House Democrats On FISA, Taxes

I heard part of an interview this morning that I thought was important to pass along to you.  It was with Congressman Sam Graves (Missouri 6th District), and he was talking about the recent events in the House of Representatives.  The Republicans successfully maneuvered the House into a rare secret session (if I recall correctly, the last time this was done was something like 1825) to hash out this FISA reform bill.  Graves talked about how there was a lot of argument, but that nothing was really resolved.  He mentioned the Democrats' strenuous fight against the telephone company immunity, and pointed out that they truly don't understand the nature of terrorism - they think it's a minor problem, and that not giving the tools to our people in the field isn't a big deal.  He also mentioned they had reservations about privacy, but didn't really go into details.  Personally, I think the whole privacy bit is simply a misleading term that gets thrown around a lot as a smokescreen for the real issue.  After all, we're not talking about American citizens here - this wiretapping would be done ONLY on known or suspected terrorists outside the U.S.  If you're an American citizen here at home, your privacy wouldn't be affected at all.  Duh.

Graves also talked about the budget that the House just passed by a margin of 212-207.  He voted against it because it included the largest tax increase in history.  He put things in perspective this way: up till now, the largest tax increase in American history was signed into law by Bill Clinton (another Democrat? what a shocker!) in 1993, and it was an increase of $240 billion.  This Democrat-led budget holds an increase of roughly $670 billion, three times more than the previous record!  Graves nailed it on the head: Washington has a major, major spending problem!  He also put it in terms of real people.  He said that the Democrats are calling this tax increase an increase on the 'rich', but the reality is that this increase will hit the middle class by far the hardest.  He said that it would affect people making as little as $31,000 a year (this matches with another report I read a few days ago), and it would have the net effect of making them pay an additional $1,800 a year!

Here's another bit of perspective that I would add to Graves' comments.  In 2006, the median American household income was $48,201.  For a family of four, the federal poverty level was around $21,000.  Put these numbers together, and what do you have?  The Democrat tax plan would hammer people making closer to the poverty level than the median income level!  Now, let me ask you: how is this taxing the 'rich'??

This is how the Democrats operate, people - take it from a man who is in the trenches fighting against them on a daily basis.  They are misrepresenting the largest tax increase in American history (three times bigger than the previous record), hosing the middle and lower class making as little as $31,000 a year, forcing you to pay another $1,800 a year in taxes.

If that sounds good to you, vote Democrat.

For those of us who are rational and think our money is better off in our own pocket than Congress' pocket, call your Senators and the White House and tell them to stop voting you a tax increase you don't want.

There's my two cents.