If you have not heard, the Biden Administration is attempting to enact a reporting policy of any transaction of $600 or more through a bank to the IRS. That is the Internal Revenue Service for those not familiar with the acronym. Now, some people I ran this by replied with “if you are not doing anything illegal, what do you care?” Of course, that never crossed my mind since I am not doing anything illegal. However, what did cross my mind is how my already extremely low interest rates at my bank and my high fees on checking and debit card transactions are going to get even worse.
This data, as Janet Yellen referred to it, is going to be collected by your bank and they will be handing it over to the IRS. Who is Janet Yellen, you may ask? Well, she is the 75-year-old, multimillionaire, chairwoman of the Federal Reserve. She has a Ph.D. in economics and has been a professor, but she has never owned a business or run one, so she probably has never noticed those fees at her bank. Why she is not enjoying retirement, we can only speculate. I do not have a Ph.D., but I do own a business and took a microeconomics class in college. This experience has taught me that this is another hidden tax on the working poor and my instinct tells me that this is an extreme tyrannical move by the federal government. It took over four months for me to get my income tax refund this year, so I do not think the IRS has the time to analyze this data.
Well, I have a better idea…
Let’s start requiring all politicians to report all earnings and even job offers for all family members for the entirety of their life. Politicians do have stringent reporting requirements for their earnings, but what’s not so stringent and even non-existent are the earnings of their family members. Their children, spouses, ex-spouses, siblings, parents, grandparents, all the way to their sixth cousins, show us the money. How are so many politicians getting rich while in office or shortly after they leave office?
Let’s be honest, the pay for these positions is not great and, no, they don’t deserve a raise. However, we should know how they are getting rich. It’s no secret that this is happening. A recent politician entered his political office with a net worth of $1.3 million. He left office eight years later and is now estimated to be worth between $50 to $70 million. His salary was only $400,000 for those eight years.
Why are “We the People” letting them divide us with their rhetoric? They always pit us against each other. They divide us by rich, poor, race, sex, religion, and tree huggers versus those that need toilet paper. They work for us, we don’t pay them much, because they do not deserve it, but they clearly have hidden benefits. Why else would one seek re-election? Let us see the money trail! How are they getting rich?
If you agree with this, do not get your hopes up. Just like term limits, the vast majority of “We the People” want this. However, the vast majority of the politicians who, unfortunately, make the laws refuse to govern themselves for an obvious reason: money.
Matt Peters
Farmington, Maine
