2007 Cost Of Government Day Press Conference

Statement By James L. Martin

Washington, DC – “Good afternoon. My name is Jim Martin and I’m head of the 15-year-old national seniors’ group, the 60 Plus Association. My hat is off to Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) in its relentless pursuit to shrink big, bloated government!

As noted, July 11th represents the 192nd day that the workers of America, if paid up front, forked over their entire income to big, bloated government. Amazing! We work longer for the government than we do for our families!

The cost of government is shouldered by all taxpayers…but none feel the pain as much as seniors on fixed incomes.

Let me suggest a way that would reduce the tax load:

Congress should repeal my pet peeve, the dratted death tax, something we’ve advocated for 15 years. They say a tax should have some socially redeeming value. In other words, it should provide a benefit. The death tax has none whatsoever. None, zero, zilch. As a matter of fact, Bill Beach at the Heritage Foundation, concludes that killing the death tax would benefit workers, that leaving these tax monies with their owners would produce more jobs via creating new businesses and expanding existing ones — more jobs means more tax revenues, not less.

And to those weirdos who say abolishing the death tax is a tax break for the likes of Paris Hilton — give me a break — she and her family aren’t affected. Haven’t these whackos heard of the Hilton Foundation?

Better yet, Professor Edward McCaffery of the University of Southern California said in testimony before the Senate a few years ago, “I’m an unrequited liberal and I’ve changed my mind on the death tax. We should give serious thought to repealing it. As economic studies show, it’s a hindrance to job expansion, which helps workers all across America.” The liberal professor said the death tax is a tax liberals should hate — I didn’t know there was such an animal!

Big government needs some serious pruning! A friend – – Fred Smith – – has suggested that if you took an axe to the tree of big government there’s so much waste it would take a week or more to hit solid wood.

To that end I testified before Congress more than 10 years ago about what one newspaper editorialized as a $39 billion dollar ‘dirty little secret’ – – tax payers’ dollars that fund more than two dozen organizations who politic exclusively for one political party – – a misuse of tax dollars that Thomas Jefferson has described as ‘both sinful and tyrannical.’ I’ll give you three guesses –the first two don’t count – -as to which Seniors Group headed the list (AARP).

Unfortunately that $39 billion dollar ‘dirty little secret’ has grown by another grotesque amount, an amount I’ll leave to the economists to sort out.”

Thank you.

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