For Immediate Release Monday, March 9, 2015
Senators Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and Mike Lee (R., Utah) – lauded among Republican politicians as two of their more ‘fiscally conservative’ members – proposed numerous changes to the federal income tax for which most working taxpayers would see little if any benefit.
Their proposal creates two federal income tax brackets: 15% for earnings under $75,000 and a whopping 35% for earnings over $75,000 for taxpayers filing singly. It also eliminates most deductions, notably the standard deduction and state and local taxes, while granting a new tax credit, a larger credit for taxpayers with children and various benefits for investors and businesses.
While the plan includes positive measures, such as ending the death tax, it leaves the federal tax burden dangerously high.
‘This is what leaders within the GOP – which now holds majorities in both the U.S. House and Senate – have to offer?’ asked Nicholas Sarwark, Chair of the Libertarian National Committee. ‘It keeps the federal tax burden at over $3 trillion and climbing, up from the dangerously high level of $2.1 trillion when Obama took office. The biggest winner in this proposal is Big Government.’
‘We need bold tax cuts with big benefits to a majority of taxpayers,’ said Sarwark. ‘This will create the mandate we need for real spending cuts; elimination of wasteful, unneeded and destructive government programs, wars, and bureaucracies; and much lower total tax revenue – which is a good thing for the private sector economy.’
‘The Republican plan would do nothing to reduce federal deficits or federal spending,’ Sarwark continued. ‘How about doing what many Libertarian candidates propose instead: ending the federal income tax altogether , balancing the budget, and cutting trillions of dollars in wasteful federal spending. Think of how many hours of tax filing that would save.’
Dropping everyone’s federal income tax rate to zero while balancing the budget only requires rolling back federal spending to the level of 1998 – near the end of the Clinton administration, which conservatives then called ‘Big Government.’ This leaves more than enough to provide a strong national defense — and dramaticallymore than enough to fulfill all constitutional functions of the federal government.
Rubio is one of the GOP’s leading presidential hopefuls and delivered the Republican response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address in 2013.
Mike Lee is one of the new ‘Tea Party’ Republicans in the Senate.
‘Ending the income tax, balancing the budget, and cutting total federal spending accordingly will put an average of $11,525 back into the budget of every American household. It pours $1.4 trillion into the productive, private sector economy. That’s stimulus!’ Sarwark said. ‘Vote Libertarian, end the income tax, and put money back into your budget.’
