Here it is:
Your turn: Bachmann is on wrong track
By Mike Sullivan St. Cloud
Published: October 15. 2007 12:30AMI am so pleased the Times on Oct. 3 printed U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann's letter to her Central Minnesota constituents on federal budget and tax policy issues.
I feel like Paul Harvey. There is a "rest of the story" that needs to be told.
Congresswoman, you state that the majority (Democrats) have passed a budget calling for the single-largest tax increase in our nation's history, a tax increase that could cost the average American family $3,000 per year.
The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Kent Conrad, D-N.D., has an answer to your emphatic and unsupported statement. He says, "There is no tax increase assumed or required in the FY 2008 budget. PERIOD."
I believe constituents need some proof. ... You also know that budgets don't spend a dime or raise a dime in taxes, they're simply guidelines.
Isn't it a little premature to alarm your constituents about a pending $3,000 tax increase?
The numbers
You also tell your constituents that the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax relief measures will save the average tax payer $2,216 this year. In August 2004, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the average middle-income household (about $46,000 in taxable income) would receive a tax reduction of $1,090. Households in the top 1 percent of income earners would receive a tax cut of $78,460.
How can we reconcile this? Here's how. Forty percent, or about 60 million separate taxpayers, earn less than middle-income households and received almost no tax reduction from the 2000/2003 Bush tax plan.
For example, let's consider a $100,000 total tax relief. The first taxpayer receives a tax cut of $78,460.
The next 44 taxpayers receive $489.50 each. This tax plan just achieved a $2,216 average reduction. Averages don't mean much to most of us.
Let's look at the facts. The Tax Policy Center shows that in 2006, the 20 percent of taxpayers with incomes of more than $84,000 (about 30 million separate filers) receive 68.8 percent of the total tax relief under the Bush II plan, while 90 million filers with incomes less than $46,000 received just 15 percent of the tax relief.
The top 1 percent, or 1.5 million taxpayers, received more than 30 percent of the all tax reductions.
You also tell your constituents that CBO forecasts the budget deficit to be down a third year in a row, 36 percent below just last year.
When you tell us what appears to be good news, you should put this in context so we really understand your earlier quote from the Government Accountability Office, which says that "the long-term deficit is unsustainable on our current fiscal track."
Your constituents should be told that the 2003, 2004 and 2005 budget deficits were the three largest budget deficits in the 225-year history of our country.
They should also be told that the President Bush budget deficits from 2002 through 2006 total not billions, but $1.512 trillion.
They should probably also know that during the last three years of the Clinton administration, there was $430 billion in budget surpluses.
If these budget deficits are not bad enough in themselves, your constituents should also know that each year during the Bush II administration, the president raided the Social Security Trust Fund.
In 2001, it was a mere $34.7 billion, but that's equal to the entire state of Minnesota's two-year budget.
In the following years Social Security raids were significantly worse, $159 billion, $155 billion, $155 billion, $150 billion, $173 billion, $185 billion and $191 billion in FY 2007, which ended Sept. 30.
The CBO also estimates that the FY '07 cost of the Bush tax cuts is $258 billion. The budget deficit of $161 billion plus the Social Security Trust Fund raid of $191 billion totals red ink of $352 billion.
Soaring debt
The conclusion is inescapable; 100 percent of the Bush tax cuts is funded by national debt, a debt that becomes the burden of young families and our children.
You also tell us that "to steer Congress in the right direction" you joined 145 other members assuring the president that you would vote to sustain any of his vetoes on spending bills. You must understand that "the unsustainable fiscal track" that you quote from GAO is the fiscal track of 2001-07 directed by the president and supported by the GOP Congress.
With both GAO and CBO warning of the fiscal train wreck, why do you board that train? Shouldn't you be challenging it to protect your 6th District constituents and the rest of the country?
This is the opinion of Mike Sullivan, a resident of St. Cloud, but not a local attorney.
September 19th, 2007:
But what the other formula (the Bush tax cuts) for success has brought about, Mr. Speaker, is prosperity. Prosperity not just for those who are the high income earners, not even just the middle income earners. We have seen tremendous levels of prosperity, even for those who we would consider the poor among us, who government considers the poor among us, and if there is anyone who deserves help up, a hand up, it is the poorest among us.
The median household income, more good news is that adjusted for inflation, the median household income today has risen in 2006 to over $48,451 nationwide, and in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, median household income today is at a robust $62,223. This is great news. We should be talking about this great news. And how did we get to this level of prosperity? It is because of the tax cuts that came in 2001 and 2003, and that great investment is now paying off.
The wealthiest 1% of Americans earned 21.2% of all income in 2005, according to new data from the Internal Revenue Service. That is up sharply from 19% in 2004, and surpasses the previous high of 20.8% set in 2000, at the peak of the previous bull market in stocks.The bottom 50% earned 12.8% of all income, down from 13.4% in 2004 and a bit less than their 13% share in 2000.
The IRS data, based on a large sample of tax returns, are for "adjusted gross income," which is income after some deductions, such as for alimony and contributions to individual retirement accounts. While dated, many scholars prefer it to timelier data from other agencies because it provides details of the very richest -- for example, the top 0.1% and the top 1%, not just the top 10% -- and includes capital gains, an important, though volatile, source of income for the affluent.
