As you prepare your federal income tax return — or in my case, as I gulped hard last night at my CPA’s office when I saw the amount of federal income tax my husband and I paid last year — remember that if you pay, you are part of the shrinking number of Americans who pay the freight in this entitlement society. The chart that accompanies this piece will stun you. And yet, liberals whine about the “need” for even more government programs and services — paid for by fewer and fewer people. Truly scary that we could be poised to put even more Americans on the public dole. You don’t have to be an economist to predict what that means for those of us who actually pay the bills.
“One of the most worrying trends in the Index is the coinciding growth in the non-taxpaying public,” wrote Heritage authors Bill Beach and Patrick Tyrrell. “The percentage of people who do not pay federal income taxes, and who are not claimed as dependents by someone who does pay them, jumped from 14.8 percent in 1984 to 49.5 percent in 2009.”
That means 151.7 million Americans paid nothing in 2009. By comparison, 34.8 million tax filers paid no taxes in 1984.
