CHECK IT OUT FOR YOURSELF........ Tax Facts Every year an independent tax watch dog group analyzes the average tax
burden on Americans, and then calculates the"Tax Freedom Day". This is the day after which the money you earn goes to you, not the government. This year, tax freedom day was April 11th. That's the earliest it has been since 1991. It's latest day ever was May 2nd, which occurred in 2000. Notice anything special about those dates? Today John Kerry gave a speech in which he claimed Americans are actually paying more taxes under Bush, despite the taxcuts. He gave no explanation and provided no data for this claim. Another interesting fact: Both George Bush and John Kerry are wealthy men.Bush owns only one home, his ranch in Texas. Kerry owns 4 mansions, all worth several million dollars.(His ski resort home in Idaho is an old barn brought over from Europe in pieces. Not your average A-frame).Bush paid $250,000 in taxes this year; Kerry paid $90,000.Does that sound right? The man who wants to raise your taxes obviously has figured out a way to avoid paying his own.Pass this on. Only 202 days until the election.

Alright, I'll trust everything that you say about John Kerry.

as you should!

So, you'll trust everything I say about George Bush without me giving any factual evidence?

All of those properties except one are held in the name of his wife. I can be sure they file taxes seperately. So wherever those numbers came from misrepresented the situation a little. Yes he owns the properties (through marriage), but the income taxes reflect what he paid and doesn't include his wife. Also, I can't remember where she got her money (marriage or death), but many of the properties may have come through a trust. Or if from divorce then taxes have already been paid on the income to support those properties and there's no mortgage.

...and focus on the original comments about our tax burden dropping a bit. Any thoughts or comments?

Yeah sure the tax burden has gone down, today. Meanwhile the debt continues to grow. So in the future, the debt goes away because of

(a) a record-breaking economy generates trillions of unexpected tax revenue - both Kerry and Bush are counting on this

(b) the U.S. defaults on the debt, many people/countries are screwed

(c) they raise taxes in the future to pay off the debt, or install lots of new taxes on things like the internet, email, whatever

Bush has cut taxes, but he is lousy with spending. He spends money like a drunken sailor. And the thing that really kills me is who gets the money. The pharmacutical and insurance companies along with big business. I do not remember the specifics now, but there was something in the Medicare reform bill about billions to subsidies for major corporations to boost their underfunded retirement funds. Supposedly it would be an incentive to prevent large corporations from cutting the prescription drug portion of their retirement benefits once the medicare plan was in place. The got some bad press over it because there were loopholes that allowed the to cut the retirement benefits AND take the subsidy. Was it a poorly written, sloppy piece of legislation or a blatant kickback for political contributions? You decide.