With an election just around the corner, and campaigns starting to gear up, the vote buying is already starting to take off. CNN reports that the Senate overwhelmingly passed a welfare bill that would give low income earners a refundable credit for $400 worth of taxes that they never paid to begin with. This is yet another step toward welfare entitlement, and serves to shift the burden of social security and medicare away from low income earners to the middle class and high income earners.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, who insisted on capping the tax cut at the arbitrary number of $350 Billion, discarded her principles to push through another $10 Billion in tax cuts and outright welfare gifts. When challenged by the fact that people who were not eligible to receive the child tax credit were not eligible because they had no income tax liability, Ms. Snowe said, "They do pay taxes. They pay payroll taxes that are an enormous burden."

While I agree that the medicare and social security payroll taxes are a huge burden to us all, I don't see what it has to do with income taxes. By that school of thought, you could cut people $400 checks for almost anything. Most poor folks still pay sales tax just like the rest of us, so I guess we need send out another $400 check. Do you pay car taxes? If so, here's another $400 check from Olympia Snow. What about property taxes? Here's another $400. Don't worry, the "rich" folks will pay for it. After all, they get all their money by stealing it any way.