Posted on 03/23/2013 7:51:21 AM PDT by BarnacleCenturion
Sen. Rand Paul formally rolled out his 2014 budget blueprint on Friday, offering a combination of tax and spending proposals that he said would balance the federal budget in five years without raising taxes.
The freshman Kentucky Republican’s plan reshapes entitlement programs, abolishes four federal agencies and overhauls the federal tax code by establishing a 17-percent flat tax and eliminating taxes on capital gains, dividends and savings.
(Excerpt) Read more at p.washingtontimes.com ...
Yeah, I don't know about that. This would make the states the highest taxing authority and allow states to choose which federal programs they wished to participate in.
Many would opt simply for defense.
A Flat Tax never stays flat.
In the history of the United States there have been 4 flat taxes beginning in 1861. Prior to that there was serious talk but never any legislation passed on it. Each of the flat taxes were amended to become graduated. Like cancer a flat tax metastacizes to what we have today.
Taking what we have today and stuffing back into a flat tax is very sloppy surgery allowing the disease to reappear later.
A Flat tax without apportionment can only exist under the 16th Amendment.
The 16th Amendment is a license to tax at will, to allow Congress to play with tax codes to satisfy their vested and special interests.
There have been 5 major tax reforms since the 16th Amendment was passed in 1913. Each such reform sought to make the tax code simpler and ‘flatter’. Each time the reform unraveled and failed.
Since the last major tax reform in 1986 there have been more than 20,000 amendments to the tax code. There is an entire industry engaged in rewriting and amending the tax code. The 16th is their business license to do this.
Any Flat Tax is a failure waiting to happen.
The solution is the FairTax, a consumption tax that starts only after everyone has spent the equivalent of essentials for living.
More here:
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=FAQs
Those are excellent proposals -- especially the Departments of Education Indoctrination , Housing and Urban Development Drugs, Disruption and Crime, and Commerce Regulation, Confiscation and Fascism, not even to mention the Transportation Security Authority Sexual Abuse and Humiliation Police.
But I had wanted to see Sarah Palin as Secretary of Energy in the next non-Democrap administration... Oh, well, a little sacrifice would be worth it to get rid of the rest!
It sure beats what we have now, which took 80 years to create.
I know, right? The dad creates a physical loathing in me. Whenever I see his face I hit the remote. There's only two other people I do that to, and their last names both begin with "O".
(And I don't mean O'Reilly.)
So, when the DOE gets wrapped up into the Interior Dept, make her the Secretary of that. She’s got experience with natural resources, hunting, fishing, parks, all sorts of that outdoorsy stuff.
“It sure beats what we have now, which took 80 years to create.”
Spending exploded under Bush II and has accelerated under Zero.
We don’t have 10 years left. We need immediate change, or it will be too late.
Never a Ronpaul supporter, by a country mile, but Daddy Ron wasn’t half as nutty as many of his Paulnutz folks, which PO’d a whole lot of us.
Ron did have a few great ideas, and a great many more off the wall ideas.
Hoping Rand will stay on the course he is now on.
Just more games. If anyone wanted to balance the budget then they would do it in one year.
The simple fact of the matter is that we are no longer even close to being able to balance the budget without major cutting in the Entitlement categories(we are in fact increasing that at a major clip). It is mathematically impossible to do otherwise. And when interest rates go back up then we are really screwed. If our debt cost us 10% interest then I believe that All of GDP would go to paying the interest on the debt. Leaving no money left to spend on anything.
Therefore any budget that intends to push this out 5 years, therefore putting us another 7 or 8 trillion in debt(or more)- is a just another scam. Because the problem is a whole lot worse at that point.
And then we are well aware that congress does not honor budgets anyways. They just keep voting on more spending regardless of any budget. Including another major banker bailout or so called “Stimulus” or what ever suits their fancy. Food stamps, Obama care...
This is just Rand Paul’s version of the same old trick being played on the masses. Anyone who falls for it is a gullible fool.
“Mr. Paul’s plan abolishes the Departments of Energy, Education, Housing and Urban Development and Commerce, and privatizes the Transportation Security Authority.”
I too will vote for Mr. Paul - There may be light at the end of this long dark night
The real spending explosion occurred after the 'rats took Congress in '06.
“The real spending explosion occurred after the ‘rats took Congress in ‘06.”
And bush II went along with all the spending, not vetoing it, funding two wars, expanding the earned income tax credit, expanding the drug benefit, etc. Republicans went along too. It was the ruin if the republican brand promise...
And let’s not forget it was this series of actions that led to the loss.
That's a great idea! :->
Mustn't shoot without aiming. Did it occur to you that God may be using this to sort the sheep from the goats?
“Mustn’t shoot without aiming.”
Are you kidding? This is triage. We spent $1 trillion more than we took in last year - again.
Freeze all expenditures. Stop automatic increases. Cut 1% from every department immediately - across the board.
Give me 12 randomly chosen Amish people and 60 days and the power and we’ll get it done.
“Did it occur to you that God may be using this to sort the sheep from the goats?”
Sure. Did it occur to you that we still have responsibility to be act with wisdom, regardless of what He does?
E.G., even in "Sequestration," the Feds are spending more money than last time. A slow-down in the rate of the increase of a budget is called a "cut."
It is generally conceded (IIRC) that an efficient government ought to reasonably consume about 15-16% of a nation's GNP. Soooo .... WTF is wrong with trimming the government to fit that number? There are indeed whole departments that we could well do without. In fact, we prospered through 2 centuries without them!
The last time we had a budget, it consumed well over 20% of GNP, and we're on track for 30% ... like Greece.
*But unlike Joe Biden, I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express. BTW, most elected reps are (failed) small town lawyers who know less about economics than even I! The Mombasa Kid is, among other areas in which he appears to have no basic knowledge, economically illiterate. He also was a lawyer, but unlike most Congress Critter lawyers, he was asked off the Bar in Illinois ... permanently!
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