PAYING TAXES

People keep complaining that millionaires pay 70 percent of the taxes that are collected in America and that millions of people pay absolutely nothing.  Why is this happening?  For the last decade businesses have been outsourcing all of the jobs in the US to China and India.  Corporations are sucking all of the money from the working people and also from the middle class by sending their jobs elsewhere.  People are now living on low wage jobs and even minimum wage jobs.  They are not able to support their families on these jobs; so they have to work two or even three jobs to make ends meet.  College graduates have had to move back in with their parents in order to survive.  Then what happened?  The banks and Wall Street together brought down the entire world economy!  We have had the worst depression/recession since 1929.  It is world wide.  All of Europe is a disaster zone.  At this point in time one third of the American people are living in poverty!  Forty million Americans are not paying taxes, because they are not even earning enough money to feed their children. 

The economy has not been this bad in 70-80 years.  It is not Obama's fault.  The Bush Administration felt compelled to bail out the banks and Wall Street in order to prevent the situation from becoming a total catastrophe. Now the banks and Wall Street have gone on their merry way paying each other enormous bonuses.  Meanwhile, the rest of America is struggling. 

Now we are asking how to pay the bills.  The millionaires say that even if they pay more taxes it won't be enough, therefore, the poor have to pay the taxes.  Well, you can't squeeze money out of a turnip.  Millionaires such as Mitt Romney pay less than 15% in taxes.  That is a lower percentage than most of us pay.  It is not unfair to ask them to pay a higher percentage of their money in taxes.  Corporations often pay nothing in taxes.  It is certainly time for them to pay up.  Cutting education for our children is simply assuring us that there will be no future for them.  That is not the answer.  Cutting health care and letting people die is unconscionable.

Enter the military.  We spend more money on the military than every other country in the world combined. We spend sixty percent of our money for the military.  We have become far too militaristic.  If we cannot afford to feed and educate our children, then it is time to take the money out of the military budget.  We all know that the military wastes enormous amounts of money on impossible weapons that never get off the ground.  "Stars Wars" is a perfect example of that.  The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost us a fortune.  We were told that the oil in Iraq would pay for the war.  Instead the war cost us three trillion dollars.  We are still fighting in Afghanistan.  We have to take a different approach to fighting terrorism.  Going to war with another country is not the answer.  There are terrorists in every country of the world.  We have to seek out the individuals in each country who are creating the problems.  Going to war with the entire country is pointless.  The military budget should be cut by fifty percent.  I do not mean that soldiers should not be paid or that wounded and disabled troops should not have medical care.  The cuts need to come from the weapons programs.  This is the only solution to our problems.