by Tom Blair
Columnist

Had enough politics? Yeah, me too, maybe some of those people that quit e-mailing and talking to us will start up again.

There’s a great video on YouTube of Johnny Carson playing the part of a politician running for office and giving a speech to the public; while being hooked up to a lie detector. It’s really funny, look it up and watch it.

I like the idea, wouldn’t it be refreshing knowing that whatever a candidate was talking about, we would hear the truth. Sad part is, if all our leaders would tell us the truth in government we’d end up with no leaders and we would have to start the next election.

Well, the Democrats and Obama cultists are happy now and if there is a “change” for the better, we could all be happy. Lower gas prices would always be an immediate thing to relieve everyone’s financial load and that in turn would help keep groceries from going up any more.

They blame gas prices for everything going up, but when the gas prices drop we still pay too much for the bread and beef. It’s still unbelievable when I am gassing up my car, I sometimes think about the fact that I am paying as much for a tank of gas as I did for my first used car. And then I am reminded that I paid more for the car I am driving than I did for my first house. What is really sad about our economy now is that Moms and Dads both have to work to be able to survive.

More taxes from the rich? Is it going to solve our problems? Well, here’s some information from Forbes: “If we take a closer look at the top 0.1% of earners, their average adjusted gross income in 2009 was $4.4 million and their average tax bill was $1.07 million. Included in this group were 137,982 tax returns. Their total tax bill was $147.6 billion. Several sources indicate that the average income range for Secretary III’s and Administrative Assistants is between $38,000 and $43,000, and that there are 4.3 million secretaries and administrative assistants in the U.S. (www.bis.gov). Using the average 5.6% tax rate for the taxpayers in the top 25%-50% of earners, each secretary on the average pays between $2,128 and $2,408 in taxes.

So what do the facts tell us? First, the average taxpayer in the top 0.1% of all earners (the group which includes the vast majority of millionaires and billionaires) and pays a tax rate over four (4) times that of an average secretary. Second, the average taxpayer in the top 0.1% of all earners pays as much in taxes as 444 secretaries (the income of these top 0.1% earners is about 102 times the income of the average secretary). Third, if one raised the tax rate paid by these 137,982 tax payers to 30% (as is being proposed in the so-called Buffet rule), it would take over 43 years of collecting this additional tax revenue to just equal the Federal budget deficit for one year, 2011.

Somewhere we are going to have to cut something, or a lot of something’s. The politicians just keep getting fatter salaries, benefits and health care and we go backwards. I just think it’s time for some of them to start feeling the pinch we all are feeling. THEN there would REALLY be change.

Tom “Road” Blair

Website: www.tomroadblair.com