By: Laura Elizabeth Morales
Its summer time and you were hoping to take a much-needed vacation with your family; in fact your vacation has been planned for over a year now. Your family lives comfortably but money is tight with a kid in college and another in high school. You work well over 40 hours a week to make ends meet and this vacation is finally a chance to get free from the concrete jungle of your downtown office.
Just two months ago your spouse was laid off. Your parents are both elderly and on a fixed income and their health is deteriorating as each day passes while their medical bills keep piling up. College tuition keeps increasing even though your family could just barely afford a public university from the start. Now your vacation is canceled to save money to pay for expenses and to top it all off it seems that everywhere you look your taxes continue to go up.
This is the life many Americans live today.
Despite being in a recession state and federal governments continue to find ways to sneak new taxes into legislation to pay for their increased spending and entitlement programs. Americans are struggling enough as it is so why would taking more from their hard earned paychecks stimulate economic prosperity? It doesnt.
Illinois Governor Pat Quinn a Democrat proposed a 50 percent income tax hike and the Illinois Senate proposed a whopping 67 percent income tax hike. The plan did not make it to a House vote and the current budget would force the Illinois government to cut costs by $7 billion. Keep in mind these proposed hikes are on top of what Illinois residents already pay in federal income taxes.
In Arizona Republican governor Jan Brewer says her state budget is reaching a $4 billion shortfall. Instead of proposing budget cuts Brewer asked for a sales tax hike. To her credit Brewer is fighting for business tax cuts and a phase out of Arizonas state property tax but a tax hike no matter how small is not the way to stimulate spending in the economy.
Lets think back to our struggling family trying to pay those medical expenses for the senior members of their family. The federal government has a solution and if that phrase doesnt scare you enough then maybe the proposal of a value-added tax or VAT will.
I think a VAT and a high-end income tax have got to be on the table" said Sen. Kent Conrad D-N.D. in an interview with the Washington Post.
The VAT tax would go towards paying for better health care for all" which is Leftist code for socialized medicine for all."
Read more at http://www.americanissuesproject.org/blogs/columns/archive/2009/06/03/how-value-added-taxes-threaten-american-prosperity.aspx
*this story was originally written for the American Issues Project
