Posted on 06/20/2018 10:29:45 AM PDT by Thalean
Paris. The year is 1788. The air is heavy with the scent of impending revolution. Some praise the king in hushed whispers, others shout “Liberté! Egalité! Fraternité!” in the streets. Either way, the time for talk is over. How did it get to this point?
The hopeful specter of radical liberalism played its part, as the father of modern conservatism Edmund Burke observes in his masterpiece Reflections on the Revolution in France. But most men aren’t dreamers. Most live parochial lives and think parochial thoughts—there’s no time to dream when you’re working to put bread on the table.
For the average Parisian, the revolution was about bread: why should they starve while the king eats his fill? Necessarily tied to this was a broader question: why should Parisians pay exorbitant taxes so that the king can live like, well, a king? This is a good question, one which the French answered (regrettably) with blood.
As bad as the Parisian tax regime was, at least everyone knew they were getting taxed. Nowadays, many of our biggest taxes are hidden, disguised as “user fees” or “mandatory contributions.” Think Obamacare or Social Security contributions. Likewise, at least money collected in Paris tended to stay in France, employing French harlots and French maestros. It could have been worse.
Imagine how mad the French would have been if their taxes flowed instead into the Russian Czar’s Winter Palace, employing Russian harlots and Russian maestros. In the end, paying domestic taxes is always preferable than paying tribute to a foreign land.
Redistribution is bad, elimination is worse.
Therein lies one of illegal immigration’s biggest, yet routinely ignored, problems: illegal aliens hop the border, work (often without paying taxes), and send a large chunk of their earnings back home via remittances. Basically, remittances are a hidden tax...
(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...
Perhaps not related to the article, but attacking and stopping illegals from sending money back to Mexico will go a long way to “solving” the current crisis.
Just 20% fee would build border wall.
Yes and easy as 1-2-3 to fix. Ready here we go put a $5 fee on any money order leaving the USA for any other nation. Simple easy something Big Govt hates simple...
Yes, a 20% tax on all remittances to countries south of US would pay for the wall in no time.
A 100% tax would severely dampen their enthusiasm for breaking into our country.
My BANK, as of 3 months ago, now charges $5 for a money order and $8 for a cashier's check that only goes 2 miles away to my insurance company.
Stop these transfers even temporarily and Mexico will offer to build us a wall. This is their biggest source of income having surpassed even oil and gas sales.
Five dollars?
Let's be really bold! Make it the measly price of a pack of cigarettes.
$10 (or more)
All going to the cost of that wall...
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