DORI MONSON

It’s time to rain money on the rich, reign in government

Nov 17, 2017, 4:08 PM | Updated: Nov 18, 2017, 12:50 pm

tax...

(MyNorthwest, file)

(MyNorthwest, file)

I’m not in the habit of critiquing my colleagues here at the radio station. I very rarely do it. They have their shows and are welcome to their opinions. I have my show and I’m welcome to mine.

Having said that, I’m going to critique a colleague.

Dave Ross: It’s about to rain money on the wealthy

Dave Ross’ commentary on Friday was about the proposed GOP tax cuts. He says it’s a bad thing because people who make over $100,000 a year are going to get a lower percentage tax break. If you make under $100,000 you are going to see your taxes drop by 10 percent, which means you are going to get a lot of extra money in your pocket.

Dave says that’s not fair. He put it this way and I want to rebut it:

It shows that if you earn between $30,000 and $100,000 a year, your taxes could go down close to 10 percent. Not bad. But taxes also go down for taxpayers making over $100,000. They don’t go down by as much as 10 percent, but the amount of actual money refunded is a lot more. In fact, in 2019 when this would all take effect, the total cash that will rain down on taxpayers making over $100,000 a year is three times the amount for everybody making under $100,000 a year.

So why would people making over $100,000 get more money back than people making under $100,000? Could it be because they pay the most federal income taxes? People earning $100,000 or more pay 80 percent of federal income taxes. They pay four times as much as the people who make under $100,000. Dave is lamenting they will get three times the tax break. Of course they are. They pay far more. If you are in the bottom 48 percent of taxpayers, you do not pay any federal income taxes. I don’t know how you refund money to people who don’t pay taxes.

The people who pay the most are getting a smaller percentage of a tax break, but because they pay a vastly more, they are going to get more money back in raw dollars.

What this tax plan really is

Dave says this tax plan will “rain down” on those higher-earning taxpayers. That suggest it’s just money falling down from the sky. That’s not true. It’s money they have earned. It means the federal government will confiscate less of the money an individual has earned.

This is a tax break for the middle class. It doubles the exemption, the threshold in which you pay no taxes at all. The people in the lower income levels will get to keep more of their money – the middle class taxpayers.

RELATED: Will a tax increase help economic growth?

It doesn’t rain down, it does reign in the federal government and how much they confiscate. Confiscating less of our money isn’t us being showered with riches. It’s us being able to keep more of the fruits of our labor before government – the most wasteful entity known to man – takes it.

Allowing people to keep more of the money they have earned from their hard work is not manna from the heavens. This is government being reigned in.

And this is a good thing. Why? Anything that restricts a dollar from government increases economic activity in this country. We saw that in the ’80s when Reagan finally got his tax cut. We saw our economy growing 4.5 percent a year. It was only 2 percent under Barack Obama. The only way we are going to get out of our national $20 trillion debt is if we fire up this economy, get more economic activity, and see our economy grow out of that debt.

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It’s time to rain money on the rich, reign in government