75-02-A3
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Surprise Tax Bills
TranscriptIf you thought all your bills had already arrived this month, I have a surprise for you. I'll be right back. If you've been bothered by the high cost of everything and the bills piling up on your desk, I've got news for you. You owe another bill. It's exactly one hundred and fourteen thousand eight hundred and eighteen dollars. That's your share of the total amount that the United States government is in hock and your share this year is up thirteen thousand dollars from just last year. Across the board, these obligations ranging from the national debt to international commitments have U.S. taxpayers on the hook for at least five trillion dollars. It's not stopping there. There isn't any law in the books that says that there's a ceiling on the percentage of the people's income the government can take to run its affairs. There ought to be, but there isn't. So all kinds of special interests managed to buttonhole enough Congressmen to add new and exotic spending programs, to add to the burden of all of us, the burden we're already carrying. Today it's costing the taxpayers fifty seven thousand dollars per minute just to pay the interest on the national debt. You're going to spend the months from January to May, working to pay all the taxes you owe, hidden and direct, not only that the whole tax system has become so complex that you need to hire a lawyer and an accountant to tell you how much you owe, that's because bureaucracy has a language all its own and no ordinary citizen can understand it. Let me read you a few lines from the internal revenue code, which is supposed to help you figure out your income tax. "Section 509: for purposes of paragraph three, an organization described in paragraph two shall be deemed to include an organization described in section 501c sub-paragraphs four, five, and six, which would be described in paragraph two if there were organizations described in section 501c3." We live in the only country in the world where it takes more sense to figure out your income tax than it does to earn the income. It may take a long time to get rid of that kind of gobbledy-gook, considering the size and strength of the federal bureaucracy, but one citizens group is set out to put that needed lid on government spending. The National Taxpayers Union is setting out to work for enactment of a new constitutional amendment that would prohibit the federal government from taking more than 25 percent of the income of the citizenry. In California, while I was governor, we set out to do that with state taxes. Set a limit on the amount of the people's income that state government could take. Enough people signed an initiative petition to put it on the ballot. It would have required the legislature to set priorities instead of pushing every conceivable spending program dreamed up. They would have had to decide which ones could be afforded, given the ceiling on spending that would have been set. There were provisions for special emergencies and an opportunity to go to the people for a direct vote on raising the limit. The measure didn't pass. Those groups that rely most on unlimited government spending, the bureaucrats and other public employees, those who have their snout in the public trough, managed to sow enough confusion with the California voters that the measure fell short of passage. Since then, though some 11 other states have the measure under consideration and it's refreshing to find this national citizens group going to work on an idea whose time will soon be here. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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