Fact checkers, please? We need a fact checker.

During my lunch break where I get to mooch the Providence Journal off a local restaurant, I came across an op-ed piece which validates my refusal to pay money for this rag: The rich are soaked -- How progressive should our taxes be?

I thought it might be educational, but I stopped reading after I came to this paragraph:

Taxpayers with incomes of $27,000 or less, who make up 40 percent of all taxpayers, do not end up paying any income tax; they receive checks back from the government, in the form of the earned-income tax credit, that exceed their income tax. There appears to be a natural incentive for people who pay no income tax to seek larger checks from the government by voting for candidates who seek to increase their earned-income tax credits and other benefits from the government. Who will pay the increased cost? Other taxpayers. Who can most easily afford to have their taxes increased? Higher-income taxpayers.

Lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie. Lies.

Being a frequent visitor to the $27,000 a year or less income category, the last time I checked, I pay a lot in federal income taxes. I remember one year fondly when I made just a bit above $27,000 and I was bumped up to the 28% tax bracket, and boy did I get wollaped with taxes that year. The other years I have earned my lower middle class wage to pay for my single, childless self, I have paid thousands in federal income tax. This year alone at my new job, which I have been working since the beginning of September, I have shelled out $326.21 for federal income tax. That's in less then 2 months time, mind you; I know this because my latest paycheck stub happens to be in my pocket. I've worked two other jobs this year, employed for a total of 9 months, so I've paid at least $1000 to the federal income tax coffers this year.

When I haven't owed the government money, my largest tax rebate in the past few years has been around $500.

So, uhm, where again do wage earners of $27,000 a year or less not have to pay federal income tax? Where have the thousands of dollars I've paid to the government gone if I'm suddenly not chipping in for taxes? Where's my earned-income tax credit? The author might be correct regarding married couples with children who earn as much as I do, but he does not specifiy them, he just paints all workers who makes $27,000 a year or less with the same broad brush.

I had to look this paragraph over a couple times just to make sure I read it correctly. How could the Projo print such a bald-faced lie?

As if it couldn't get worse, but in the latter half of the paragraph the author accuses low wage earners like myself of attempting to get the rich to pay us more money, like we're some kind of money sucking parasites who wish to bilk anyone who makes more then us. What gall!

You get the jist of the op-ed piece from that paragraph. I didn't feel the need to continue reading it so I could get bashed and lied about, so I stopped. Then I wondered if this article would mention the flat tax anywhere, and sure enough, the idea that died with Steve Forbes' presidential campaigns was mentioned near the end of the piece. So on top of lying, the author continues to damage his credibility by bringing up a tax plan to favor the rich which was even unpopular with Republicans back in 1996. What will he say for an encore?: "As a money-grubbing investment manager, I admit to liking the Bush tax cut..."

Well, at least he's honest once.