No doubt, Caryn Tyson is a smart lady.
Two bachelor’s degrees in engineering and math. A master’s in engineering management. Contracts with NASA. A successful cattle breeding operation with her husband, Tim.
That’s why at Saturday’s candidate forum her remarks about what she views as fair taxation were disingenuous.
“People shouldn’t get more from the federal government than they are willing to put in. I never get a refund on my taxes.”
Only people who make enough money say things like that. That’s tea party talk for let them eat cake.
TYSON, who is running for Senate District No. 12, was referring to the barely saved earned income tax credit that Kansas gives low-income workers. Gov. Sam Brownback and other ultra-conservatives such as Tyson favored scrapping it, saying the credit was too much of a burden on the state. In the end, it was kept, though other valuable benefits were dumped.
The average refund for the earned income benefit is $360. It is based on 18 percent of what the federal government allows.
Statewide, 14.11 percent of Kansans qualified for the credit; in Allen County, 18.23 percent of our population falls into the low-income category.
In this most recent legislative session, Tyson voted against continuing the credit. She’s also against those whose refunds exceed what they pay in taxes to continue receiving the balance in cash.
This is the “refund” Tyson is complaining about. Of course, the only way you qualify for such a bonus is that you don’t make enough money to owe more in taxes.
That’s important information Tyson so cleverly omits, acting as if we’re giving wage-earners some perk for being paid so poorly — those moochers.
RONALD REAGAN hailed the tax credit, begun in 1975, as “the best anti-poverty, the best pro-family, the best job-creation measure to come out of Congress.”
Reagan knew that people value themselves more when they are gainfully employed — even if the pay is minimal.
The earned income tax credit allows people to remain employed in low-paying jobs, knowing they can recoup some of their earnings that otherwise would have gone to taxes.
Typically, they use this small windfall in purchasing basic needs such as new tires, medications, and needed improvements to their homes or new shoes for their children. The majority of this money is spent in the local economy.
Low-wage earners in Kansas are in need of the EITC even more now that their tax rates have been raised. Kansas’s poor are the only income group to see their taxes increase because of this year’s legislative action, averaging $148 more.
