The above chart is based on data from 2006, so the numbers are certainly different now. No doubt, the "tax gap" (the difference between tax money owed, and tax money collected; ie, the amount people don't pay that they should, by under-reporting, cheating, or just not doing it) undoubtedly is no longer bigger than the deficit. Still, it's real money. So, guess what -- and be sure you're sitting down for this. (Well, actually, I think we already knew; but still...) The current crop of Congressional Rs voted down legislation to make it easier for the government to collect the funds already owed. Not to raise taxes. To collect the taxes owed.
Not too long ago, there were signs that policymakers of both parties recognized this. The Bush Administration pushed successfully for new withholding requirements on government contractors on the heels of troubling Government Accountability Office investigations showing widespread tax abuse. Then, in the 2010 health reform law, the Obama Administration teamed up with congressional Democrats to tighten reporting requirements on certain business transactions. These were two modest but real steps forward.
The current Congress, however, repealed both measures.
What possible justification can there be?
Just add this to the stinking pile of teabagger outrages. Without fear of reprisal from their fully-indoctrinated supporters, Rs continue to spit in the faces of everyone but the most wealthy among us. It's simply beyond understanding: not just that they're so blatant about it, so proudly willing to see to it that there's no money left (except, of course, for a bloated military) for even the most basic of needs to secure our future; but that their "base" (in both meanings of the term) -- the ones who aren't millionaires, who need public schooling and decent roads and health care and who'd benefit from research, from cutting energy costs -- are completely willing to let it happen.
So complete is their brainwashing by the RWS™ and Fox "news," so overwhelming is their ginned-up hatred of Barack Obama, based on lies swallowed whole, that they've been made blind and deaf to the reality of what's happening. I've said it a million times, and, as the election approaches, I'll be saying it more, unless rendered mute by what I see. It's another planet, another universe, another reality, based on no reality. Simply astonishing.
So complete is their brainwashing by the RWS™ and Fox "news," so overwhelming is their ginned-up hatred of Barack Obama, based on lies swallowed whole, that they've been made blind and deaf to the reality of what's happening. I've said it a million times, and, as the election approaches, I'll be saying it more, unless rendered mute by what I see. It's another planet, another universe, another reality, based on no reality. Simply astonishing.
