How is Kerry Going to Fund His Programs? Some Speculations

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To raise revenues without raising taxes on anyone, all Kerry has to do is fund and empower the IRS, the SEC, the FTC, and the EPA. These agencies have been significantly weakened and compromised by Bush, and the result is wealthy people and corporations are cheating and buying their way out of paying their fair share.

Partisan Republican shills attacking Kerry and honest swing voters often ask, "Where is Kerry going to get the money for his programs? If he is only going to raise taxes on those making over $200K/yr., that will not increase revenue enough to fund his proposals." Even factcheck.org has raised this concern.

I do not have any inside line into Kerry's plans, but I can speculate and come up with a few ways he could dramatically increase federal revenues while keeping his promise not to raise taxes of people making less than $200K/yr.

The two ways I can think of are better collection of current tax receivables (Bush has been very negligent here) and changes in corporate tax code (nothing in the promise about not raising taxes on CORPORATIONS, only about not raising taxes on PEOPLE earning less than $200K.)

The first tactic, ENFORCEMENT and COLLECTION of the current tax receivables is a no brainier because Bush has been deliberately dropping the ball and covering it up on this one. Bush has gutted and severely constrained the IRS. By under funding the agency, he has sharply limited their ability to perform audits. They are short on manpower, computer equipment, funding, and resources in general.

The result of this dis-empowering of the IRS is that they cannot investigate cases of massive personal and corporate tax fraud. When they do perform audits, they are forced to go after low-income tax payers who cannot afford accountants and attorneys to fight the audits. This fact alone is a tragic injustice. They are auditing only people who are too poor to contest the audits, because they do not have the resources to respond to a rich person trying to buy their way out of paying their fair share of taxes! Low-income taxpayers are not typically the ones who cheat and underpay taxes by large dollar amounts.

By simply investing in a major revamp to the IRS and enabling them to go after wealth tax evaders, the government could collect billions of dollars in additional revenue without raising ANYONE'S taxes. It would simply be a matter of collecting taxes that are owed under the current tax structure but are being avoided or evaded by wealthy taxpayers with slick accountants and tax attorneys.

Further, Bush is also gutting, under funding, and disempowering the SEC and the FTC. Again, by simply investing in the infrastructures and empowering these agencies to go after fraud and corruption, much revenue could be captured that our government is currently being cheated out of.

Kerry has already alluded to “closing corporate tax loopholes that reward sending jobs overseas”. This is a very broad statement, but there is much potential for additional revenue here. By closing dozens of other corporate tax loopholes and neutralizing corporate tax avoidance, billions could be collected, again without raising taxes on ANYONE, even those earning over $200K/yr.

Another potential source of revenue is another agency that should be acting for our protection, but has been gutted, under funded, and dis-empowered by the Bush Administration: the EPA. By restoring regulations on polluters back to their pre-2000 status, and aggressively enforcing fines for non-compliance, monies could be collected without raising taxes and our air and water would be cleaner as well.

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1. He brought down BCCI! I have all the confidence in the world

he can make this happen.

The corporate-owned Repugs (and Dems, let's be fair) in Congress will be hard pressed to refuse to give increased enforcement powers to, in particular, teh SEC.

The taxpayers and voters will NOT like their refusal one tiny bit.