The Money You Steal From Me

From Hill Buzz:

A Constituent’s Letter to John Lewis

To Mr. Lewis,

My husband and I are the first people in our families to graduate from college (on scholarship to West Point). Yes, we’re black, so no you can’t write us off as racists. We’ve worked hard, served our country on 4 different continents, and are finally at a place where we are each earning six figure incomes. We own our own family business in addition to working full time, and all I ever hear you say or do is to our detriment. You and the rest of the federal government already take HALF of our earnings in taxes/Social Security/etc. After we pay for Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and countless other government programs you keep voting for, we have 50% of our hard earned dollars left. Out of that 50% we have left, we have to buy our own health insurance, our own 401k (because even though we’ve paid over $100,000 into the SSA, we’ll never see it), our own groceries, our ever increasing property taxes, and our own charitable giving.

Through a lot of prayer and hard work, we are debt free and operating in the black….unlike you’ve done with the other half of our money. You and Obama (who you’ve voted with literally every time) have run up our debt in less than a year and a half more than every other president in history combined. And you have the gall to try to say that it’s for my own good. Not only is it not good for me, I have to fight you and your policies every day of my life just to try to take care of my family/business. And yet I hear you say time and again that I’m not doing my fair share. I want you to explain to me how my husband and I are not doing our fair share. We are doing exponentially more than our “fair share.” Over 45% of the people in this country (and I’d wager a significantly higher percentage of those in the 5th) pay NOTHING AT ALL in taxes. Nothing. And as if that insult weren’t already making my blood boil, now you are trying to adjourn and come home to try to get re-elected (I hope and pray you and your entitlement policies get voted out of office) without voting on the record about whether to extend my tax cuts, provided me by President Bush (who has done more for me than you ever did). In an economy that is already the worst its been in my lifetime, we are waiting to make business decisions for 2011 because we don’t know what the tax penalties will be. And if you don’t extend the Bush tax cuts, my family will be paying 60%ish of our income to you. IT’S RIDICULOUS AND UNACCEPTABLE for you to keep taxing me to death for trying to live the American Dream that is my birthright.

I want to know 1) what you think my fair share of taxes is (80%? 100%? Why not just go to work all day and then go to the food line to get bread and toilet paper from the government? Is that what you want?). 2) Why you are scared to vote for raising my taxes right before you come home to try to get re-elected 3) How on earth you sleep at night when you are leading America to live on credit (doesn’t work for my family or yours, yet you think it should be fine for America) while we responsible Americans not only do our “fair share,” we drag the rest of you along as well. I’d love to get your irresponsible spending, ill-conceived policies, and all the succubus non-taxpayers who keep living off the dole off my family’s back. They can work their way through school, pay off student loans, work hard working multiple jobs, and live the American Dream just like we did. I shouldn’t have to pay their way because they chose not to do so.

My husband and I grew up in the Atlanta public school system with single moms and all the odds stacked against us…and we made it. And we’re both disabled veterans as a result of that journey, who would gladly do it all again. Don’t you dare tell us we are not doing our fair share. And I don’t want some canned form letter some staffer sends to try to get rid of me. I want a real response from you as to my concerns…after all, I am your employer. I have the right to hire you, fire you, and your paycheck is paid with the money you steal from me. I want answers.

I have only this to add:

Read more at Fenn Little for Congress