Another Tax Day Has Come And Gone

The dreaded April 15 has come and gone once again. And with it again this year went another chance for meaningful reform.

On Tuesday - tax deadline day - Congress failed to muster the needed votes to pass the Tax Limitation Amendment. The constitutional amendment would have required a two-thirds vote of each house of Congress to pass a federal tax increase.

Sounded like a good idea to me.

It also sounded like a good idea to both of our U.S. representatives. Tim Roemer, D-South Bend, and Steve Buyer, R-Monticello, voted in favor of the amendment. Good for them.

Requiring a two-thirds majority to pass a federal tax increase would have a huge impact on your tax bill.

In the past 30 years there have been 16 big votes in Congress to raise our taxes. Most of those were passed by slender margins.

Take the $275 billion tax hike passed in 1993 by the Clinton administration. It passed in the House by just one vote. A tie in the Senate required Vice President Al Gore to vote. Guess we all know how he voted.

All told, somewhere around $660 billion in taxes have been passed by less than a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress.

The vote on the Tax Limitation Amendment went mostly along party lines - Republicans voting for and Democrats voting against.

Democrats said the amendment was just a gimmick, a hoax perpetrated on the taxpayer on tax deadline day. They also said the amendment could damage the budget process.

Let's think about that for a moment. How could it damage the budget process? Mainly, I suppose, because they would have less of our money to spend. But I think that's a positive, not a negative.

The amendment had the potential to fundamentally change government principles. As Rep. Thomas DeLay, R-Texas, said, "This isn't only about keeping a lid on the taxes that American people pay, it's about shrinking the size and power of the federal government."

What could be wrong with shrinking the size and power of the federal government? Why vote against that?

And aside from the fundamental "big-government, small-government argument," there's always the "we are just taxed too darn much" argument.

Let's take the average two-earner family in the United States with a median income of $57,000.

The Heritage Foundation reports the federal tax bite alone claims 25 percent of this family's income - about $15,241. That's up from 3 percent in 1948, by the way. When you add state and local taxes, the percentage climbs to 40 percent - about $21,883.

That same family spends around $8,605 on housing and household expenses, $5,243 on food, $3,647 on transportation and $2,109 on clothing. Add all those things up and our average family spends $19,605 on living expenses.

That's a couple thousand dollars more for taxes than living expenses. That's twisted.

Of course all Americans have a duty to pay taxes. But 40 percent seems a bit extreme.

And it probably wouldn't bother most people if they thought they were getting the most for their tax dollars. But most people don't.

In fact, many people view the current state of affairs in government with disdain. Government programs generally are not efficient and effective.

The Internal Revenue Service itself has 140,000 employees and costs $14 billion to operate. That's 14 billion tax dollars.

Why? Because the tax code has literally become a monster. The IRS publishes 480 tax forms and sends out 8 million pages of forms and instructions each year.

Maybe next time around Congress will view the issue differently and vote for the Tax Limitation Amendment.

Maybe someday they will get the simple message. We are not taxed too little. They spend too much.