WEALTH AND TAXES

By Kermit C. Moss

As stated before, the opinion here at this keyboard is that if the gross and increasing concentration of wealth in the United States is not checked or reversed, it will lead to the end of our great democracy!

Here are a few of the startling facts:

1. The top 20% own 80% of all wealth.

2. The top l% own over half of all non-household wealth.

3. The top 10% of families own 85% of all financial securities, and 90% of all business
    assets.

As to taxes, the Bush 43 administration, through the reduction of taxes on the wealthy and the deregulation of big business, has caused this concentration of wealth to be increasing at an increasing rate. Citizens for Tax Justice* in a report dated August 10, 2007, states that newly released IRS data show that the special low taxes on capital gains and dividends, enacted or expanded under Bush, reduced income tax payments for year 2005 by $91.7 million.

Further, almost 75% of those reductions went to the 0.6 percent of taxpayers reporting 2005 adjusted gross income in excess of $500,000. The half of taxpayers reporting gross income of less than $30,000 received virtually nothing from these tax cuts!

Yet, here we are spending over $12 billion per month in Iraq, while the U. S. infrastructure is badly, and sadly, deteriorated, many Americans are going without needed health care, and public education needs improvement.

WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE?

Kermit C. Moss
PO Box 1136
Monticello, AR 71657

PH 870-367-2486 - office
870-367-7034 - home

August 11th, 2007


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