Class warfare and taxes | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    The Anointed One continues to denigrate the so called "rich". He doesn't seem to believe it's fair that they pay only about 37% (2009 IRS data - latest I could find) ) of all federal income taxes while the bottom 50% of the populace pays a total of 2% of the income tax and somewhere near 46% pay no income tax. It is certainly easy to agree with the notion that it is an unfair situation. The disagreement is over to whom the "unfairness" applies. The top 1% of taxpayers or the so called "poor" who seem to be getting a free ride on the tax band wagon. When folks suggest it is the 46%, his sycophants counter with their standard misdirection about the bottom 46% paying sales taxes, FICA taxes, property taxes and the like, but misdirection will not work forever. It simply no longer flies. None of those taxes substitute for income tax, and that's all there is to it.

    Do you suppose if he is successful in getting more out of the rich and redistributing it to the "poor", they will be able to send their 12 year olds to Mexico for spring break (Easter Vacation??). Up till now, I always thought spring break in Mexico (or a lot of the Florida beaches) was only for the college kids whose student loans would soon be in default and in need of being forgiven (which will be a lot easier to do now that the Govt. is in direct charge of them). Where the money came from to pay for these college kids' reveling in FL or Mexico remains a mystery. Surely not out of their student loan money. Hmmm... But I digress... Middle school kids?? Easter vacation in Mexico? Wow...

    What is really weird is how much the Prez "bad mouths" the so called rich which certainly makes we "poor folks" want to force them to pay more in income taxes so the government can improve our standard of living. Surely the so called "rich" include those folks that can afford the $38,000 price of "breaking bread" with him, which certainly implies that he is telling us that a great many of his financial backers are not paying nearly enough in taxes (which, for a change, is probably true). What seems incongruous is that they continue to pay up - almost on command - for the dining privilege. We can only wonder what he tells them "in private" to keep them coming back checkbook in hand. Remember the "guns and Bibles" comments to the "swells" in Marin County and the recent "open mike" comments to Mr. Medvedev about wanting Mr. Putin to know that he will have "more latitude" (presumably to "work" with Mr. Putin) after the election.

    Do you suppose that all those folks who continue to respond to the $38,000 bread breaking inherited their money?? Otherwise it seems rather incongruous that the very folks he continues to "bad mouth" continue to hand over so much money to him. Surely anyone who actually "earned" their money in "real jobs" (stay at home mothers need not apply) would have more respect for their money than that. At least you would think so...

    Of course it would seem clear that Mr. Putin would certainly want the Anointed One to be reelected. Perhaps if he would register in Chicago (or wherever Mr no photo ID required Holder votes)... Of course there are a lot of other folks (hopefully, enough) who would like to see the Anointed One find himself with a lot of time on is hands after the next election and even more latitude to pursue whatever he wants to do than even he envisions.. Of course if this latter group has their way, Mr. Putin may not be terribly interested. in further interactions with him. In that eventuality, the newly "Un-anointed One" will likely have plenty of time to occupy himself with his Presidential Library (or whatever). Regardless, sooner of later it will be interesting to see where he decides to put it: Hawaii??, Chicago??; Indonesia?? Hmmm.....

    Apparently there are a lot of folks who are more interested in downloading music and movies and ball games than there are interested in checking to see what percentage of his income went to taxes. At least there don't seem to be many commenting on the Anointed One's tax return As it turns out, he paid about 20% of his income in taxes, which is surely a lower marginal rate than his secretary paid. That puts him in the same situation as Mr. Buffett. and leaves us wondering why neither of them didn't do the "fair thing" and up their payment to at least match their secretaries'. In the meantime, we are left to wonder why Mr. Buffett continues his feud with the IRS over approx $1M in back taxes he (his company Berkshire Hathaway) allegedly owes the government. You would think that an individual who continues to fan the flames over increasing taxes on the rich would be setting a better example than that. Well, wouldn't you?? And why do you suppose we haven't heard even a "peep" about this from the Prez?? Or, as seems to be true with most other things the Prez. wants to do, "fairness" only applies to the rest of us (generally excepting his largest contributors and biggest bundlers). More crony capitalism at work??

    One of the things that saved the Anointed One on his taxes was his $172,130 contribution to charity (on the order of 20%). There were probably a dozen or more charities to which he contributed. The Prez and his wife deserve an "attaboy" for their generosity - which is more than can be said for his Veep, who manages to contribute $5,540 or a little less than 1.5% of his $379,035 AGI to charity.

    Do you suppose the Prez ' increased his contributions to the 20% figure in 2011 (after suffering an almost 50% reduction in income from 2010) to avoid any unfavorable comparisons with the candidate who will most likely be opposing him in the upcoming election. (The Prez' 2010 contributions equaled about 14% of his $1,728,096. AGI. In 2009 the figure was on the order of 5.9% of his $5,505,409. AGI, and in 2008 it was on the order of 6.4%of his $2,656,902. AGI.)

    At least his contributions were on the "up and up"(Another "attaboy"). Several years ago, when the Clintons made as I recall three years of their returns available to the public, it wasn't even remotely so. The Clintons included a one page "cover sheet" outlining the "important" items. That made it easy for the media to analyze, and, of course, they did take the "easy" road.. They didn't bother to muck their way through the incomprehensible deluge of numbers to make any sense of the returns. They focused on the summary and duly reported on what they found there. One of the things the Clintons hi-lighted in their summary was the fact that over the three year period, they had contributed a fairly high percentage of their income to various charities. The first two year's returns were prepared by a CPA in the D.C. area. He lumped all the contributions into a single line and called it "Various Charities" so it was impossible to determine the beneficiaries of their giving. After having to file amended returns (claiming "clerical errors) covering those first two years of the three they made public, and about the time that they moved to NY (so Hillary could run for Congress - or was it the Presidency??), they switched to a NY based CPA for their tax preparation. This individual wasn't quite as "cagey" as the DC area CPA (but he apparently did get the return correct on the first try). The NY CPA identified each of the charities to which they had contributed. Actually, it was a pretty short list. It was a total of one. And guess what that one was. If you said the William J. Clinton Foundation go to the head of the class because you would be right. That year they gave their total contribution to themselves and it was still deductible as a charitable contribution. Had they donated even $5 to a group like the American Red Cross, they could have identified their contributions as "various" and kept their "sleight of hand" under the radar. But they didn't. There probably wasn't anything "Illegal" about what they did, but do you suppose anyone would question the ethics involved?? Another qualifying factor for the Anointed One's administration??

    D'ya think??