Fax to OK Senator Tom Coburn

Fax to Senator Tom Coburn (R, OK) at 202-xxx-yyyy

Senator Coburn, you recently made a fine speech to the Senate describing a proposed bill, stating how much $ each of 22 sections of the bill would require, questioning the value of the proposed objective.. You opened you wanted to “...make sure the American people know what is in this bill... once they know what is in this bill, they would reject it out of hand.”

'Rejection' should consist of voters electing representatives who would realize how laughable the objectives and costs of the various items in the bill are. Unfortunately that link was broken with the Current Tax Payment act of 1943, removing the responsibility of actually sending in real money to the feds from the voters to their employers. Employers weren't happy with this, but in contrast to individuals, employers have no competitive advantage to do anything other than add all those dollars to their prices, converting the income tax to a silent, apparently painless, national sales tax.

The results of this political parlor trick are clearly visible in the 2011 Statistical Abstract of the United States table 478 showing 37% of the total 2009 federal income of $2.345 trillion coming from employer bank accounts, not voter's.

You concluded 
hoping “... somebody is listening who will treat the pneumonia we are faced with today, which is the housing and mortgage markets. It doesn't matter how much money we spend in this bill. It is doomed to failure unless we fix that problem first.”

Returning the responsibility of sending in actual money to the feds needs only a majority of the House of reps, 60 Senators, and a President with backbone enough to change the US Tax code from "every employer making payment of wages shall deduct and withhold upon such wages a tax..." to "every employer making payment of wages shall pay all of those wages to the employee...."

Employers could still calculate the tax, replacing the “you earned and your employer paid” cliché with a clear “Here is how much the feds are expecting you to send in this month.”

Requiring voters to send in a check for 20% of their take home pay every month would quickly suggest to them who they should elect to Federal office.

Arnold H Nelson