Posted on 03/10/2004 3:01:26 PM PST by chance33_98
Op-Ed: Protect Social Security Now With a Federal Retail Sales Tax
3/10/2004 5:51:00 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: National Desk
Contact: Melissa McKay of the Office of Rep. Steve King, 202-225-2246; Genie Hayes of Americans for Fair Taxation, 800-324-7829 ext. 137
WASHINGTON, March 10 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following op-ed was released today by Steve King (R-IA), a co-sponsor of HR 25, the FairTax:
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan recently suggested cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits in order to keep these government programs solvent.
There is a better way to keep Social Security and Medicare solvent, yet still provide the funding for very necessary reform. First, abolish all federal income taxes and the regressive payroll tax, then replace these taxes with the FairTax (HR 25/S 1493), a federal retail sales tax on all new goods and services purchased for personal consumption.
When we shift Social Security funding from a narrow, regressive payroll tax to a broad, progressive sales tax, we are well on our way to resolving the Social Security problem once and for all. One of the biggest problems in fixing Social Security is funding the transition from the mess we have now to whatever the reformed system becomes. With every consumer contributing via the sales tax, rather than a crushing payroll tax on the few, funding that transition is much more palatable.
Who contributes to Social Security under the FairTax? Everyone spending money in America. Teenagers who spend money like water, often without having paid payroll taxes. Tourists visiting our shores. Illegal aliens, who pay few taxes today. The trillion- dollar underground/criminal/drug/porn economy, with participants who really love to flash that cash for expensive retail products. Oh yes, you and I will be contributing through our purchases as well.
How does the FairTax protect those on fixed incomes? In brief, retirees (and anyone else) living at or below the poverty level will receive a rebate that zeros out any sales tax they would otherwise pay. They just have to be residents with a legal Social Security number to qualify. In addition, taxes hidden in the cost of the goods and services are gone. Through these two mechanisms, these segments of American society are honestly and transparently detaxed up to the poverty level. Additionally, the FairTax does not tax used goods, so there is yet another way for retirees to control the amount of sales tax they pay well above the poverty level.
Can we pass the FairTax soon enough to fulfill our commitment to seniors? Do we, the people, the grassroots, make the laws in this country? Women marched in the streets and got the right to vote. Prohibitionists marched in the streets to pass it; Americans voted with their elbows 13 years later to repeal it. Civil rights was won in buses and at lunch counters, and then passed in Congress. Oppressed East Germans took down the Berlin wall brick by brick; they took out communism slab by slab. Need I remind you your congressman's and senators' offices are only a phone call away? Yes, we can pass the FairTax now. But only if you call your congressman's and senators' offices now, and often demanding specifically that they co-sponsor and work to pass the FairTax.
------
Steve King represents Iowa's 5th district and is a co-sponsor of HR 25, the FairTax. For more information on Congressman King, go to http://www.house.gov/steveking. For more information on the FairTax go to http://www.fairtax.org or call 1-800-FAIRTAX.
No, it will be passed (assuming it is passed someday) as an additional tax. An idea whose time has come.
I don't disagree with the substance of your point (about illegals), but as for the first group of people - people who "paid into" Social Security - they should have realized, and should realize, that what they were paying "into" was a pyramid scheme. The fact that they were paying into it all their lives just means that they were sending part of their income to strangers (senior-citizen strangers) all their lives. It was not a savings account or pension of any kind and they have no valid, legal moral or otherwise, claim to receive payments from yet other strangers.
No Damn Way. To not abolish the other taxes is to simply INCREASE Taxes, NOTHING MORE
Wrong. Why don't you read the bill? fairtax.org
OK, so it will be passed as written in this bill, amended in no way, and this is the bill that will be passed, and all taxes, from workers comp to social security to the phone tax will vanish instantly, and if it fails no other bill will ever be presented.
Sheesh, why don't you read my post, I predicted how the NRST will be passed, assuming that it is passed at all. I didn't comment on the bill at all. And the question I replied to was asking if all other taxes would vanish with it's passage. You really think that it will ever pass in a manner that just goes "POOF" and all other Federal taxes are now repealed? Get real. Neither Republicans or Democrats are willing to give up the control that those taxes allow, and it will take a significant amount of time to reestablish that control before the taxes could be repealed if they ever are (they won't want to give up the revenue either).
That's the whole point, isn't it? Socialism makes everybody equal - equally poor and equally stupid.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.