Action America Analyzes New IRS Collections Data

The official IRS Collections Data for 2003 has just become available and Action America has published our annual analysis of that data in an article titled 1985-2003 IRS Collections Data by Income Category

Here is just a sample of what's in that report.

• The top-earning 1% of taxpayers earned 16.77% of the income.
• The top-earning 1% of taxpayers paid 34.27% of the tax collected.
• That's more than double their share, based upon income.

If nothing else, this report shows that the Bush tax cuts didn't benefit the rich, as liberals would have us believe. In fact, 2002 and 2003 were the first years since 1996 that the top-earning 1% paid more than double their share of taxes, based upon income. So in fact, the top earners paid a larger percentage of the taxes that were actually collected in the two years after the Bush tax cuts, than in the years leading up to those tax cuts.

But there is a lot more to it than just that. Check out the article for more analysis and a link to the actual data, in spreadsheet format, on the IRS web site. Afterwards, come back here and discuss it.

Note: Every year, between October and February, the IRS releases their most recent collections data. Because of the time it takes to complete collections and to compile the data, the released data is always about two years old.

Miers fails the acid test

Although many people suggest that Dubya's nomination of Harriet Miers represents an unknown quantity, to replace Justice O'Connor, we at Action America heartily disagree. While there are many qualifications that can be argued for a nominee to the Supreme Court, there is one disqualification that cannot be argued. It is sort of an "acid test" for any Supreme Court nominee and Miers clearly fails that test. That test can easily be expressed in one question and it is a question to which we already know the answer.

"Do you believe that the Constitution of the United States of America is and should be the supreme law of the land, subservient to NO outside law, precedent or legal trends?"

That's a pretty simple question that most people would think a Supreme Court nominee could answer only one way. "YES."

In fact, in 1998, when Miers was chairman of the Select Committee of the House of delegates of the American Bar Association, she supported the creation of the not-to-be-sufficiently-damned International Criminal Court (ICC) which, if recognized by the Supreme Court, would effectively make international law superior to our own Constitution, within our own borders. Supreme Court justices are sworn to uphold the Constitution, as the supreme law of the land. Yet, Miers believes that we need the ICC, which would, by definition, take precedence over our own laws.

Six Supreme Court justices have already cited foreign law, international law, international precedent or international legal trends in their written opinions, from the bench. One of those justices was just replaced by Justice Roberts. The retiring Justice O'Connor is another. The last thing that the Supreme Court needs is to replace her with yet another justice, who believes that foreign law should be superior to our Constitution, within our own borders.

Stacking the Court with such ideologues would lead the way to gun bans like those in England and other countries that now suffer increasing violent crime, as a result of the disarming of the public. It would lead to the forced recognition of homosexual marriage and requiring that vitamins become a controlled substance, as they are in many other countries, today. We would see significant loss of private property rights and individual privacy. Those are just a few of the targets of the ICC. In the end, we could kiss the entire Bill of Rights and most of the Constitution goodbye.

How would you like to have to abide by the laws of socialist countries like France and Germany. What about the laws of Botswana or Libya? By recognizing international trends and precedent, in their rulings, the Supreme Court could, in effect, circumvent the President and Congress, making official recognition of the ICC a moot point, as our own Supreme Court would be doing the will of that reprehensible body, in violation of our own Constitution and the will of the American people.

There are very few times that a single issue should be the deciding factor in an election or nomination. But in this case, the single issue is the Constitution of the United States of America and the individual is a nominee to the Supreme Court, whose primary job is to protect and uphold that Constitution. That single issue is not just an issue, but the whole set of issues, rolled into one. A nominee who thinks that any foreign law should be superior to our Constitution, should not be allowed to sit on any court in the US, even traffic court.

During his confirmation hearing, John Roberts said it best when characterizing the cherry-picking of foreign law to interpret the United States Constitution, as "a misuse of precedent." Miers is clearly on the opposite side of that position.

We must contact our US senators and demand that they oppose Miers' nomination. Republican senators, in particular, should be called upon to encourage Dubya to withdraw Miers' nomination. Such a person must not, under any circumstance, be confirmed to the Supreme Court.

Note: On the same subject, I encourage you to support the "Reaffirmation of American Independence Resolution" (H. Res. 97). Go to:

http://capwiz.com/sicminc/issues/alert/?alertid=8078481&type=CO