Taxpayer Equity

November 14, 2008

For many years, I have agonized over the issues of “fairness” and “equity.” These concepts used to be included in the Constitution and in our Canon of Law. Over the years, my “agony,” like that of so many others, has morphed into anger, even rage, at a government that so brazenly breaks every trust it has ever had with the American people. Presidents Senior Bush and Clinton and even a Democratic and grudging Republican Congress worked so hard to balance the budget and save the Social Security Fund. During Clinton’s years, he actually managed to keep over one hundred fifty billion dollars in the Social Security Fund. Since then (and before) the government has raided our fund and “stolen” trillions of dollars from us- money never intended to be paid back.

Two hundred billion dollars yearly in overpayments for Medicare laboratory, drugs and oxygen/durable goods, no competitive bidding, thousands of inflated no-bid contracts, trillions stolen by the privatization of government jobs at ten times the cost, the list of crimes goes on and on ad nauseum. The American taxpayers stand agape, beyond anger, so frustrated that we have given up.

Recently, however, with the collapse of the economy, the massive loss of jobs (over 1 million in just this year), and the Junior Bush administration’s lack of response, people have again, finally reconstituted their righteous indignation! What the American taxpayer needs is to maintain its anger and contain it, use it. Understand, as I do, that anger, directed properly, “makes the world go round.”

Now, add to our chronic misuse of our tax dollars, the massive “Rescue Package,” the ungodly odious huge pork package prepared by the 600 million dollar man, Hank Paulson, and a corrupt and totally incompetent Congress. Add to this package the fact that there is nothing to prevent golden parachutes or using all of the money for bonuses and dividends, virtually none for rescue of home loans. Add Paulson’s illegal reversal of Tax Code Section 382, now allowing banks to steal an extra 140 billion dollars in tax deductions (done in “the middle of the night” to hide his crime from Congress).

Why not gather a group of actuaries, calculate the amount of social security funds stolen from each individual by the federal government; calculate the amount stolen by Paulson and the Congress for bonuses and dividends, any funds not used for loans- calculate that taxpayer’s share and deduct it from each person’s income tax. If enough people do this and can document what is owed them by the government, the IRS cannot prosecute so many people. What’s more, what jury, themselves victimized by the same evil means, will convict “one of its own?”

Allen Finkelstein, D.O.