
a GOP plan to spread Earned Income Tax Credits out over a 12-month
period — said, “I will not sign a bill that turns its back on …
hard-working families. They’re doing all they can to lift themselves out
of poverty, to raise their children with dignity. I don’t think we
should be putting more roadblocks in their way.”
Ho, ho, ho. That’s a joke, right Mr. President?
Many families are indeed doing these things, but they’re
accomplishing their goals in life despite Clintonian liberalism.
Because if there is anything that liberals can say they are
experts at, it is taxing and spending, throwing roadblocks in front of
American families, increasing poverty, fomenting class warfare and then
denying that any of it is their fault.
What Bill Clinton really meant to say was, “I will not sign a
bill that grants the American people a tax refund, period,” because
that’s what has happened to virtually every other tax cut plan
during his administration. He has vetoed them because they would “hurt
the children,” or “give more money to the rich,” or “destroy the public
schools,” or “raid Social Security,” or “take more money from the poor,”
or … well, you get it.
House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., is equally hubristic
and hypocritical when he joins the fray. Of the GOP plan, he said,
“[The Republicans] are not even being straight about what they want to
do, and that’s the worst corruption of the process of self-government
and trying to be straight with the American people.”
Dick, do you think we’re all stupid? During the past seven
years, who’s been doing most of the lying to the American public —
Clinton or the Republican opposition?
Gephardt even managed use of the word “corruption” to describe the
Republican plan. Now, all of a sudden, anybody who wants to grant
Americans a tax refund — of any size or shape — is “corrupt.”
Please, Mr. Gephardt — for “corruption,” see “Clinton
administration.” And how dare you suggest that the best plans for my
money exist only in pointy little liberal heads like yours.
There can be no doubt that the Republicans have some budgetary
explaining
to do, as Democrats suggest. But more important than anything else in
this debate about — ultimately — what to do with our money has been
dominated by liberal politics for decades. Whether overt GOP or
Democratic tax increases have expanded the scope of federal government
or whether it has expanded simply exponentially with increased “fees,”
“licenses,” and “tolls,” the fact is the liberals have always —
near universally — supported more and bigger government. And they have
gotten it.
Yet they still have the cajones to call tax cutters and government
shrinkers “corrupt liars” and “political manipulators.” Oh, mama.
I suppose Mr. Gephardt himself has forgotten that earlier this summer
he himself suggested that, if his party recaptures the House next year,
they might have to raise taxes “to support our crumbling, faltering
public schools.” And I suppose Mr. Clinton has forgotten that in 1993
he and his liberal cohorts in Congress passed the largest single tax
increase in the history of this country.
But it’s the Republicans and other tax cutters who are mean, evil
incarnations of the devil for wanting to give some of that money back to
us.
Understand that, for Washington’s “elite,” money equals power equals
influence and control. Without so blessed much of our money, the
federal government can’t do anything but grow smaller and less
intrusive. Taxes, fees, licenses — whatever you want to call them
— will have to be dramatically reduced before one single
agency is closed or before the IRS ever becomes a distant and irrelevant
memory. It’s just that simple.
Is Dubya up to the task? How about Bradley or Gore? Buchanan?
Keyes? Who will do it? Who can do it?
